Needham History: Cranberries! – Who Knew?

I do love surprises!

The Spencer Fuller house and barns at 167 Charles River Street, built in 1835. Charles Spencer Pierce owned the house when this photo was taken, c. 1950.

Cranberries! – Who Knew?

I love surprises. I especially love when someone comes up with a question or a fact about Needham that I had never heard anything about before. (Polly thinks I know everything, but that is very far from the truth!)

Just before the holidays, I had a note from a lady who lives in Cambridge, asking if she could donate her grandfather’s cranberry rake. We can only accept donations that are related to Needham history, so I asked her where her grandfather lived (assuming elsewhere) – “My grandfather was Charles Spencer Pierce, and he lived in the old Spencer Fuller house on Charles River Street.” I knew of Charles Spencer Pierce; I mentioned him when I wrote about the Boston Post Cane which he received in 1951 at the age of 92. The Pierce family owned large acreage around Charles River Street, and the bridge that runs into Dover is known as Pierce’s Bridge. Charles was also a grandson of Spencer Fuller, which is how he came to own the house, which still stands at 167 Charles River Street.

What I absolutely did not know was that Charles Spencer Pierce – or anybody else, for that matter – farmed cranberries in Needham. Cranberries, as far as I knew, were farmed in large bogs on the south shore and the Cape.

Cranberries have been harvested in Massachusetts for millennia. Native Americans harvested the bogs for thousands of years. English settlers, who were familiar with cranberries from the bogs in southern England, began harvesting them here as well. Intentional cultivation dates to 1816, when Henry Hall of Dennis, MA began growing commercially. The industry rapidly expanded, and by the later 19th century, cranberries had become a major agricultural crop in MA. (This information, and more, can be found at cranberries.org from the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers’ Association).

However, apart from the large acreage cultivated south of us, there were smaller local bogs producing a significant crop right in this area. I had learned several years ago that Sherborn was a major cranberry producing area in the 1800s. The Sherborn Historical Society had a large exhibit on the cranberry harvest in that town, and their former director Betsy Johnson, wrote a history of cranberry harvesting in Sherborn (to which I am indebted for this information). Cranberries were harvested in Sherborn at least as early as 1726, when the will of Eleazer Holbrook mentions his “Cranburry Medow.” Numerous small meadows (around two acres or less) throughout Sherborn and the surrounding towns produced cranberries, and together their output in the early 19th century was double the production of the south shore and generated enough for shipping and commercial sale. By the second half of the 19th century, however, production in Barnstable and Pymouth Counties began to ramp up, and berry growing in this area became more of a small-scale local crop. Growing here was hampered by the weather conditions – early and late frosts could destroy the blossoms or berries; the Cape had a more moderate climate, and frost was less of a risk. Even so, cranberries were grown commercially in this area until about the 1930s.

“Harvesting cranberries on Cape Cod,” postcard circa ?1930s, showing the use of cranberry rakes. Pierce’s rake has a long handle, so the user would not have to kneel in the wet bog. (image Historical Society of Old Yarmouth, via Digital Commonwealth)

I have to assume that cranberrying in Needham was similar. Charles Pierce owned the land along Charles River Street from 1889 until his death in 1952, covering what is now Walker Field and the area around Moseley Avenue. And this is the area in which his granddaughter told me that he harvested. She also remembers seeing cranberries growing there when she was a child. This whole area near the Charles River is low-lying and boggy, suitable for the same kinds of small plots as were prevalent in Sherborn. Presumably there were other growers as well. The complete lack of Needham information about cranberry growing suggests that this was never a significant addition to Needham’s farm economy.

I doubt Pierce ever made much money from his cranberries – if, indeed, he even sold them rather than using them himself. But in the days before social safety nets, people made their livings where they could and used whatever resources they had to hand. It was not unusual to pursue several different “occupations” seasonally or concurrently, if the opportunities and need arose. It is also a reminder that there is always more out there (yay!) and I will always get to enjoy the happy surprises of finding it out.

Gloria Polizzotti Greis is the Executive Director of the Needham History Center & Museum. For more information, please see their website at www.needhamhistory.org.