Requests for historical information continue to come to the attention of your Town Historian. While each and every telephone call or request would take up too much space in an annual report, I have listed some of the more interesting ones.
The year started off with a visit from Olaf Westphalen, PG. LSP, the project manager of Watermark Engineering from Lowell. He was doing a 21E survey for the Belmont Hill Tennis Club on Concord Avenue. He was looking for maps showing the location of the former Chenery race track which was on their property, and also any available information on the location of the buildings of the 1952 "cold war" Anti-aircraft artillery Battalion with its four 90mm anti-aircraft artillery guns which was stationed on the adjacent Claflin land.
I was able to provide him with information on both sites from Belmont Historical Society Newsletters which I had written.
A call from an attorney in Worcester who is writing an article on his former law professor, Erwin Griswold, Dean of the Harvard Law School. He was looking for information as to where Dean Griswold lived in Belmont and to verify certain facts I was able to supply him with the information he requested.
Michael Fremin from Somerville, Mass., a M.I.T. student, called looking for information and leads on who he should interview in Belmont for a research paper on an Alewife Project he was doing for a class led by Fred Salvucci. Upon completion, he sent me a 15 page in depth report with his recommendations on traffic calming on Blanchard Road and Concord Avenue, problems with the at grade rail road crossing, public transportation, "park and ride" bike paths and various improvements in the Alewife area.
A telephone call from Beth Hooper Noland from New Mexico calling for information about her grandmother, Edith Florence Sargent, who graduated from Belmont High School in 1888. Beth was coming to her 50th BHS reunion this year was bringing her grandmother's 1880 high school diploma and was looking for any additional information that would be of interest at the reunion.
During her call, I discovered that she was the great, great, grand daughter of James Knox Polk Sargent, who with his identical twin brother George Martin Dallas Sargent were well known in the Boston/Belmont area. They were the youngest of 14 brothers and sisters. James was first a farmer and then "caretaker" of the town hall. George was a farmer in one of the many Belmont farms and his house was 548 Pleasant Street on the corner of Leonard Street. His daughter, Hattie Sargent, was book-keeper and Treasurer of the Hittinger Farm for 52 years. She died in April of 1969 at 96 years of age. In 1940, Sargent Road in the Hittinger Farm area was named for her.
Beth Hooper Nolan then sent me several articles about the Sargent/Hooper families including Early Recollections of Belmont by Hattie J. Sargent all of which I gave to the Historical Society.
A letter from Jill Sinclair from, Paris, France asked for any information on the Fresh Pond Farm which was on Concord Avenue on the banks of Fresh Pond in Cambridge. She is a landscape historian, currently under contract with the MIT Press to produce an illustrated local history on Fresh Pond. It is being developed from an academic thesis titled Shifting Patterns, Shifting Significance, which she completed a couple of years ago, while a graduate student at Harvard's Landscape Institute.
Her book will cover the history of Fresh Pond Farm, located on the north shores of the pond and falling within the town boundaries of Belmont and Cambridge between 1859 and 1880. Despite its importance as the property of iceman Frederic Tudor, she has been unable to locate any images of the farm. All she has found was a brief cryptic note in the files of the Cambridge Historical Commission, reporting that a house from "the Tudor complex - Mansard - moved to Belmont side of Blanchard Street (sic)- demolished 1973."
My research shows that this house, originally owned by the Tudor Ice Company, was moved to 126 Blanchard Road in Belmont in 1893, on land owned by Timothy J. Mannix. It was the Mannix homestead until it and the adjacent land was sold in 1969. The house was torn down in April of 1973. This information, along with several pictures of the house being demolished, was sent to Jill Sinclair in Paris, France.
The above highlights, along with the many phone calls and inquiries on local historical subjects, make this position so interesting. I am honored to serve as your Town Historian.
Respectfully submitted,
Richard B. Betts, Town Historian
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