A Lithic Journey

A large Normanskill-type stone spear or
knife point from the Late Archaic period
in the collection of the Canton Historical Society. 

As Joe Bagley speaks, his passion for archeology flows. Standing in front of an overflowing room, Bagley looks the part of an archeologist, rugged boots, tough pants, and a boyish smile. The audience hangs on his every word. This is the Friends of the Blue Hills’ 35^th Anniversary Meeting, and the City of Boston Archeologist reveals the amazing history that is beneath our feet. In a word, his talk is about stewardship.

The Blue Hills Reservation is such an amazing place. As someone who has hiked hundreds of miles within its borders, I can never fail to marvel at this historical place in our own backyards. And, this is the perfect time of year to get out and walk on the same trails that man walked on more than 8000 years ago.

The Blue Hills were so named by early European explorers who, while sailing along the coastline, noticed the bluish hue on the slopes when viewed from a distance. The blue comes from the rocks that formed the geology of the hills 600 million years ago. It may be hard to believe but this site was formed as a result of a large volcano that has been worn down over these millions of years to be the site we know today.  And the blue hue of the rock tells a story that extends back almost ten thousand years ago when Native Americans created a bustling community on this land.

City of Boston, Archeologist,
Joseph Bagley conducting field research. 

In his minds eye Bagley, like many of the archeologists who have come before him, can see the camps, the workshops, the quarry sites and the hunting grounds of a great people who were the first stewards of the land along the Neponset Valley. “Many of the trails we walk today are the exact same trails that have been used for thousands of years,” explains Bagley.

Today the trails are used for recreation, but thousands of years ago these were the paths used to commute between quarries to workshops and then onto hunting grounds. The rocks that crunch underfoot tell the story of not only geology of the Blue Hills but also the archeology. It is in the rocks that we start to see why this was the center of industry for early man.

Bagley tells of one “aha” moment. “There was a site that I had read about just south of Granite Links Golf Course, and while still a student with some time on my hands I took an afternoon treat and hiked to look for this area. Based on what I had read, I was not prepared for the scale, I mean you are looking for something and then you discover it is so large you are actually standing in it.”  Bagley says that the personal discovery “was mind blowing.” What he stumbled upon on the western side of the Blue Hill Reservation was the debris of a major prehistoric quarry.

Bagley was off the trail and climbing up the hill, expecting to see rocky outcrops – but instead there were terraces and the back was stone. “I was looking for the rock outcrop, and then I realized there were flakes everywhere. The rock was being dug from the un-weathered rock, which would make for stronger tools. The natives were taking the cobble out of the ground to create the rough shapes leaving behind mounds in the millions of waste products.” At the top of the hill is an old weathered cellar hole of a farmhouse, and the foundation was made up of the byproducts of stone tool making. Essentially the colonial farmer was unknowingly recycling - using waste from thousands of years ago.

What Bagley and other archeologists know is that the Blue Hills Reservation is a treasure worth studying and protecting to understand the tools used by earliest man. While the geology of the Blue Hills was studied as early as 1900, it took almost four decades later for archeologists to delve into the area. In the late 1930’s Harvard’s Peabody Museum began to turn it's attention toward the Blue Hills. Radiocarbon dating was just getting into the science and the archeology team knew that many of the lithic – or stone tool – artifacts were made from stone only found in the Blue Hill range. The Lithic stage was the earliest period of human occupation in the Americas, occurring during the Late Pleistocene period, to a time before 8,000 B.C. The process of flint knapping yields lots of debris. The term knapped is synonymous with "chipped" or "struck.” Throughout the Blue Hills you can find evidence of flaking, pecking, pounding, grinding, drilling, and incising rock in such a way that this area becomes a significant historical resource. 

Allan Lowry 

Canton is a hotbed of early archeological artifacts, and in the collection of the local historical society there are artifacts that include such things such as mortars also known as metates, pestles, grinding slabs, hammerstones, spear points and scrapers. For many people who claim to hunt for arrowheads, they are more likely to find spear points and knives as the bow and arrow was only developed about 1000 years ago. The tools that have been found are much older.  

And we have had local archeologists who have revealed our unique past. Allan Lowry, a much beloved Canton resident found much of what has been discovered beneath some of the most important sites in our town. Allan passed away a number of years ago, but Allan’s wife Elaine recalls how he started. “As a young couple we were raking leaves in the yard and I found a stone that looked like a hammer,” explains Lowry, “ I guess from that point on he was hooked. Each Sunday I would drop him off at a dig site and then I would go to church, he wasn't a church goer.” For Allan Lowry his religion was found deep in the ground and extended back over thousands of years.

This unchanged view across Ponkapoag Pond
is quite close to a Native site used for
perhaps 5000 years an autumn hunting camp. 

Lowry was responsible, in part, for excavating the Green Hill Site, now a protected location and part of the National Register of Historic Places. Highway construction once threatened this place, but today it is now part of the Blue Hills Reservation. The middle and late archaic site is located on the Milton Canton line and encompasses part of the Metropolitan District Commission’s purchase of 78.44 acres of Augustus Hemenway’s estate in 1940.

In 1883 Augustus Hemenway purchased several acres of the site from a family of horse fanciers whose stables then graced the neighborhood. By about 1900 Hemenway had purchased the remainder of the site and upon it situated this "South Farm.” A site report from 1980 writes, “The gentle slopes around the site’s kame hill, which had been used for occasional tillage prior to 1883, reverted back to grazing land. The Hemenway cow pasture was situated just east of the hill. On the site, partridge and quail were hunted.  On the hill itself, virtually treeless until about 40 years ago, strawberries could be picked in season amid scraggly undergrowth, which discouraged all but the most intrepid. Quite possibly the hill has been little disturbed by human activity since prehistoric times. In any case the present mixed pine hardwood cover resembles the hill’s prehistoric appearance.”  In the spring of 1966 more than 200 stone tools were found prior to local highway construction. The site was excavated in two periods, 1966-1972 and then again in 1972-1976.  The conclusion made through the amateur archeology was that this was a site likely used as an autumn campsite, offering easy access to the felsite quarries of the Blue Hills, and provided a manufacturing site for tools.

Bagley knows the importance of the Blue Hills Reservation and his voice wavers with emotion as describes the place as “a mecca of stone production.” Wampatuck Hill, just north of the reservoir, in particular is 353 feet of Rhyolite and largely a source for the raw materials of tool making. Yet another site near Ponkapoag Pond near the golf course yielded evidence of almost 5000 years of use by people of the early and middle late archaic periods. Taken in it’s totality, the Blue Hills Reservation in one fashion or another represents a human timespan starting at the Paleo-Indian Period, through the Archaic, Early and Middle Woodland Periods, and of course the Contact and Colonial Periods. We are talking 16,000 years of man’s use of the natural resources along the Neponset River.

Can we still learn from the Blue Hills? The answer according to Bagley is a definitive “yes.”  During the Middle Woodland Period (1000 - 3000 years ago) – trade routes exploded and goods moved from and between places as far away as Pennsylvania and Coxsackie, New York. We know this, because we have found tools made of stone that only came from these places. And then at 1000 years ago all trade stopped. The tools that are found from this period only come from Lynn or Saugus or the Blue Hills. For Bagley, there will always be questions, and fortunately we have the Blue Hill Reservation protecting the answers. As Bagley puts it, “this place is right, this place is good, our human instincts relate to these sites.” For more than 35 years the Friends of the Blue Hills have protected the paths and trails that have been travelled by ancient man. Next time you hike, take a look down and travel back to an ancient time and place.

A long trip for Hank Williams' coat

From a glass plate negative. The Neponset Mills in Canton.
(Courtesy of the Canton Historical Society)

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sits on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. My wife and I stopped in while driving to Chicago when we needed a halfway point to rest. The hall of fame is a shrine to rock in all its forms — from jazz to punk and all genres in between. We received our tickets and began our tour through the labyrinth of exhibits.

Within two minutes, we found ourselves in front of a case of items that recognized the contributions of Hiram King Williams — “Hank” — the American singer-songwriter who is considered one of the most important country music artists of all time. In the case were his hat, his boots and a coat he wore. The coat caught my eye — hanging on the hook you could plainly see the label, and it read “designed by Monarch — Neponset Emberglo.” Turning to my wife, I explained that no matter how far we travel, Canton is never far away. In true wife fashion, she rolled her eyes and moved on. I lingered on and thought how far that coat had traveled.

The Emberglo coat was crème colored and a heavy wool dyed with a western pattern, and according to the description was made in 1950. Emberglo was a trademark of the Neponset Woolen Mills, located on Walpole Street. The label had the word Neponset neatly stitched. Hank Williams’ coat started in the hands of factory workers from Canton. The coat tells a rich story that reaches beyond Hank Williams and into American history and the age of our industrial revolution.

The mill on Walpole Street is gone, but only recently. One of the most important mills in America, this site was first developed in 1801. When you stand here, you are on the original site of the second cotton factory in the colonies, the first being the 1799 Samuel Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Today, a modern condominium complex, built by local developer John Marini, sits on this historic site.

The establishment of the cotton mill in Canton was due to the enterprise of a 22-year-old James Beaumont, a young man who had come from England to America in the spring of 1800. No stranger to manufacturing, Beaumont was born in Denby, a parish between Huddersfield and Sheffield, two important manufacturing towns in Yorkshire, England. Growing up on estates that produced wool and being part of a rather well-off family, Beaumont’s eye was on America. In 1799, Beaumont received a letter from two friends who had left England and settled in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The letter told of the opportunities that could be prospected in this new country. Beaumont sent a return letter with a draft of a spinning machine, which helped his friends begin their business in Lebanon. Soon thereafter, Beaumont decided he “got a hankering to go there and see what they were about.”

To leave England with secrets of manufacturing was risky, and if caught, Beaumont would face the full wrath of the English government. In order to avoid detection, he bought casks of hardware and cutlery along with bolts of cloth, and at the custom house in Liverpool he explained that he was simply a farmer’s son going to America on a trading trip.

Beaumont sailed to America on a trip that would take 56 days and would forever change textile manufacturing in the fledgling country. Landing in Salem, he visited a few factories, and by the winter of 1800 he had settled in Boston. An English acquaintance by the curious name of “Slimsey” (a nickname for sure) informed Beaumont that there was a fine mill-privilege in Canton, on which its two owners wished to set up a cotton factory, and that they were willing to erect a dam and the mill “if they could find somebody who would put in about $400, to pay for the machinery.”

Beaumont visited Canton, where he was so pleased with the mill-privilege that he agreed to furnish the machinery; his partners, Lemuel Bailey and Abel Fisher, would erect a substantial dam and a building for a factory. The construction of the dam and factory progressed during the year of 1801, and the machines were running by 1802. The first work of the factory was the manufacture of wickyarn for candle-makers. Soon thereafter, the mill began to make yarn for warp and filling for domestic fabrics. The first piece of cloth made was for sheeting. Beaumont said of it: “This, in 1802, was the first piece of cotton cloth ever made in America from mule-yarn, either all or in part produced.” Beaumont was mistaken: Cotton cloth had been made in 1794 in a factory in New York, but Beaumont’s mill was nonetheless producing fine cloth that sold for 50 cents a yard.

James Beaumont's House on Neponset Street
 (now demolished). Circa 1900. (Courtesy of the
Canton Historical Society)

Beaumont did very well in this venture, and by 1823 at age 45, he retired from manufacturing and became a gentleman farmer. For a time he had a small mill in what was known as the British Block, not far from his original factory. His innovations continued, and he produced some of the first satin products in America. In 1808 he had erected the second brick house in Canton, the first being the Endicott House on Washington Street. In this handsome house Beaumont spent time with his family and friends and lived an entire life in his adopted home. Beaumont died in Canton in 1868 at age 90 and is buried alongside his wife, Abigail (Gookin), and his children at the Canton Corner Cemetery.
 
On February 18, 1823, the factory on Walpole Street was sold to Joseph W. Revere for $3,500. Within a year, Revere sold the mill to Darius Blake Holbrook, Charles Parker, and Dexter and William Hill, of Boston, for $120,000. These gentlemen, along with others, organized the Boston & Canton Manufacturing Company. The area quickly built up around the massive stone factory and included boarding houses, a school and even medical facilities. In three years the area prospered, and great growth led to the construction of a dirt road across the Fowl Meadows to support shipments to Boston. Quite literally, Canton burst forward under the growth of the mills along this section of town. Unfortunately, the business failed in 1827 and the mill would be vacant for four years.

On April 22, 1831, the Boston & Canton Manufacturing Company conveyed the mill to the Neponset Company. The new officers were well-known philanthropists and politicians from Boston. The certificate of which was recorded July 22, 1832, showing that the capital stock was $200,000, and that the officers were Harrison Gray Otis, president, Caleb Loring, Samuel Fales, and Robert G. Shaw, directors, and John S. Wright, clerk and treasurer.

Worth noting is the fact that this was the same Harrison Gray Otis, the prominent Boston businessman, lawyer and politician and arguably the most important member of the Federalist Party. Otis’ venture also failed, and by 1837 the site was again abandoned. Over the next 66 years many factories operated on this site, including a bleachery in the early 1880s, and by 1903 it was again making cotton and wool products for caskets and other uses under the name Neponset Woolen Mills.

The Neponset Woolen Mills survived into the mid 1950s, and this is where the Emberglo Jacket comes in. Some of the finest wool was manufactured and dyed in Canton in both the Neponset Mill and at Draper Mills. The trademark Emberglo figured prominently in advertisements and in store displays. Rich thick plaids were used for sportsman’s outerwear. The logo proudly proclaimed that the products were “loomed by Neponset craftsmen” since 1824 and featured the signature mill tower and the Canton Viaduct in the background.

A postcard view of the Neponset Woolen Mills

As the textile industry died in Canton, the site became the home of Emerson & Cuming, where they manufactured flotation devices for oilrigs. The early use of dyes and then the subsequent use and storage of advanced polymers on this property allowed the site to become heavily polluted. Eventually, the Emerson & Cuming site earned the dubious distinction of becoming one of Canton’s five hazardous waste “Superfund” sites.

In 2005 the original historic factory was demolished, and the site was remediated to deal with the chemical pollution. To pay tribute to the thousands of men and women who worked on this site for over 200 years, the Canton Historical Commission asked the developer to salvage some of the original stone and to build a replica of the bell tower. The original tower and bell was likely built during the 1800s, and around the turn of the 20^th century it had been rebuilt. Used to mark the passing of the workday, the bell was likely melted down when the tower became unsafe and was removed around 1930.

The new complex, known as Rive­­r Village on Walpole Street at Neponset, is one of our town’s newest architectural landmarks. The focus is an impressive tower and stone lobby that serve as the grand entrance. But, honestly, what could match the original grandeur of the factory that once stood “stone-faced” on this property. And every time I hear an old Hank Williams song and slip on my wool coat on an autumn afternoon, I will think about Emberglo and the history of the Neponset Woolen Mill.

Our river runs through the meadows

The Neponset River as it winds through
the Fowl Meadows circa 1890. (Courtesy of the Canton Historical Society)

At the edge of my property is a small stream, the Pequit Brook, and its source is the Reservoir Pond past Pequitside Farm. Living on a brook is an amenity that allows for plenty of opportunities to observe wildlife and the marking of seasons. Over time we have come to know the animals that inhabit our small corner of Canton. We have watched muskrats, ancient snapping turtles, the great blue heron, red-tailed hawks, numerous rabbits, fox, and all manner of mallards. The jewelweed and grass is abundant and the meadows are filled with red-winged blackbirds come fall. The winter gives way to woodpeckers and more flocks of waterfowl, even an occasional fisher cat and coyote. So abundant is the wildlife that at times we feel as though we live in a suburban wildlife preserve.

The Pequit Brook winds down through Sherman Street and eventually finds it way to the East Branch of the Neponset River. And the Neponset in turn finds its way to the Massachusetts Bay. Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse wrote: “How he loved this river, how it enchanted him, how grateful he was to it! In his heart he heard the newly awakened voice speak, and it said to him: Love this river, stay by it, learn from it. It seemed to him that whoever understood this river and its secrets, would understand much more, many secret, all secrets.”

So, what secrets does the Neponset River hold for us? To begin with, the name itself is somewhat of a secret. Of course it is an Indian name, and when the famous Algonquin scholar G. Hammond Trumbull was asked, he vainly endeavored to learn the significance of this name. “That word in all its forms of Naponset — Aponset, or Neponset defies analysis.” Many have surmised it means “river that flows through meadows.” This would be a fair description, since it travels through nearly seven miles of beautiful grassy meadows — the Fowl Meadows, in fact. So attractive to the early settlers were these grasses that the seeds were harvested and exported to Europe to produce the same luxurious grasses there.

Overall, the Neponset River travels more than 29 miles, starting at Gillette Stadium and ending near the gas tanks along the Southeast Expressway. The historical significance reaches back more than 10,000 years. Imagine the scene as Paleolithic man camps near the river right here in what would become Canton. Archeologists, both amateur and professional, have recovered over 2,600 Clovis spear points as well as mastodon tusks and caribou bones. The site, called Wamsutta, has been studied for more than 20 years. What were once the shores of a Pleistocene Lake seems to have been an important workshop of sorts where tools were made and wildlife harvested.

The recorded history of the Neponset starts around 1619, when Native Americans would use the river as a route to trade furs, largely muskrat and beaver. The wildlife was amazing. An apt description of what the Neponset River must have been like is found in a quote in a book written by Edward Johnson in 1628, entitled Wonder Working Providence: “The cod-fish, holybut and bass, do sport the rivers in, and alewives with their crowding sholes in every creek do swim.” The alewives in particular caused major legal battles in colonial Massachusetts, and the early records record heated arguments between mill owners who would dam and control the river and the fishermen whose livelihood was constantly in jeopardy as industry advanced. The argument to restore the fish and breach the dams still continues today.

The industrial growth as a result of this power source is nothing short of amazing. The second dam in the new world was constructed by Israel Stoughton, who was given permission to build a grist mill in what was known as Dorchester Plantation in 1634. What came next was a series of “firsts.” In 1640 shipbuilding began at what was known as Gulliver’s Creek (yes, there is a connection to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels). Soon sawmills, a snuff mill, powder mills, tanneries, slitting mills, and fulling mills began to rise near the banks of the Neponset.

Several of the most famous mills in America were started along the Neponset. In 1728, the first paper mill was erected. In 1765, Dr. James Baker founded a chocolate mill in Milton, which would become the world-famous Baker’s Chocolate Company. Closer to home, the Canton River, which fed the east branch of the Neponset, was home to James Beaumont’s Neponset Mills, where arguably the first piece of cotton cloth in America was made in 1802. In 1801, Paul Revere made his home here in Canton and erected his copper rolling mill (another first in the nation) along the tributary branch of the Neponset.

To get the best view of the Neponset River in Canton, take a drive down Dedham Street, and as you pass the old Cumberland Farm Complex take a left onto the property owned by George and Nancy Bates. The Bates still own a small portion, but the largest is now owned by the Trustees of Reservations (TTOR). When you come here you are visiting Signal Hill. This is perhaps an oft-overlooked location from where you can “overlook” the Neponset Valley. The hike is easy and the views are entirely rewarding. The boundary line between Canton and Norwood follows the center of the river.

In 2002, George and Nancy Bates sold the development rights of 135 acres of upland and swamp to the then MDC. Signal Hill is the result of a 111-acre gift given to TTOR in 2005 by the Bates. While it is called Signal Hill because it once held signals to assist in the navigation of planes to the Norwood Airport, it might have been more historically named.

Historically speaking, this area was generally known as Taunt’s Farm. At one time there were two prominent hills here, each about 120 feet high. Turtle Hill (now known as Signal Hill) and Pillion Hill, which was removed for fill used in Boston’s Back Bay. What is left, the single hill, affords an easily accessible view of Boston. The first settlers here were John and Hepsibah Taunt. Likely settled in 1758, this land was rich with nutrients and made the perfect home for this private in the Stoughton Militia. Three generations of Taunts would live on this land until around 1844. Eventually Elisha White would buy the property, and by the 1930s the land would become part of the land acquisition program for the Canton Airport.

Dredging of the Neponset River in Canton, 1913.
 (Photo by I. Chester Horton, courtesy of the Canton Historical Society)

The river we see today is not the same river that was used by the prehistoric or colonial people. In 1911, the legislature was pressed to act by allowing the dredging and straightening of the river. The Fowl Meadows had become “foul.” The stench and disease (most notably malaria) was dreadful. The legislature ordered the river to be repaired of these nuisances. The dredging operation began in 1913 and would widen and deepen the river. The refuse from the muck was merely deposited on the banks, and by 1923 complaints abounded from the landowners whose once fertile fields would now no longer drain properly. The straightening also bypassed the “horseshoe” curve in the river, which abutted Horseshoe Swamp. Even today the boundary line with Norwood follows the old course of the river and Horseshoe Meadow remains in Canton.

Dredging of the Neponset River in Canton, 1913.
(Photo by I. Chester Horton, courtesy of the Canton Historical Society)

In the 1960s the river was once again polluted and described as a “noxious mess.” A canoe trip in August 1966 from Canton was described in the Patriot Ledger as follows: “The moment we set our canoes into the putrid, murky water on Neponset Street we were overwhelmed by the noxious odor caused by the industrial waste dumped into the river by the various firms along its banks. Globs of sludge floated past us in the water.” So polluted was the trip that day, the canoes were forced to turn back — great globs of paper and raw sewage made the trip unbearable. This was a turning point for the Neponset. Once again the legislature took up the reclaiming of the Neponset River. In 1974, a bond bill was filed to begin the process of creating improvements to the damaged waterway.

Construction of the bridge over the
Neponset River to Norwood, April 1915.
(Courtesy of the Canton Historical Society)

At the lead of the conservation efforts was the Neponset Conservation Association. Founded in 1965, their mission continues today as the Neponset River Watershed Association. With over 700 members, hundreds of volunteers and a staff of three full-time and four part-time employees, this is the future of the Neponset River. For over 45 years this group has been responsible for raising the public awareness of our great river. The advocacy continues — just last week the legislature’s Environment Committee held a hearing on the Sustainable Water Resources Act. This act will hopefully set the process by which the Department of Environmental Protection, with the cooperation of the Department of Fish and Game, will set the definition for the amount of water that makes rivers sustainable.

In 2008 a member of the Massachusett-Ponkapoag Tribal Council testified at a public meeting organized to discuss the future of the Neponset River. I leave you with his sage words: “The Neponset people, and there were Neponset people, were forced to leave the Neponset River because those persons who came later decided there was a better use for the Neponset River than our use, which contributed to the well-being of our universe and yours for centuries. Now I’m going to speak for the elders — I’m going to speak for the finned, the furred, the winged, and the ancestors, mine and yours. These are the voices you are not listening to. Put the river back the way it was. Allow the herring to come back and sing their song.”

To visit Signal Hill, take Dedham Street and immediately after crossing I-95 and railroad bridges, take a left on University Road. Proceed through the office park. Parking is on the right just before the last building, also on the right. Free and open year-round, sunrise to sunset. Allow a minimum of one hour.