The Village of Waban was named for a 17^th century leader of the Massachusett people, who had lived in this area for generations. The image, a real estate advertisement from the 1891 Newton City Directory, depicts Waban in a stereotypical way. This was common at the time, when Native people were romanticized as symbols of nostalgia for the country’s pre-industrial past.*

Followers of Waban were the first local Native people to convert to Christianity at the urging of Puritan evangelist John Eliot. They formed a short-lived Christian village, called Nonantum, in 1646 in what is now Newton Corner. In 1651, colonial authorities moved Waban and his followers away from Nonantum to form the new "Praying Town" of Natick. Visit the online exhibit, "I Heard That Word" to learn more about this period in Newton's Indigenous and colonial history. 

By the time the village of Waban was developed in the 19^th century, European Americans had begun to romanticize Native people. Streets, villages and geographical features in late-19^th-century New England were commonly given Native names. There are other examples in the village of Waban, including these street names: Agawam, Annawan, Metacomet, and Quinobequin.

When the railroad station opened in 1886, resident William Chamberlain Strong put forward the name “Waban” for this stop on the Circuit Line, now the Green MBTA line.

*Historic Newton posts this image for its historical content, not because it condones the advertisement.

William Chamberlain Strong (1823-1913), a businessman and developer, had a lasting impact on shaping what became the village of Waban. As an alderman and president of the Waban Improvement Society, he advocated for gas lines, street repairs, and wooden sidewalks in the neighborhood. He also helped secure the right-of-way for the train that served Waban. After helping to lay out Windsor Road, he sold house lots in the area. Realizing that the growing village would increase demand for retail establishments, he commissioned Bacon & Hill, an architectural firm whose principals lived in Waban, to design Strong’s Block of retail stores at 1641-1649 Beacon Street. The Dutch-style building was completed in 1897, with retail on the first floor and apartments on the upper floors. It is still in use today.

Strong was a successful horticulturalist. After his marriage to Mary Breck, the daughter of seed merchant Joseph Breck, he took over Breck’s nursery on Nonantum Hill. The Strongs set up their home nearby, purchasing the house of Horace Gray, another horticulturalist who had played a leading role in establishing the Boston Public Garden. On Nonantum Hill, Strong also built a greenhouse for his Nonantum Valley Nurseries. The Brighton Allston Historical Society post on Horticulture and Nonantum Hill tells more about this history. The Kenrick family also ran a nursery in the area. Their former home is now the Durant-Kenrick House and Grounds.

When the Strongs moved to the Waban area in 1875, they purchased 93 acres and the historic farmhouse on the corner of what is now Beacon Street and Windsor Road. This was one of the four original farms that met at what is now the village center. The property extended up Moffat Hill. Here Strong built extensive nurseries, with fruit trees on the southern slope. More level ground was devoted to hardy trees, shrubs, roses, and vines.

Strong served as president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and was a knowledgeable authority on raising fruit trees. He wrote several publications on the subject, among them are The Culture of the Grape (1867), and Fruit Culture and the Laying out and Management of a Country Home (1892).

An early form of social welfare, almshouses provided indigent people a place to live and work. Around 1840, the town of Newton set aside over 20 acres on Sherburn Road (later renamed Beacon Street) for a "poor farm."  This became the Waban Almshouse, on the site of the present Angier Elementary School.  At that time, this location was considered a remote rural backwater, distant from any of the emerging commercial activity in other parts of Newton.

While Almshouse residents did farm work and other seasonal labor, there was no coherent program of rehabilitation or training. Conditions were spartan at best. This was typical of the approach at the time for towns to deal with any who were either unemployed or dealing with mental health problems or addictions. Pastors from nearby churches would come to preach.

After the Boston & Albany Circuit Railroad cut through the land in 1883, land prices soared and Waban residents agitated for the almshouse’s removal lest it affect property values. The Mayor agreed, and in 1900, the almshouse was relocated to Winchester Street, in Newton Highlands. Read more about the history of Newton's Almshouses in an article by Michael J. Clarke.

Albert Edgar Angier (1897-1918) was a young resident of Waban who gave his life fighting in France in World War I. Angier Elementary School is named after him. For a list of others who inspired school names in Newton, see this page.

Born to George McNeil Angier and Emma J. Angier in Waban in 1897, Albert and his family lived at 25 Pine Ridge Road. They belonged to the Parish of the Good Shepherd. After attending Roger Wolcott School, Albert entered Newton High School, graduating in 1914 in the Classical Course. He went on to attend Harvard. He enrolled in the R.O.T.C. and was in camp for the summer of 1917.

On January 5, 1918, Albert Angier enlisted as a private in the National Army and was sent to France with the 77th Division at the end of March. He received a commission for Second Lieutenant and led men at the front lines. Angier was promoted to First Lieutenant after rescuing wounded men caught in crossfire. He was then assigned to lead Company M of the 308th Infantry.

On September 14, Angier was wounded at Fismes, France, leading men in battle, dying after asking a sergeant attending to his injuries to attend to other men. He is buried in St. Mihiel American Cemetery. His memorial service was held at the Parish of the Good Shepherd.

Posthumously, Angier was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and in 1920, a Bachelor of Arts “war degree” from Harvard. In 1921, Angier Elementary School in Waban was named and dedicated to his memory.

Another Waban resident who lost his life in the war was David Putman. He was also a graduate of Newton High School and became a pilot, flying above the German lines. For profiles of other Newton residents who gave their lives in World War I, see this record.

Dr. Fanny M. McGee (1874-1949) was Waban’s first branch librarian, a role she filled for nearly 30 years with great dedication, including keeping handwritten records of the rising number of books in circulation each month.

Unusual for a woman at the time, Fanny McGee qualified as a registered physician, graduating with the class of 1897 from Tufts Medical School. Afterwards, she engaged in clinical work at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Roxbury. However, she left the hospital in order to focus on taking care of her father, Chauncy McGee, and her grandmother in their house at 765 Chestnut Street. Although this took her off the track of her potential medical career, she ultimately used her academic qualifications to foster literacy and intellectual growth in the community.

As families started to settle in Waban after the 1886 opening of the rail station, there was an increased demand for books. Starting in 1892, a basket was delivered three times a week from Newton's main library to the grocery store in Waban Hall on Wyman Street. Residents put requests for books in the basket, which went back to the library.

Starting in 1902, books were delivered to a desk in the back of Conant’s store in the Strong Block. In October 1911, a reading room was set up in Mr. Rhode’s drugstore, and Dr. McGee officially became a branch librarian. The next year the circulation was 7,400 books.

There was a surge of interest in public libraries throughout the country in the early 20^th century. In Newton 10 branch libraries opened in this period. Waban opened its own dedicated building in 1930, on land given by the Waban Land Trust. Architects Densmore, LeClear and Robbins designed the Tudor Revival building. Support came from the Waban Improvement Society and the Woman’s Club. Dr. McGee’s continued service and advocacy was essential to the success of this initiative.

[Image: Waban Branch Library]

For the first two decades of the 20th century, Everett William Conant (1843-1928) operated the grocery store in Strong’s Block of businesses near Beacon and Woodward Streets. Conant relocated from Worcester, where he had also been a grocer, seeing the opportunity to serve the growing community in Waban. Conant’s Store housed the local post office and provided a variety of dry goods and daily provisions.

The Conant family lived around the corner from the store on Moffat Road. The 1900 U.S. Census shows their household included two sons and their daughter, a public school teacher. Abbie Conant, Everett’s wife, ran the flower shop with help from Fritz Crele, an immigrant from Switzerland who boarded with the family. Other households nearby at that time included immigrants from Ireland, Sweden, Italy, and Nova Scotia, some of whom were hired to work on Waban farms.

Many well-known architects in the Boston area made their mark in the village of Waban. All of the architects below lived in Waban and also designed buildings that still shape the sense of place in the village:

• Lewis H. Bacon with his partner, Clinton Hill, (Bacon & Hill) designed the Strong Building on Beacon Street, featuring gables extending with a Flemish step pattern. The architect’s rendering appeared in American Architect & Building News (Oct 31, 1896). Bacon also designed the Engine 6 Firehouse [image at right], as well as his own shingle-style residence at 703 Chestnut Street and a Georgian Revival home at 627 Chestnut Street.
• Herbert Langford Warren (1957 -1917) founded the School of Architecture at Harvard University. He lived at 401 Woodward Street in the 1880s and designed several other residences on Woodward Street and on Windsor Road.
• William F. Goodwin was a member of the Waban Christian Union, which funded the construction of the Church of the Good Shepherd in 1896. He donated his skills as architect for this church, which was inspired by the Medieval Revival style. Goodwin also designed his own house at 658 Chestnut Street, near Beacon Street. He and Henry Siter had an architectural practice in Boston.
• Felix A. Burton designed the 1926 extension to the Parish of the Good Shepherd.
• James Henry Ritchie (born in Scotland, 1878) designed the Union Church and other Newton public buildings, including the Police Headquarters and the Newton Court House on Washington Street.
• The firm of Densmore, LeClear & Robbins designed the Waban Library Center in 1929.

Outside of the village center, residential architecture also determines the look and feel of the Village of Waban. Many Waban houses, in styles ranging from Shingle and Colonial Revival to early-20^th century Craftsman, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As property values change and community needs evolve, sometimes familiar structures that were once part of the built landscape are removed or significantly altered. Here are some of the buildings that once defined Waban.

Railroad Station

The original rail station in Waban was one of three stations in Newton designed by architect H.H. Richardson. The others were in Chestnut Hill and at Woodland. The Waban station was demolished in 1958. Additional stations in Newton, including Newton Highlands and Newton Centre, are the work of a successor architectural firm after the death of H. H. Richardson.

St. Philip Neri Church

The Church of St. Philip Neri opened in 1928 near the intersection of Beacon and Chestnut Streets. This brick church with an educational wing served families until it was razed in 2017 to make way for new housing.

Waban Hall

Waban Hall, situated at the corner of Woodward and Wyman Streets, and built in 1890 through the efforts of the Waban Improvement Society, has the distinction of being Waban’s first commercial block. The hall was designed to accommodate several shops on the street level and had a community hall on the upper story. it was here the Waban Improvement Society held its meetings, local children attended public school, and the Waban Christian Union held its first services. A laundry and Moulton’s General Store were the first to rent shops. Although significantly altered, the shingle-style structure remains an important component of Waban’s commercial center.

Resources for Waban History

Clarke, Michael J. (2015). Newton’s Almshouses.

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

Newton Tricentennial Commission. (1988) Newton, Massachusetts: 1688-1988. A Celebration of Three Hundred Years. Newton, MA.

Lopenzina, Drew. (2012) Red ink: Native Americans picking up the pen in the colonial period

Nugent, George R.(2011)  A Waban Childhood.  Edited by Lauren Gibbons Paul. Waban, MA:  Waban Improvement Society Press.

Rowe, Henry K. (1930) Tercentenary History of Newton: 1630-1930. Cambridge, MA: Murray Printing Company

Smith, Samuel Francis. (1880)  History of Newton, Massachusetts: Town and City from its earliest Settlement to the present time, 1630-1880. Boston, MA: American Logotype Co.

Strong, William C. (1892) Fruit Culture and the Laying out and Management of a Country Home.

These community organizations also have more information about the history of the Village of Waban including personal journals and monographs:

Waban Improvement Society

Waban Area Council