There was a land hunger is Massachusetts Bay Colony, almost from the beginning. As early as 1634, the Newtown (Cambridge) folk were seeking permission to remove to Connecticut because of a want of accommodation for their cattle as well as a deep-rooted feeling among them that it was a fundamental error, that towns were set off so near to each other. A year later, rumblings were heard of an impending Indian war; it was all too apparent that the coastal settlements were utterly vulnerable to an attack from the wild interior. Accordingly, in September of 1635, the General Court issued orders for the establishment of two inland towns, which could relieve the population pressures within the existing settlements along the Bay, as well as serve as a buffer zone between the Indians and the main colony. The first of these towns was Concord; the second was Dedham.
Predominantly yeomen and middle-class people from Suffolk, Norfolk, and Essex, the Dedham pioneers found themselves in possession of something in excess of two hundred square miles of virgin wilderness, complete with lakes, hills, forests, meadows, Indians, and a seemingly endless supply of rocks and wolves. Curiously, the settlers initially contented themselves with taming only the smallest portion of their holdings; expansion was a process, which came only with time, ultimately resulting in the separation of Medfield (1651), Wrentham (1673), Needham (1711), Walpole (1724), Dover (1784), Norwood (1872), and Westwood (1897). The Reverend John Eliot and his praying Indians squatted on Dedham land in what is now Natick. In 1659, after a protracted litigation, the Indians were awarded title to those 2,000 acres, and Dedham, in compensation, was granted 8,000 acres at Pocumtuck (Deerfield).
The fourteenth church of Massachusetts Bay Colony was gathered in Dedham
in 1638, selecting John Allin as its pastor and John Hunting as Ruling
Elder. The church records show no instances of dissension, Quaker or Baptist
expulsions, or witchcraft persecutions. On the other hand, the state of
peace which existed in town and church should not be surprising in the
light of the requirements stipulated by the Town Covenant, signed by all
those admitted as settlers:
…we shall by al means labor to keep off from us all such as
are contrary minded, and accept unto us all such as may be probably be
of one heart.
Newcomers who seemed to be potentially troublesome, or who posed the
possibility of becoming public charges were warned out and forbidden to
reside within Dedham boundaries. The whole company, who gathered in general
meeting originally, transacted Town business. As the population grew,
this became impracticable:
It has been found by long experience that the general meeting of
so many men…has wasted much time to no small damage & business
is thereby nothing furthered…
Beginning in 1639, selectmen were elected to carry out the administration of town affairs. Dedham was spared the horrors of attack during King Philip’s War in 1675076. Protected to the North by the Charles River, to the South and East by swamp, quagmire, and bog, the main settlement sat upon a broad plateau, which offered a long-range view of all approaches to the settlement. The towns-folk built a garrison, put the town cannon in order, trained their defense forces, and presented such an appearance of preparedness that the Indians presumably did not even dare to attack. Dedham’s offspring in Medfield, Wrentham, and Deerfield were not so fortunate, however. Sensing trouble, the Wrentham folk had abandoned their town and fled back to Dedham; the Indians quickly appeared and burned the empty town. Medfield suffered a full-scale attack, which left seventeen people dead. Yet more of the friends and neighbors of Dedham people were killed or carried off into captivity when Philip’s forces sacked Deerfield.
The Revolution, occurring a full two generations later, made much less of an impact on Dedham. Almost every townsman who was physically fit reported for duty in the Concord/Lexington alarm; a substantial number did garrison duty around Boston; and a few went off on the Ticonderoga Expedition. As the war moved south, however, town involvement rapidly decreased. The town quickly ran through her available manpower pool, and, when issued a quota for the Continental Army, the town had to hire mercenaries from Boston to fill her allotment. The major impact of the Revolution upon the town lay in the sphere of political education and experience. The Pillar of Liberty was the first sign – as early as 1766 – that at least Dr. Nathaniel Ames and other townsmen who sought to commemorate the repeal of the Stamp Act were becoming attuned to a larger scene than merely Dedham itself. In 1774, the Woodward Tavern was the scene of a Suffolk County Convention, called to protect the Coercive Acts and the deteriorating relationship between Britain and the Colony. As the war dragged on, the town, through necessity, developed an increasingly independent governmental process, to provide a system of supply for those commodities the town was obliged to produce for army use, as well as to take up the slack in control left by a primarily military-oriented Provincial Congress. The Reverend Jason Haven, the younger Nathaniel Ames, his brother Fisher, and the Samuel Dexters (father and son) all received their political indoctrinations in Dedham during this period of turmoil and change; it was to their leadership that the town turned in the first generation of American independence.
In 1793, Dedham was selected as the shire town for the new County of Norfolk, and an influx of lawyers, politicians, and people on county business forced the town to abandon its traditional insularity and its habitual distrust of newcomers. The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was run through Dedham in 1803, providing a main route between Boston and Providence. One year later, the Hartford and Dedham Turnpike was chartered, serving as a main road through to Connecticut. New taverns were established in Dedham, to provide for the wants of the traveler, but more particularly to provide way stations and relay points for the new stage lines that the turnpike had suddenly made feasible.
In 1835, the Boston and Providence Railroad built a branch from Dedham to Readville, connecting with the main line from Boston to Providence. This was followed, in 1848, by the Norfolk County Railroad, which ran from Dedham to Walpole. In 1854, the Boston and New York Central ran through town, and on to Blackstone. Dedham, almost involuntarily, became a transportation center, and the existence of quick freight service promoted a burst of industrial development.
Mother Brook, dug through from the Charles River to East Brook in 1637, provided a connection with the Neponset River and a source of waterpower for the town’s all-important corn mill. In subsequent generations, that same waterway provided power to roll copper for American coins, to make paper (in three different mills), to support a brush factory and a wire factory, and to run the first water-driven broad powered loom in the entire world. These industries, combined with other enterprises around the town, gave a tremendous economic impetus to Dedham. By 1845, the town’s manufactories employed over 650 people, and produced such varied goods as cotton, cotton thread, woolens, silk, brooms, furnaces, shovels and hoes, paper, chairs and cabinets, tin ware, sheet iron, vehicles, boots, shoes, saddles and harnesses, cigars, pocket notebooks, and marbled papers.
Gradually, the local industries succumbed to economic pressures; the
last to go were the textile companies of East Dedham, which fell victim
to the economic slump following the First World War. Concurrently, the
town fell away from its traditional associations with agriculture; increased
mobility for local residents, and an increased rate of immigration by
newcomers spelled the inevitable destruction of open, agricultural areas.
The Whiting Farm was the first large subdivision, becoming Oakdale in
1871. The Farrington Farm became Endicott in 1872, and the Turner/Whiting
tract became Ashcroft in 1873. By 1910, the old Bullard lands near Wigwam
Pond had become Fairbanks Park, and the Bingham Farm in Dedham Island
had become Charles River Heights and Charles River Terrace. The old Sprague
Farm became the Manor, and, almost the last to go, parts of the ancient
Smith Farm became Greenlodge Estates.
