WellesleyWeston Magazine

WINTER 2012/2013

Launched in 2005, WellesleyWeston Magazine is a quarterly publication tailored to Wellesley and Weston residents and edited to enrich the experience of living in two of Massachusetts' most desirable communities.

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facturer's paper label still attached. The drill is a simple two-piece metal item used to bore into wheels of butter or cheese to ensure that the inside is not rancid. One exciting discovery was a mid-to-late 19th century double desk and two chairs made in Samuel Shattuck's Crescent Street school furniture factory. The factory oper- ated from 1854 through 1917, when it moved to Baldwinville. Desk boxes and seat tops were hauled on a two-horse cart to Boston, where they were finished and packed for shipment all over New England. Also on display will be earthenware exam- ples made at the Hews pottery on Boston Post Road. Hews is the only pottery known to have manufactured redware products for more than a century and a half without interruption. In the 1860s, flowerpots made by hand on a potter's wheel replaced jugs and milk pans as the company's most important product. A skilled worker could make hun- dreds in a day. In 1871, the company moved to a large new factory in North Cambridge. Most of Weston's other small factories also closed in the late 19th century or moved to locations more suited to industry. An excep- tion was the Hook & Hastings Company organ factory at Viles Street near North Avenue, where church and concert hall organs were manufactured from 1889 until the mid-1930s. The society will display pho- tographs, tools, and wooden organ pipes made at this nationally known company. 101 After the Civil War, Weston became a favored location for country estates owned by wealthy Boston bankers, merchants, and manufacturers. They were attracted by the picturesque scenery, convenient location, low popu- lation density, and low tax rates. Some were "gentlemen farmers" who grew their own food and raised livestock. The estate winter 2012/2013 | WellesleyWeston Magazine

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