More information on this image is available at the Easton Historical Society in North Easton, MA
www.flickr.com/photos/historicalimagesofeastonma/albums
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The development by Oliver Ames and Sons Corporation of the factory and village land use in a rather organic manner with a mix work-related classes created an integrated geographic network. The housing on perimeter edge with factories and business affairs in the center creating the village concept in North Easton. Other important concepts were the Furnace Village Cemetery, Furnace Village Grammar School and the Furnace Village Store, which explains Furnace Village and other sections of Easton.
source: Massachusetts Historical Commission
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Description of Unionville and Washington Street below
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Frederick Lothrop Ames II – Ames Airfield
Easton once had three landing areas for aircraft in the days when planes needed\ very little room to takeoff. Only one field, Ames Field, was officially recognized by the Federal Aeronautics Administration. But that field was not the oldest in town. That honor is held by a simple dirt runway at Wheaton Farm. The first plane to land in town stopped at the Wheaton Farm strip in 1910 or 1911. Throughout its history, it was used mainly as a private field. Its only improvement beyond providing a large open space was a windsock that indicated wind direction for an incoming pilot. During World War II, planes from the training squadron at Mansfield Airport used this field to touch down and then, without stopping, take off. This continued from 1942 until 1944 when one of the planes caught its wheels in the power line that went into the house just north of Ward Pond. The pilot was unhurt, but the government was forced to haul the plane away on trucks. After this the field was no longer used for practices. The second field to be used in town was Ames Field in South Easton. This small airport was located on the present grounds of Stonehill College near the junction of Route 138 and Belmont Street. In later years, the field grew to have two runways and a hangar. There was a repair and office building near the hangar. Gas tanks and a tie down area completed the facilities. The field served as a home base for the air shows which performed at the Brockton Fair in 1923 and 1924. The first commercial plane to land in Easton came to Ames Field in 1923 as part of a barnstorming act. The following year the Fair offered a true aerial spectacle. Several planes ‘came from Mitchell Field on Long Island and others came from the airport in East Boston. Stunt flying, parachute jumping, and mock combats all thrilled the crowds at the fair. Probably the most spectacular performance was made by Lieutenant jimmy Doolittle, the man who was later to lead the first bombing attack on Japan. Battling sixty-five mile an hour winds, he flew stunts over both the fairgrounds and Ames Field. His speedy PW8 pursuit plane was clocked at 175 miles an hour. The Mitchell Field squadron at Ames Field drew thousands of people away from the fairgrounds. This group of planes included the SE5, a single seat fighter designed by the British during World War I, and the DH4, a British two seater which had been the best day bomber of the World War. The arrival of the squadron was marred when the squadron commander, Major Hensley, piloted his DH4 into a tree to avoid hitting a crowd of spectators. The Major and his passenger were unhurt, but the plane required a new tire, propeller, and wing panel. The DH4 must have been a marvelous sight; it was almost thirty feet long with a wingspan of forty-two feet. Before one of these planes could be put on a truck and taken to the fairgrounds for display, its wings had to be removed. The DH4’s was used to give important important a taste of flying. The President of the Brockton Fair and the Mayor of Brockton were both thrilled by their flights, but a State Police Lieutenant was less pleased. According to the Brockton Enterprise. He has had a hankering for some time to fly. He still thinks its great stuff but the lieutenant who had just finished his noon-day meal before the trip, had to dine again. He says he’s going to keep his eye peeled for friend pilot when that individual cruises about behind an auto motor and then he’ll get in his licks. The Lieutenant’s nervousness was probably justified because the DH4 doesn’t seem to have been a very safe plane. In fact, a very dangerous accident was narrowly averted when the single engine in a DH4 weakened in mid-air. Despite a strong wind, the pilot was able to make a landing at Ames Field after this nearly total loss of power. The rather frightening record of near disaster coupled with the complaints of the fair management that attendance was hurt by the Ames Field display led Congressman Louis Frothingham to actively support legislation prohibiting government aircraft from participating in public activities. This ended the air displays at Ames Field. From 1925 to 1932 Ames Field was used as a private field for Frederick Lothrop Ames II. Mr. Ames’ company, East Coast Aircraft, was an East Boston based firm that sold Travel Air aircraft. Ames used the Easton field to fly to and from work in East Boston until his death in a plane crash in Randolph on November 6, 1932., From 1936 to 1941, George Malouin managed the air field and operated a flying school and charter service there. On May 19, 1938 Gerald Delay, the field’s transport pilot, flew the first airmail from Easton. This event, part of National Air Mail Week, was witnessed by several hundred people. Delay, with Malouin as a passenger, carried 1800 letters, two parcels and three miniature Ames shovels. Mail on this occasion was brought to Easton from Mansfield and Norton and perhaps Stoughton and Sharon as well. The flight left Easton at 2:35 in the afternoon and arrived in East Boston right on schedule. The return trip reached Easton shortly after 5 o’clock. One of the shovels, addressed to the postmaster’s wife and now returned to town, arrived at the post office at 5:17. The speed of the return of this parcel was so great that postmaster Coughlin at first thought he had forgotten to send it! During World War II the airfield was used as an auxiliary field for training planes based in Mansfield. After the war, the flight school and charter service was resumed under the direction of Charles DelSordo. Several private planes were also based at the field. Passengers on the charter flights included the late Rocky Marciano, the then heavyweight boxing champion, who used the service to fly to fights in New York. The Holy Cross fathers of Stonehill also used the field to fly to Martha’s Vineyard to conduct mass. But, due to tightened FAA regulations and the expansion of Stonehill College, which now owned the property, the airfield was closed in 1955. Ames Field seems to have been a tricky field to use. There were five major mishaps at the field including Major Hensley’s accident in 1924. Frederick Ames and his wife struck some wires near Belmont Street while approaching the field after a nationwide tour. The plane was forced down short of the runway on Belmont Street. In three other cases, planes lost wings after going off the runways. Despite these accidents, there were no fatalities. Shortly after the Second World War, the stringing of telephone wires over the Field’s north runway caused the pilots there to complain that this was extremely dangerous. When the wires were finally strung over their objections, the pilots decided to take action on their own. One of the men maneuvered his plane in such a way that the wires were torn down. They were restrung, and the same thing occurred. The wires were strung a third time, and a third time they were torn down. At this point the people in the area gave up, and telephone service had to wait until after the Field closed. The third field in Easton operated briefly in town after 1926.The field, located on the present site of Intercity Transportation in South Easton, was a simple dirt strip built to attract customers to Pri0r’s Restaurant. Aside from emergency landings such as the forced landing of a Navy plane in the late 1920s, the field was used by barnstormers who flew old biplanes. Two accidents occurred at the strip before it closed in 1930, both caused by old or defective aircraft. No aspect of Easton’s history better illustrates the dependence of a small town on external forces beyond its control than does transportation. The shaky financing of the street railways, the bankruptcies of the railroad, and the slackening of bus service severely affected residents. Even though greatly needed by its citizens when it existed, mass transit in Easton has become virtually a thing of the past. Aside from the cruelties of economics, the decline of local mass transit is attributable to its marvelous replacement, the private automobile. In many respects the automobile has filled the gap left by the demise of small-town mass transportation. And, in terms of the hauling of freight, once the prime reason for the proliferation of branch railroads and, to a lesser extent, of the short-lived\ street railways as well, the trucking industry has almost entirely filled the gap. Both the automobile and the motor truck, as is now realized, do have serious drawbacks. These might in time cause restraint to be placed on their use and make a come-back for mass transportation of people and things possible. The development of the Morse car did not, of course, play an important role in Easton’s history. Nor did the three airfields that have been described. But each was remarkable for its occurrence in a small town and significant as elements in the national development of these modes of transportation.
source; History of Easton, Massachusetts, Vol. II, M. McEntee, ET AL, 1886-1974
source: Easton Historical Society
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320 Washington Street
The area of 320 Washington Street is known as the address of Stonehill College. Founded in 1948, the name is derived from Stone House Hill House the name of Frederick Lothrop Ames’ estate, which is the property Stonehill College now occupies. Ames most likely derived the name from Stone House Hill which is located on the southeastern part of the property. But the history of the property dates well before the ownership by the Ames and Stonehill College. In the early 1700s, Abiah Whitman of Weymouth, MA, was one of the largest property owners of North Purchase (part of which would become Easton.) In 1708, Abiah gave John (1679-1753) and Mary (1683-1753) Daily twelve and a half acres on the Stone-House plain on the Bridgewater line. Added was another six and a quarter acre in the northeast corner of the North Purchase going south of a beaver dam to the North Bridgewater, now Brockton, line. The original right of Mary Whitman was a mile along the brook known as Daily’s Brook and later the Dorchester Meadow Brook, which now is part of Stonehill. John Daily, Jr. added land that is parallel to the brook south of Unionville from David Stone. John Daily built a house on Grove Street, east of the brook. By 1719, he was able to pay his wife’s father for land in the North Purchase on the south end next to the Bridgewater, now Brockton, line. Following the incorporation of the Town in 1725, there were only two liquor licenses available for an innkeeper to sell the product. In 1727, John Daily, Jr. purchased land from Thomas Randall and Thomas Pratt, Jr. By 1732, John Daily was known as John Daily of Easton that was in the part of Taunton that became Easton. In 1749, John Daily, Jr. was one of eight licensed inn holders, as he had an inn on the southern edge of his homestead. Further north, the intersection of the turnpike and the road to Brockton was called Dailey’s Corner at that point of reference in time. He purchased more land from Zechariah Whitman in 1734 and Richard Williams in 1741 with the name of the John Daily of Easton listed as the owner of the parcels. John Daily, Jr. passed away on November 14,1753. Showing on the 1750 map, Ensign John Dailey built a house south of Grove (Belmont) Street and west of Stone House Hill Road. Later, Ensign John Dailey moved almost a mile north of Grove, now Belmont Street sixty or eighty rods (2 to 2.2 tenths of a mile) south of Dailey’s Corner into the woods, not far west of the hill. In the 1780’s, the son of Ensign John Dailey, Lewis Dailey, built a house on the south side of Stone House Hill. He abandoned the house for unknown reasons. Some conjecture at the time suggest the swampy area was a breeding ground for mosquitoes. John’s remains and those of his wife were buried a little west of the brook. The land was dug for supplies of gravel resulting in the move of the remains to Marshall’s Corner at Grove and Stone Hill Street for a pretty location for burial. The streets ran parallel on the easterly side of a brook called Daily Brook in the early 1700s, and later named Dorchester Meadow Brook. Showing on a Plan of Land prepared for Edith C, C, (Ames) Cutler dated September 12, 1935 was a road from the easterly side of the property. The road is where John (1679-1753) and Mary (1683-1753) Daily were on the property in 1708 On the Easton and Brockton line on Belmont Street was the entrance to Woods Road that ran parallel on the easterly side of Ames Pond to Dailies. The 1935 map shows about where the Dailies located two to three hundred feet north-northeast of the pond. On August 23, 1883, John Carr, as the executor of the estate of Nathan Willis in the will dated September 2, 1881, sold Frederick Lothrop Ames’ father, Frederick Lothrop Ames, (1835-1893), a lot of woodland on the east side of the turnpike later known as Washington Street. During the 1880’s, records stated the parcel was known by the name of Chestnut Orchard. The land is located approximately five hundred feet south of Dailey’s Corner, now a cart path, and was the initial purchase of land now known as Stonehill College. The half-mile cart path from the turnpike was lined with rhododendrons imported from England. This road is known as Rhododendron Drive. It was the original entrance to the estate. It was closed to vehicular traffic in the 1980s. In 1905, the site was part of the land purchased by Frederick Lothrop Ames, (1876-1921) for his estate. In a tribute to the great rock formation surrounding the "King Philip’s Caves, also known as — The Caves, – Ames named his mansion, "Stone House Hill House," from which Stonehill College later derived its name. Frederick Lothrop Ames and his wife, Edith Cryder Ames resided in the mansion with their two children, Frederick Lothrop Ames, (1908-1932) and Mary Callender Ames. On January 18, 1930, their daughter, Mary married Howard Gardner Cushing of New York. The field in front of the mansion was originally used for the grazing of the famous Guernsey cattle. This breeding interest began with the first Frederick Lothrop Ames, (1835-1893) who died in 1893. His son Frederick Lothrop continued the practice, and the prices for his cattle were the highest paid for any breed anywhere. In Waterloo, Iowa there is a portrait of him where he is named the Father of the Guernsey breed. Frederick Lothrop Ames, (1876-1921) had his own private landing strip and plane by 1914. A year after his death was the first commercial flight at the airfield. The cows were eventually moved across the street to the Clock Farm which was given to Stonehill College by David Ames. On January 18, 1930, the daughter of Frederick Lothrop and Edith Cryder Ames, Mary Callendar Ames married Howard Gardner Cushing of New York and she was no longer living at the estate. On October 17,1935, the property, was purchased from Frederick Lothrop Ames’ widow, Mrs. Edith C. Cutler by the Congregation of the Holy Cross. The Congregation operated a seminary which was used to train candidates for the priesthood. The transaction consisted of 350 acres of property, mansion, and other buildings. In 1937, the Congregation of the Holy Cross purchased the additional 190 acres located in the southwest part of the original Stone House Hill House estate. The Congregation of Holy Cross is the same order of priests who oversees the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Following the purchase of the property, the Congregation of Our Lady of Holy Cross, they moved their Seminary and Mission Band from their original location in North Dartmouth. During its thirteen years in the mansion, there was little changed in the building by the Congregation. During its first semester, classes at the college were held in the mansion, now known as Donahue Hall, and the old Ames Gym. In 1948, the first enrollment was 134 men with the annual tuition of $420. Shortly after the College opened, students dubbed the main building (mansion) the "Big House." In 1963, the building was officially named Donahue Hall, in honor of Rev. James Wesley Donahue, C.S.C. Donahue was Superior General in 1935 and authorized the purchase of the Ames property. Yet, no matter what it has been called, the building has been the center of the college from the very beginning. Even when most of the classes, save a few seminary classes moved to the new Science Building in February of 1949, much of student life was centered here. The cafeteria and bookstore were in the basement and the library was located on the first floor. In addition to the college’s administrative offices. the seminary and priests’ quarters were still housed in the building. Furthermore, the President’s office was connected to his bedroom. The Ames Flying Field included two runways, a hanger building and an office. During World War II, the Navy used it for training exercises. It was then leased to a private company until it was closed in 1955. Currently, this part of the land is used as the Holy Cross Retreat House. Founded in 1963 by the Congregation it served up to 68 people and various retreats. Additionally, the area around and including the old Ames’ barn is used for physical and spiritual refreshment for the Fathers who served the Stonehill College and Catholic community. A building named after Fr. Basil Moreau, the founder of Holy Cross in 1837 in France, built in 1962 was used by the Congregation as housing for the Holy Cross Brothers until 1980. Moreau Hall served the Congregation as housing for the Holy Cross Brothers candidates. The Town of Easton acquired the building and property in 1981 for use as an elementary school.
source: Easton Historical Society
source; Massachusetts Historical Commission
source: Ancestry
source: History of Easton, William L. Chaffin, 1886
source: Easton’s Neighborhoods, Edmund C. Hands, 1995
source: History of Unionville, Carl B. Holmander, 2014
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Unionville
Unionville, located in the northeast area of Easton, Massachusetts, consists of Main Street on the South and the Easton-Stoughton line on the North, Easton-Brockton line on the East and a few hundred yards west of Washington Street on Elm Street. Back in 1793, the northeast section of Easton was known as a district with a District Eight Schoolhouse between 164 and 166 Washington Street. Students in Stoughton near the town line attended the Unionville School until 1822 when the District built a new schoolhouse north of 120 Washington Street. Unionville got its name from the practice of students from near the line in Stoughton attending with monies from both towns. Over the years, Unionville has been referenced as being thrifty and given a name of the Other Neighborhood. In 1995, historian Edmund C. Hands explained in his book, Easton’s Neighborhoods, Unionville was nicknamed the “Dark Corner” because it lacked the new gaslights found in North Easton Village in the 1880s. The name of the Dickerman Neighborhood was based on a family moving in from Stoughton in the northern end of Unionville expanding their routes by marriage throughout the neighborhood including the name of a road in their name at the corner of the James and Joanna Dickerman House at 91 Washington Street. Square Top Neighborhood was the name given Unionville with the Square Top Church located at 195 Washington Street. Time and events shaped the activity in Unionville. In the 1700s and the early 1800s, the Dorchester Meadow Brook, French/Knapp’s Pond and Stone/Monte’s Pond were the initial business operative part of the District with ice houses, mines, forges and mills. In the late 1800s, and early 1900s, Washington Street becoming the major road which saw increased activity with the William A. Smith’s General Store, Square Top Church, the Washington Street Cemetery and the Easton Grange at the intersection at Elm Street. Later, the center of business activity drifted south from Washington at Elm Street to Dailey’s Corner with the opening of Ladd’s Gas Station, Yankee Hostess, Stonehill College, Hilliards House of Candy, Tastee Freeze and Fernandes Super Market.
source; Massachusetts Historical Commission
source: History of Easton, William L. Chaffin, 1886
source: Easton’s Neighborhoods, Edmund C. Hands, 1995
source: History of Unionville, Carl B. Holmander, 2014
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Washington Street
In June of 1697, an initial layout took place for the Taunton and South Boston Turnpike which ran from the Stoughton town line through Unionville, into South Easton to the Raynham border. Before the survey in 1726, in the 1710’s, in the North Purchases records as the "road that leads from Joseph Crossman’s to Boston." Joseph Crossman lived near what later became known as Dailey’s Corner. In a survey that took place in 1726, the old road began a little west of the present road at the Stoughton line, crossed the new road on the hill by the Dickerman’s property and stayed a little east of the new road past the Washington Street and Timothy Marshall’s house a little way south to take the bend to avoid the swamp south of Timothy’s place. In 1803, the Stoughton Turnpike Association petitioned the state’s General Court for a (Washington Street) road contrary to other suggested paths. In 1805, the General Court sent a Committee to view the proposals for different routes. In 1807, the Committee, as directed by the General Court laid the chosen road (Washington Street). The route, South Boston and Taunton Turnpike, aka, Taunton, and South Boston Turnpike, went from Taunton Green to the so-called Blue Hill Turnpike, which was completed in 1809. Showing on the 1852, 1855 and the 1871 maps, the new turnpike divided the travel between Boston and Taunton with the older road, called Bay Road in the northern end of Easton. In 1898, the Taunton and South Boston Turnpike, which included Stoughton at the time, was named as a state road. Showing the street on the 1895 maps, in 1900, the Easton Street Railway was organized to construct a streetcar line that ran through Unionville. In the Volume 2 of History of the Town of Easton, Margaret McEntee and other historians, wrote on page 52 about the Easton Street Railway, starting in 1903, ran street cars from Stoughton Square through Unionville to Morse’s Corner on tracks in the middle of Washington Street. The line took on a nickname "Joy Line" because it looked like the conductor and driver were having fun because of the low ridership that made them feel like going for a ride. The line did not operate in the winter. The line was taken over by the Bristol and Norfolk Street Railway. The merger was not enough to save the Easton line which ceased operations in 1904. In the 1920’s, the turnpike getting known as Washington Street in Unionville was given the designation by the State of Route 138. It became the first two-lane concrete constructed highway in Easton. In 1947, the State announced plans to take the traffic off Route 138, to be known as Route 24, along with Route 138. In 1958, the relocated Route 138 portion of Route 24 was opened alleviating traffic through Unionville at the time. On a geographical note, Washington Street is the high point line dividing the watersheds of the Queset Brook on the western side and the Dorchester Meadow Brook, running parallel between Washington Street and the Brockton line.
source: History of Unionville, Carl B. Holmander, 2014
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Washington Street
Washington Street is referred to in 1719 in the North Purchase records as the Rhode that leads from Joseph Crossman’s to Boston, Joseph Crossman then living at what is now Thomas Randall’s place, on Main Street near Washington Street, in North Easton village. But that part of the street which ran through South Easton village is alluded to before 1700. The first recorded laying out of any part of it is dated September 30, 1726, when it was laid out from just below the South Easton cemetery to the Green. June 18, 1728, it was laid out from the Stoughton line to Joseph Grossman’s; and March 25, 1737, the survey was continued to South Easton, where the survey of September 1726, began. The old road was quite different from the present and may be traced most of the way at least throughout District No. 8. It began fifteen rods west of the present road at the Stoughton line, crossed the new road diagonally on the hill where the Dickermans live, kept slightly east of the new road until some distance south of Timothy Marshall’s, then crossed the road southwesterly to avoid the swamp, going to the west of it, and then, as may be still clearly seen, passed nearly due south, coming out into the present road just in front of the Nathan Willis place. South of this the divergence was less than above. The extension of Washington Street southward from the Green was made in 1807. The Stoughton Turnpike Association had then been formed, having been petitioned for as early as 1803. There had been a great wrangle on this question of turnpikes. The General Court in 1805 sent out a committee to view the several routes proposed. The town was not in a pleasant mood. It voted that it wanted a turnpike, but not by the Bay road, nor by the Stoughton road (Washington Street), nor by " Gilmore’s rout (so called)." The town was however overruled, and not only was the turnpike by Gilmore’s rout (so called) allowed, but the Stoughton route was also allowed. The Stoughton Turnpike Association was formed, and on petition to the Court of Sessions at Taunton a committee, consisting of the Hon. Stephen Bullock of Rehoboth, Samuel Tobey, Esq., of Berkley, James Williams and James Tisdale of Taunton, and John Pool of Easton, was appointed, and proceeded to lay out a road four rods wide as the law directs. This was done September of 1807. The divergence from the old road has been indicated above, and the survey was most carefully made. Some of the older residents of Easton will be interested in knowing who the then landowners were, in their order from the Stoughton line to the intersection with the Taunton and South Bridgewater Turnpike. They were Joseph Morse, Ebenezer Dickerman, James Dickerman, Joseph Drake, Widow Drake, Elijah Smith, Ephraim Willis, Jonathan Leonard, Ebenezer Randall, Hopestill Randall, Esquire Guild, Dr. Seth Pratt, Esquire Guild, Thomas Willis, Widow Pratt’s improvement to the well of water and Sever Pratt by’ the burying-place Calvin Howard, Abial Mitchell, part on the old road, and Lyman Wheelock ; and on the old road, Barney Randall, Bela Reed, Esquire Guild, Phineas Randall, and Daniel Randall; same course eight rods on the old road to the Green, James Guild, James Willis, Daniel Randall, Edward Howard or Hayward. Israel Alger, Isaac Lothrop, John Lothrop, Asa Howard, Roland Howard, ending at the Boston and Bristol Turnpike. There was no turnpike gate on this road in Easton, but there was one in Stoughton. The part of the old road south of the Methodist meeting-house to its intersection with the turnpike was discontinued in 1809, that south of this place to the Nathan Willis place in 1812, and that from the Stoughton line to the turnpike in 1815.
source: History of Easton, William L. Chaffin, 1886
