Excerpt from History of Needham, Massachusetts, 1711-1911: Including West Needham, Now the Town of Wellesley; To Its Separation From Needham in 1881, With Some Reference to Its Affairs to 1911 The Town of Needham is one of the old towns of the Commonwealth that has become a suburb of Boston, and is rapidly increasing in population. It has long been known as a healthy town situated upon a plateau high above the level of the sea, with a light and dry soil, and for more than twenty years it has had a water supply that is recognized as exceptionally fine. In recent years it has been easy of access, by frequent and rapid trains, and Boston can now be reached in less than half an hour. It is a law-abiding community, mainly of the Anglo-Saxon race, and many families from larger places find here congenial people and pleasant homes. Such a town seems worthy of a printed town history, and for many years those most interested in it have awaited the appearance of a man, or woman, who would undertake this work. For thirty years I have been accustomed to read the town records, and as early as 1884 I prepared for the History of Norfolk County an account of the votes passed by the citizens of Needham relating to the War of the American Revolution. Later I contributed numerous articles on local topics to the Dedham Historical Register and to other periodicals. When a young man I wrote a sketch of the town to the beginning of the Revolutionary War, but this I never expected to publish, and did not perfect it, although some subjects were treated with much detail. For years I anticipated that a town history would be written by a native of Needham whose knowledge of the past exceeded mine. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.