By-gone Days3
Part 3. Continue to stroll through Northborough's past and experience a landscape that no longer exists. All of the homes and public buildings depicted here have disappeared. The photos and descriptions have been taken from Images of America: Northborough courtesy of the Northborough Historical Society.
Click on the images for a larger version of the picture.
Hudson Street School. Although the Hudson Street School was fairly large, it contained only four classrooms. In its earlier years, adjacent grades were combined. As emrollment became larger, other expedients grew necessary. In the 1930s, a portable classroom on the grounds accommodated the overflow. Between 1895 and 1950, when the first modern elementary school opened, nearly all Northborough children attended this school. It was razed in 1983 in favor of a housing project for senior citizens.
Solomon Pond Beach. In the years c. 1930, when people no longer had to be rich or eccentric to own an automobile, places such as Solomon Pond became teeming recreational centers, as this postcard indicates. Today, public access to what this postcard euphemistically calls the "beach," is restricted.
Wadsworth House. This Victorian home was owned by Noah and Almira Wadsworth. He was the proprietor of a grocery store, J. Wadsworth & Company, in Page's Block. Dr. Josiah Stanley, Northborough physician for 51 years, lived with the Wadsworths and inherited this home after Wadsworth's death in 1923. Stanley lived there until his death in 1940. The house stood immediately east of Trinity Church; the site is now a parking lot.
Old High School. Religion and education are conjoined in this early-20th-century photograph. A tree-lined walk leads to the First Church, constructed in 1808 to replace the original meetinghouse near the same site. The building to the right served as the town's high school from 1870 to 1924. The church building endured until a few days after Christmas of 1945, when a spectacular fire destroyed it. The present church is a replica. The school building no longer stands.
Chapin Mansion. From 1855 to 1862, Ezra Chapin prospected for gold in California. However, it was the cotton mill he inherited from his father that paid for his mansion pictured here on Hudson Street. On March 26, 1915, some 25 years after being constructed, the mansion was destroyed by a fire accidentally set off by carpenters doing renovations.
Railroad Station. The railroad came to Northborough in 1853. By the time photography became widespread, trains were such common sights that they were infrequent subjects.
Ball Tavern. Until it burned in 1899, this building occupied the West Main Street site of the present St. Rose of Lima's Church. Dr. Stephen Ball acquired it in 1765. His son Jonas Ball made it into a tavern featuring a commodious dining room and a ballroom. Stagecoaches on their way to Worcester stopped here for a change of horses. The establishment was later known as the Elm Tree Inn (see below.)
Elm Tree Inn. The Elm Tree Inn was formerly the Ball Tavern and Ed Blake's Tavern. The advertisement on the left lists the proprietor as W.T. Haskins, and the telephone number was Northboro 4, and states that "The Inn is delightfully situated on an elevation, well back from the street, on the State Road from Boston to Worcester... Easily accessible by train, electric, automobile or carriage."
More photos of Bygone Northborough... 1 2