The City of Newton is on the traditional homeland of the Massachusett people who occupied this area long before the arrival of the first European settlers in the 17th century.

Up until the second half of the 19th century, a sparsely settled farming community was located in the area we now know as Newton Highlands. As late as 1870, fewer than 20 families resided here. Then the village developed rapidly over the next two decades. The name “Newton Highlands” was chosen at a meeting of village residents in 1873.

Lincoln Street was laid out in 1865, Hartford Street in 1871, and Erie Street in 1876. Estates were broken up, lots were surveyed and sold, and new houses constructed. Once improved commuter service was available, a broad cross-section of working, middle and upper class families were attracted to live in Newton Highlands.

Within a few blocks of the village center, you can still see a range of residential architectural styles representative of the late 19th century, including Italianate, Mansard, Stick Style and Queen Anne designs.

In addition to the original Hyde School (1895) and Annex (1908), the village center of Newton Highlands is defined by several other distinctive buildings. The Stevens Building was opened in 1888 on the site of a small wood frame building housing a grocery and livery stable. A large brick multi-story commercial structure, the Stevens Block holds a prominent position on Lincoln Street. Designed by architect Herbert C. Moseley in the Romanesque style, it is highly recognizable to shoppers in Newton Highlands. While some features have been altered, it retains the distinctive guilloche and floral motif in the center gable, made of terra cotta.

The Newton Highlands Congregationalists originally gathered in a simple wooden meeting house, dating to about 1872. The current granite and stone Gothic-style edifice was designed by George F. Newton and dedicated in September 1906. The Episcopal Parish of St. Paul church, built in 1883, was moved to its present site at 1135 Walnut Street in 1902.

Children from Newton Highlands first attended school in a simple wooden building of four rooms, but this temporary space was soon inadequate.

Plans began in the late 1880s for construction of a substantial schoolhouse to accommodate the growing numbers of children. Architects Henry Hartwell & William Richardson were commissioned to design the new school. They were inspired by the work of renowned architect Henry Hobson Richardson, recently deceased, who had established a wide reputation for designing substantial public buildings in stone and brick with distinctive features which came to be known as “Richardsonian Romanesque”, including the just completed Sever Hall at Harvard.

The school was named in honor of James F. C. Hyde, acknowledging his service to the city and in particular to the community of Newton Highlands. While the physical massing of the new school and the high sloping roof gave a severe impression, it also incorporated rounded archways and staircase windows, and the façade was lightened by geometric patterns laid in buff and red brickwork.

By the time the original Hyde School was dedicated in 1895, there were eight teachers, and 321 students in kindergarten through ninth grade. Rapid growth in the student population was occurring all over Newton. Hyde was the first in a group of 10 new schools built in the decade from 1895 to 1905.

By 1902 the population of the Highlands had increased so rapidly that the School Committee recommended “that a new building be built in the Hyde district at once.” The urgently needed second school building, just to the west of the original school, was designed by John Coolidge of Coolidge & Carson, in brick in a neo-classical symmetric style using with stone trim and ornamentation. This architect was also fulfilling commissions for academic buildings at Harvard and Wellesley College. The second Hyde School building originally housed technical training courses and a library. By the time it opened in 1908, the student body numbered 461, with sixteen teachers.

Seventy years later, with demographic changes underway, the school was on the verge of closing. School numbers in Newton had peaked in the late 1960s. You can see children in the 1976 class photo on the interpretive sign wearing sweatshirts saying “Save Our Hyde”, expressing their loyalty to the school and its community.

Sadly, a fire broke out in the roof of the original Hyde School building during school vacation on April 21, 1981, destroying parts of the roof and the auditorium on the top floor. After renovations it was converted to condominiums. Next door, the 1908 building was converted by the Newton Housing Authority to offer handicap-accessible apartments. Both buildings have successfully evolved to serve the community in new ways.

The Hyde School gymnasium, built in 1967, was transferred to the nonprofit Newton Highlands Development Corporation, which operates it as Newton’s only self-supporting community center.

Rail service to Walnut Street started in 1852, but it was unreliable for commuters and did not immediately lead to any significant development. Most trains running through Newton Highlands did not stop; throughout the 1860s, trains passed through hauling gravel from Needham for the filling of Boston’s Back Bay, an immense project which carried on for over a decade.

James F. C. Hyde championed the introduction of improved rail service to Newton Highlands. With others he purchased the land for right-of-way for laying down the train tracks, and then persuaded the Boston and Albany Railroad to open a Highland branch running out to Riverside.

Henry Hobson Richardson, one of America’s foremost 19^th century architects, was awarded the commission to design a series of six train stations: Chestnut Hill, Newton Centre, Newton Highlands, Eliot, Waban and Woodland.  The Newton Highlands station, completed shortly after Richardson’s death, opened in June, 1887, with landscaping designed by the firm of Frederick L. Olmsted.  The depot, on the National Register of Historic Places, is remarkably intact and one of few that still survives in Newton.

By the end of the 19^th century, the Boston and Albany Railroad provided regular passenger service using steam locomotives on a route called the Circuit Railway. Trains ran from Boston’s South Station, along the current Green Line through Newton Highlands to Riverside, then around the loop in Auburndale, connecting to the present Worcester-Framingham commuter line, and then back to South Station. To provide local transport for residents, in 1892, a trolley opened running along Walnut Street.

In 1906, the railroad tracks were lowered. In 1958, the system changed ownership, and was taken over by the authority later called the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. Newton Highlands became a stop on the Green Line to Riverside.

Sources to read more about the History of Newton Highlands

Historic Newton. (1982).   Newton’s 19^th Century Architecture: Newton Highlands and Waban. Newton, MA: City of Newton Planning Department.

Rowe, Henry K. (1930). Tercentenary History of Newton: 1630-1930. Newton, MA: City of Newton.

Smith, Samuel Francis. (1880). History of Newton, Massachusetts, Town and Country, from its Earliest to the Present Time: 1630-1880. Boston, MA: American Logotype Co.

Sweetser, Moses Foster. (1889). King’s Handbook of Newton, Massachusetts. Boston, MA: Moses King Corporation.