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John Woodward House

1686 establishments in the Massachusetts Bay ColonyColonial architecture in MassachusettsHouses completed in 1686Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Newton, MassachusettsNewton, Massachusetts Registered Historic Place stubs
John Woodward House, Waban MA
John Woodward House, Waban MA

The John Woodward House is a historic house at 50 Fairlee Road in Newton, Massachusetts. Built sometime before 1686, it is one of the city's oldest surviving buildings. It is a 2+1⁄2-story timber-frame structure, with a large central chimney, and is four bays wide and one deep. Its front entry has sidelight windows that were probably added in the 19th century, and the entry is enclosed in a Colonial Revival portico. The house was for 275 years owned by the family of John Woodward, one of Newton's early settlers.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article John Woodward House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

John Woodward House
Fairlee Road, Newton Waban

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Latitude Longitude
N 42.322638888889 ° E -71.223333333333 °
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Fairlee Road 50
02468 Newton, Waban
Massachusetts, United States
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John Woodward House, Waban MA
John Woodward House, Waban MA
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Staples-Crafts-Wiswall Farm
Staples-Crafts-Wiswall Farm

The Deacon John Staples House (also known as the Staples-Crafts-Wiswall Farm) is a historic house at 1615 Beacon Street in the village of Waban in Newton, Massachusetts. The first house on the site was built in 1688 by Deacon John Staples, a weaver and Newton's first schoolmaster. Staples and his wife had no children of their own, but raised several boys including Moses Craft, a relative of Mrs. Staples. When the Deacon died, Craft inherited the property. Craft rebuilt the house on the original foundation around 1750, constructing a colonial farmhouse two and a half stories high with five windows and two rooms across, and one room wide, with two chimneys running up the back, each serving two rooms. In 1768, he built an addition, adding a kitchen where the original Staples' house kitchen had been. Craft died in 1821 at the age of 85, leaving no will and an estate seriously in debt. As ordered by the judge of probate, the house and surrounding land was sold at auction. Moses' son, Moses Craft II, won with the winning bid of $5.50. In 1824, Moses Craft II sold the property to his cousin William Wiswall. It is believed that Wiswall was responsible for remodeling the house to give it a Federal ornament. David Kinmonth, a Boston merchant, bought the house in 1858 and remodeled it, giving Victorian overtones to its basic Georgian style. The house was remodeled again during the American Civil War. Ownership of the house changed hands many times during the 20th century. It was last sold in 2017 to a non-profit community music school, the Suzuki School of Newton and Suzuki Preschool, and continues to be an icon in the heart of Waban Village. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as the Staples-Craft-Wiswall Farm and in 2015 was designated a City of Newton Local Landmark. Despite the many modifications that it has undergone, the house stands today on the original 1688 stone foundation, which is up to one meter thick in some places.

Newton Upper Falls
Newton Upper Falls

Newton Upper Falls is one of the thirteen villages within the city of Newton in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The area borders Needham, Massachusetts to the southwest, Wellesley, Massachusetts to the west, the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston to the extreme southeast, Newton Highlands to the north and northeast, Waban to the northwest and Oak Hill to the east. The village is served partially by Eliot "T" station, part of the Green Line D branch of the MBTA, with rapid light rail service inbound into downtown Boston and outbound to Riverside. Major roads that serve the village are Route 128, and Route 9 (Boylston Street), which provides a direct, 6 mile commute into downtown Boston. Newton's first mill on the Charles River was built in 1688 in Upper Falls. Over the next 150 years, the water power available at Upper Falls led to the village's steady growth as many more mills were built along that stretch of the river. By 1850 the village had 1300 inhabitants which was 25% of the entire population of Newton. Newton Upper Falls is home to the Hemlock Gorge and Echo Bridge, a large aqueduct turned pedestrian walkway over the Charles River. It is said to be the only village that has retained its original name from when the area was founded in the 17th century. It has over 150 homes on the historic register despite its small area. In 1909, a Roman Catholic church called Mary Immaculate of Lourdes opened in Upper Falls.Sullivan Avenue, an unpaved private road in Newton Upper Falls is the last remaining portion of the ancient highway connecting Boston and Cambridge with Newton and points west in the 17th century (back then it was called Cambridge Village). Also on Sullivan Avenue is a famous pothole; not the kind you avoid with your car, but a geological anomaly where a boulder that was originally pushed down the cliff by a now extinct waterfall got caught and became round. The boulder spun around in its place carving a shaft over thousands of years. Since then half the shaft collapsed and now all that can be seen is half of a cylindrical shaft through the cliff at the corner of Sullivan and Elliot Streets. A 60-acre (24 ha) area, including much of the area between Route 9 and Elliot Street, and east from the Charles River to Cottage Street and Hickory Cliff Road, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.Newton Upper Falls was also the teenage home of comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan, where he graduated from Newton South High School in 1985.