The story
History
17th century
Newton was originally part of "the newe towne", which was settled in 1630 and renamed Cambridge in 1638. The first English settlement of what is now Newton began in 1639. Roxbury minister John Eliot persuaded the Native American people of Nonantum, a sub-tribe of the Massachusett led by a sachem named Waban, to relocate to Natick in 1651, fearing that they would be exploited by colonists. Newton was incorporated as a separate town, known as Cambridge Village, on December 15, 1681, then renamed Newtown in 1691, and finally Newton in 1766. It became a city on January 5, 1874. Newton is known as The Garden City.
In the early 1600s, Watertown had claimed a large area of land on the south side of the Charles River (modern-day Newton). They gave it up to Newtown, except for a strip "two hundred rods long and sixty rods wide" to "protect their fishing privileges".
18th century
In Reflections in Bullough's Pond, Newton historian Diana Muir describes the early industries that developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in a series of mills built to take advantage of the water power available at Newton Upper Falls and Newton Lower Falls. Snuff, chocolate, glue, paper and other products were produced in these small mills but, according to Muir, the water power available in Newton was not sufficient to turn Newton into a manufacturing city, although it was, beginning in 1902, the home of the Stanley Motor Carriage Company, the maker of the Stanley Steamer.
19th century
Nineteenth-century Newton, following the American Civil War, was a patchwork of villages. The northern villages of Auburndale, Newton Corner, Newtonville, and West Newton were the most affluent. In contrast, both Waban and Chestnut Hill were sparsely populated.
Several village-based "improvement societies" were founded by residents between 1878 and 1904. No citywide improvement society was ever founded.
In 1889, Moses King published King's Handbook of Newton, a descriptive guide to all of Newton's significant locations and historic structures along with anecdotes and stories from the locals at the time. The information was collected by its author and close associate of King, Moses Forster Sweetser.
Newton, according to Muir, became one of North America's earliest commuter suburbs. The Boston and Worcester, one of North America's earliest railroads, reached West Newton in 1834. Wealthy Bostonian businessmen took advantage of the new commuting opportunity offered by the railroad, building gracious homes on erstwhile farmland of West Newton hill and on Commonwealth Avenue. Muir points out that these early commuters needed sufficient wealth to employ a groom and keep horses, to drive them from their hilltop homes to the station.
20th century
Further suburbanization came in waves. One wave began with the streetcar lines that made many parts of Newton accessible for commuters in the late nineteenth century. The next wave came in the 1920s when automobiles became affordable to a growing upper middle class. Even then, however, Oak Hill continued to be farmed, mostly market gardening, until the prosperity of the 1950s made all of Newton more densely settled.
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21st century
Two of the hijackers of the September 11 attacks stayed in Newton the night before the attacks. The hijackers of American Airlines Flight 11 spent their last night in Newton's Park Inn, an economy motel across the street from the Chestnut Hill Mall and within walking distance of The Atrium.
Each April on Patriots' Day, the Boston Marathon is run through the city, entering from Wellesley on Route 16 (Washington Street) where runners encounter the first of the four infamous Newton Hills. It then turns right onto Route 30 (Commonwealth Avenue) for the long haul into Boston. There are two more hills before reaching Centre Street, and then the fourth and most noted, Heartbreak Hill, rises shortly after Centre Street. Residents and visitors line the race route along Washington Street and Commonwealth Avenue to cheer on the runners.
Geological history
Geologically Newton is located within the topographic lowland of the Boston Basin of the Appalachian Mountain chain. This lowland is surrounded by a ring of highland drumlins which were left after the last glaciation twelve thousand years ago.
There are several unique outcroppings of rocks around Newton where geologic history revealing of how territory have formed and has changed over the past hundreds millions of years of drift supercontinents and ancient oceans, earthquake activity associated with volcanism and related faulting activity and changing climate. There are mainly three types of bedrock: Roxbury Conglomerate, Cambridge Argillite or Slate, and Brighton Volcanics and the Mattapan Volcanics pre-Cambrian foundation of Dedham Granodiorite. The Boston Border Fault and the Shawmut anticline of Newton formed as the alpine mountains of east-central Massachusetts were created. Unique outcroppings rocks exposure has steadily declined as Newton area has become increasingly developed.
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Newton had a population of 88,923. The median age was 41.7 years. 21.1% of residents were under the age of 18 and 19.5% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 90.9 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 87.7 males age 18 and over.
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
There were 31,704 households in Newton, of which 33.3% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 58.7% were married-couple households, 12.5% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 24.7% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 23.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 33,320 housing units, of which 4.8% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.8% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.1%.
2010 census
As of the census of 2010, there were 85,146 people, 32,648 households, and 20,499 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,643.6 inhabitants per square mile (1,792.9/km2). There were 32,112 housing units at an average density of 1,778.8 per square mile (686.8/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 79.6% White, 11.5% Asian, 2.5% African American, 0.07% Native American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.71% from other races, and 1.46% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 4.1% of the population (0.7% Puerto Rican, 0.6% Mexican, 0.4% Colombian, 0.3% Guatemalan, 0.3% Argentine). (2010 Census Report: Census report Quickfacts.com)
From Wikipedia’s article on Newton, Massachusetts, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4