Needham History: The Snowy Day

Brings out the kid in all of us.

The Snowy Day

The last couple of winters have been fairly snow-free. In 2023 and 2024, we barely saw a foot of snow for the whole season, and the 2.5 feet we had last winter was spread out over four months. So this week’s storm of 20+ inches left us with almost as much snow in one event as we had all of last year. This is still well below the average (49 inches, 1890-2025) – but then, winter’s not over yet!

Needham has seen a lot of snow in its 315 years. Needless to say, the Blizzard of ’78 (27 inches) comes to our minds first, but there was also a major storm in 2015 (2+ feet), the April Fool’s Day storm of 1997 (2 feet), the Great Blizzard of 1888 (more than 4 feet over two days), all the way back to the Big Snow of 1717, a series of four consecutive storms over eleven days (February 27 to March 9) that dropped an accumulated five feet of the white stuff. As a result, we have a fair number of snowy pictures in our historic photo collection (though, sadly, not for 1717!). Most of them are records of huge snowdrifts rather than scenic views – interesting, but not particularly attractive.

I don’t generally go in for snow scenes anyway – I am not a big fan of winter (to say the least). Even so, there are two snowy pictures that I just love (despite the fact that they make me want to curl up next to a warm fire with a hot buttered rum.) Maybe I like them because both pictures have a little more to them than just snow.

The first is a picture of the Greenwood Oak. The Greenwood Oak was a magnificent 250-year-old tree that grew on the property of Town Clerk Charles C. Greenwood (hence the name) on Nehoiden Street near the Central Avenue intersection. Prior to Greenwood, the property was owned by George Revere, a grandson of Paul. The Greenwood Oak, sadly, began to die and had to be taken down in 1908, after several attempts to save it. The History Center has a gavel made from its wood. The photo was taken by George Abell, a photographer who was active in Needham and Wellesley around 1890-1910.

Although the Oak dominates the picture, the picture is not actually of the tree – it is of Nehoiden Street. The view looks south-southwest, away from Central Avenue and toward the Great Plain. Notice that the fields to the right of the picture are open and not built up; under the snow is farmland, and even a frozen pond (also now gone). In the center/background the road curves to the right at the stone wall. To its left, highlighted against the snow, you can just see the dark headstones of the Needham Cemetery. This shifts the image subtly from bucolic to cold and a little bit creepy – the stark net of bare branches reaching out from the foreground, with a glimpse of gravestones behind them.

The second picture is pure fun. It shows Great Plain Avenue after the notable snowstorm of February 1898. The scene looks west, toward Wellesley from near the Garden Street intersection. The 1898 storm was disruptive, dumping up to 24 inches of heavy snow. Gale-force winds carved the snow into deep drifts. The storm drove ships aground, pulled down telegraph lines, and killed several hundred livestock. Temperatures that week fell to less than -10º F.

In Needham, the storm was declared to be the worst in living memory (worse, I guess, than 1888?) “The younger generation have had this week a good example of an old-fashioned snow storm,” wrote the Needham Chronicle. “The oldest inhabitant says we have not had one like it since 1867.” The snow pulled down the town’s telegraph lines and blocked the train and trolley tracks; the town was without communication for two days before the tracks could be cleared and the mail and newspapers came through. Passengers on the late train from Boston got stuck below the Heights Station near where the tracks crossed Webster Street. A few people who lived nearby waded through the snow after dawn to get home, but the rest stayed on the train until late the next day when the track could be cleared. Men carried snow into the train to fill the boilers with water, so the steam could keep the passengers from freezing.

Although the snow caused enough problems in Needham, at least the town did not have to worry about clearing the roads – vehicles switched to sleigh runners in the snow. You can already see some sleigh tracks, left by the small pung heading westward that is just visible over the shoulder of the farthest child. Another sleigh is just entering the picture to the left.

You can also see, fading into the distance, the beautiful alley of elm trees that once lined Great Plain Avenue. Elms were street trees in the best sense – they grew fast, needed little maintenance, had a high crown so they did not obstruct the road, and their arching branches provided shade over the road and sidewalks in the summer. This last was their most valued feature in the pre-air conditioning days, when men never went without a suit and vest, and women wore several layers of petticoats. These trees were planted around 1850, and lasted until they were devastated by the ice storm of November 1921; the remainders were taken down after the Hurricane of 1938.

But despite the severity of the storm and the bitter cold, the guys in the photo are having some fun. Though everyone in this scene stopped what they were doing when the camera showed up, it seems clear that there was a snowball fight going on. We expect this from the kids – but the adults as well? A close look at the two gentlemen to the right shows a certain amount of snow spattering their coats, which would be a lot less suspicious if the man to the left with the inverness cape were not carrying a giant snowball. According to the article in the Needham Chronicle, the man at the far left is photographer Emery Coulter, and the man at the far right is watchmaker Armand Mathey; both men had their shops a few yards away, near the Garden Street intersection. Clearly they are taking a little break from work to indulge in some high spirits. In the retreating pung were Augustus Eaton and his son Harris. This scene, like the one above, was also taken by Needham photographer George Abell.

But my real question is, who is the man on the telegraph pole, and what is he doing up there?

And more about Grownups Throwing Snow – This has absolutely nothing to do with Needham, but is completely delightful anyway! Early French filmmakers, the Lumiere brothers, filmed (or staged?) a snowball fight on the street in Lyon in 1897. The participants are men and women, some casually dressed and some in more formal attire. And woe betide the guy on the bike! The film is about a minute long; it has been restored and colorized, though the original version is available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxODiOUsRX4

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