Needham History: The Needham Leg

Oh, yeah? Well, good riddance!

Barachaiah Mason’s map of Needham was made in 1771, and is the oldest known map of the town. The map shows the town at its greatest extent, including what is now Needham, Wellesley and parts of Natick. The Needham History center has two transcriptions of this map, but the original is held in the MA State Archives.

The Needham Leg

Most of you know that Wellesley was originally a part of Needham. First it was just the western half of the town. In 1778 it got its own meeting house, and became the West Parish. And then in 1881, it split from Needham and formed its own incorporated town.

But I’ll bet fewer of you know that a chunk of Natick was also once part of Needham.

When Needham was granted its separation from Dedham in 1711, the decision of the General Court read “the Lands within the Township of Dedham Lying on the North side of the Charles River, circumscribed and bounded with the Charles River, Watertown Line and Natick Line… be made a distinct and Separate Town by the name of Needham.” The territory defined by that decision is the land that now makes up the towns of Wellesley and Needham. Both defining boundaries had preceded the incorporation of Needham. Watertown had been established in 1630 as part of the Newtowne Grant (Cambridge, Newton, and Watertown), and English settlers came to Natick in the 1650s when Rev. John Eliot established one of his Praying Indian (Christian convert) communities there.

Nevertheless, by 1716 a part of Natick had been annexed to Needham and was called the “Needham End” or the “Needham Leg.” The Leg was a section just north of what is now Natick Center – roughly bounded by Bacon Street to the south, Route 9 to the north, Morse’s Pond to the east and Lake Cochichuate to the west.

The Leg was not good farmland and was not densely settled. In 1724 there were only six houses in the Leg, all of them along the thoroughfare, now known as Bacon Street. The 1750 Livermore map of Natick shows 17 houses in the Needham Leg, still nearly all along Bacon Street. There were few or no houses in the northern half of the territory, which was flooded and swampy (even today the area around Pickerel Pond is unbuilt wetlands).

In 1724, the six Needham Leg householders petitioned the Governor to be annexed back to Natick. They noted that their land was “within the ancient bounds of Natick,” and that they were less than two miles from the parish meeting house compared to the seven miles that they had to travel to the meeting house in Needham. Implicit in this petition was the desire to pay their taxes to the parish in Natick rather than Needham. In reply, the Needham Selectmen noted that the Natick parish was well-supported and that Needham’s parish needed the income more than Natick did. They argued that Needham’s territory was small, its land was poor and hard to farm, that much of it was still owned by Dedham and did not generate tax revenue for Needham. The Governor refused the Natick petition.

The petition was submitted again in 1729, this time to Needham, but with a similar result. And in 1732. And once again in 1743. This would set up a pattern that continued throughout the 18th century. The refusal in 1743 was similar to the earlier refusals – Natick’s parish had enough support, while Needham’s was poor. So the petitioners went again to the General Court, and the Court found in their favor, returning the Needham Leg to Natick.

A detail from the 1750 Livermore Map of Natick showing the Needham Leg. The roads, still in use, are now (1) Bacon Street, (2) North Main Street/Route 27, and (3) Oak Street

This, however, resolved nothing. By 1759, the Natick petitioners were back in court arguing that the Needham selectmen had pretty much ignored the ruling and were assessing taxes and claiming territory that was within Natick; after a brief investigation, the court dismissed their claim. Then in 1761, Needham sued to get the Leg officially returned to Needham. They argued that the Natick householders were lying about their motives – they were not really seeking to be closer to their church, since most of them did not attend in Natick, but that they were trying to weaken the praying Native American parish by moving the meeting house farther away from them. The Court concurred and moved the Leg back to Needham. And so the bickering continued: “Thus for the peace of Natick, rather than for that of Needham, a group of [Natick] men became citizens of the latter town, and were to keep up a continual fight for years. Again and again they forced the calling of a town meeting in order to act on articles that had been repeatedly voted down, and which they had no prospect of carrying.” (Clarke’s History of Needham, 1912.) Further unsuccessful attempts to return the Leg to Natick were made in 1763, 1768 and 1774.

The Natick disputants were apparently not making themselves welcome anywhere. The petition in 1774 was signed by nine Needham Leg householders. It was opposed by a rather snarky petition signed by thirty-six other Natick householders, who noted that the nine were representing only themselves, and did not have the support of the families around them. Moreover, since neither their homes nor the meeting house had changed locations, the situation was no different than it had been when they first chose to live there. It repeated the assertion that the petitioners were not motivated by the location of the church, since most did not attend – some being either Episcopalians or Baptists, and others ministered to by a lay-preacher all the way out in Needham. In conclusion, they wrote that returning the Leg to Natick would incur “the most fatal Consequences to Natick – having heretofore been greatly Afflicted and Perplexed, by those discontented, uneasy & unhappy Neighbours, who were Connected with us from 1745, to June 19, 1761, at which time they were in Mercy to themselves & us, Set back to Needham.” In other words, Good Riddance.

The General Court took up the petition in early 1775, but could not agree on a decision. The matter then languished without consideration for nearly 20 years, though no doubt the intervening Revolutionary War was responsible for part of the delay.

The question again arose is 1793 to little interest, but came roaring back in 1797 – this time with a new dimension. Residents of the Leg sought to be returned to Natick, and Needham was not inclined to offer opposition this time. However, West Needham had begun its efforts to split from Needham and form a separate town, and it wanted the Leg as part of its land. Since the West Needham proposal to split had been rejected, the westerners opposed the Natick annexation of the Leg, arguing that their opinion had not been adequately consulted, that the Leg and East Needham were allied against them, and that the vote in Town Meeting to refuse their proposal had been tainted by fraudulent votes.

Nevertheless, the General Court finally granted Natick’s old petition, and in 1797 the Needham Leg was annexed permanently to Natick. One result, however, was a ramping up of the already long-simmering tensions between East and West Needham. By 1801, West Needham made its first formal attempt to incorporate as a separate town. The lessons of Natick were not lost on them, and they consulted the Natick petition documents in the MA State Archives so frequently, that many were “worn nearly to fragments.” In 1881, after several more attempts, West Needham’s – Wellesley’s – petition finally succeeded as well, reducing Needham by more than half, to the shape we see today.

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