A: All combined 2,630 feet, a little over half a mile

Anagnos Court: Michael Anagnos (2nd director of Perkins and founder of the Perkins kindergarten)

Anagnos: Mrs. Julia Romana Anagnos (wife of Michael Anagnos)

(Riverside Street entrance) Joshiah Stickney (former owner of the estate now occupied by Perkins)

Abraham Building (Howe Press) David Abraham (former industrial arts teacher and designer of the Perkins Brailler)

Signed at the State House March 2, 1979.

Slate is the oldest underlying rock underneath the Boston Basin, and this is called Braintree slate. From rain and streams acting on this slate and the surrounding earth for millions of years, the softer stuff was washed away, leaving the harder rocks exposed. About this time, weird reptiles and dense forests of gigantic tree ferns put in their appearance. Records of these strange plants and animals have been found in the form of "fossils" in the rocks which are found today. Weathering on the rocks, that is, the breaking up by the action of weather, continued for a long time. This broken-up rock, sand, gravel and clay sere all removed and sashed to the sea. After being buried in layers or strata to such a great depth, it all became cemented together to form a new rock. This new rock is called Puddingstone, and can be seen in Franklin Park and areas around it.

Some land areas rose up higher than before, other areas sank. So the small part of the world we live in at Perkins now sank practically to sea level; the Blue Hills rose to their height south of us, and Arlington Heights and Prospect Hill on the north, thus forming the Boston Basin.

Just what happened after the disappearance of the last glacier for some thousands of years, we are not entirely sure, and, until recently, we thought that we could look back only a few centuries to the history of the Indians of the immediate pre-Pilgrim era. Just a month ago (April, 1942) however, came the announcement in the Boston papers that scientists have agreed that people lived along the river near here at least 3,60 years ago, and this they proved when they recently dug up remains of a fish trap or "weir" which was buried 32 feet in the soil in a layer of mud under the foundations of a new office building. There is geological proof that this mud was deposited at least thirty centuries ago. From this we can suppose that these ancestors of the later-day Indians may have hunted and fished near Perkins and had a drink from the springs of fresh water that feed the Perkins pond.

All over America at this period in history there lived bands and tribes of Indians loosely knit together into larger groups called nations. They ranged over large tracts of land for hunting and fishing, and the fact that hundreds of arrowheads have been dug up with-in a few paces of the pond itself indicates that they must have liked to live in this locality, where, in the river, there was salt water fishing for herring, shad, eels, etc., and where the fresh water was available for drinking and cooking. We may even suppose that a little corn was grown in the fertile ground nearby. From the earliest records, it appears that a band of perhaps 300 Indians lived here, all belonging to the "Massachusetts" tribe. Indians who lived in such groups had names which took the place of family names and many of these cognomens are preserved in our street names. Across the river near the Newton line lived the "Nonantums" and we think our own little group called themselves the "Pequossettes" (from which our nearby Pequossette Street is named). We really know nothing about these Indians except that they used simple tools of stone and flint, lived in huts of woven mats or skins, subsisted on corn, herbs, fish, and game. They had no written language, nor were they of high intelligence, but they were a friendly and quiet people.

One early spring day in 1530 the Pequossette Indians near the Perkins pond heard strange sounds down the river and when they went to look, they saw a boatload of strange white people unloading their goods right by the river bank that is just below Mr. Andrews' house (now called Hunt House). This was Roger Clapp and a group of Englishmen looking for a place to settle and built a town. The Indians were friendly and offered the English a freshly caught bass, and in return the English gave the Indians strange edible bread. The white folks stayed around a few days but did not like the location as a settlement site, so they went back down the river and finally settled in what today is called Dorchester. About a month later, another group of English under the leadership of Sir Richard Saltonstall came up the river to look over the land and decided that the waterfall (down by the present Watertown Square Bridge) would provide fine power for a mill and so they stayed here and founded the first town in New England which was not situated on the ocean front.

In twelve years Watertown has prospered, and the building of the mill brought the farmers and traders to this locality. Sir Richard had gone back to England but his sons were still here as leaders in the community. In March, 7642, it was decided to lay out a number of extra farmlands in the town and we can imagine that the present property or part of it was one such farm "granted"* to a settler. Written history does not tell us how the settlers secured the land from the Indians, but from the well-known fact that the whole of New York City was purchased for $12.00, we can assume that our Pequossette Indians did not get rich. We do know that in 1638 there is a record of a settlement with the Indians for the balance of their lands in Watertown for a sum of money now equivalent to about $75.00.

"Note 1,978 -The man who purchased this land was John Oldham who, about 1631, built a house on what is now the Perkins grounds. He was an "Old Planter" and had lived in the New England and New York area for some time before coming to the Plymouth Colony in 7629. In 1632 he was appointed to be in charge of the gun powder supply for Watertown and Medford. While on a trading voyage near Block Island in 1636 he was brutally murdered by Indians.
222Years Ago

In the year, a map was made of Watertown which shows the Perkins pond area and also the interesting fact that the cities of Waltham and Weston were part of Watertown. Watertown itself was made up of about eighty houses, mostly along what is now Main Street, but with three houses down near the mill on Riverside Street. Without doubt, our own grounds were part of the common pasture lands of the town--cows, sheep and horses using the pond for drinking.

This was in 1775 and three days after the battle of Lexington and Watertown had grown to be the residence of men of influence, both the political and the business world. In the past fifty years, the town had grown to quite a large place and its men had been outstanding as champions of freedom of thought and action. So it was natural that in the year we were talking about the Provincial Congress should meet at the "Watertown Meeting house". It would take a lot of space here to outline all the connections of Watertown with Colonial history, but we do know that Washington stopped at the hotel by the bridge a number of times, and that just across the street Paul Revere had a home (just next to a drug store and where Gaston Andrey is in 1978). There were stirring war times in these days just as there are today in 7942, but through it all the people were trying to make a living and were building homes and buying farms. We cannot be sure but we think shortly after the Revolutionary period, a farmer built his home near the present large athletic field and the barns were placed where the infirmary stands today, so that the pond could be in the barnyard to make water available for the cattle, and to make it easy to harvest the ice in the rvintertime.*

The history of most places is too often and unfortunately known by the association with war, instead of by the history of the growth of industry and home life, and this is true with Watertown. While our little pond area was enjoying the succession of changing seasons, from time to time the sound of great activity could be heard by the farmers when watering their cows at the pond. This activity was at the Watertown Arsenal, which was then one of the greatest arsenals of the country. It was founded in the middle of the last century, but in 1862 there was a great fever of activity, with a great many buildings going up. This activity was to supply the Union Army with guns and ammunition, and the aid of local factories was enlisted to help the arsenal turn out cast iron cannon and big round shot. As we have just indicated, history repeats itself too often and spurts of such activity at the Arsenal were seen 45 years ago during the Spanish American war, and 25 years ago World War i. But through all of this fever of war activity the pond was seeing its annual cycle of life with, we feel sure, winter skating scenes and croaking frogs in the summer, just as today.

The peaceful farm life of more than a century (during which time large-scale farming had become "truck gardening") because,1977, a turmoil of activity when men, horses, plows and wagons began to tear down buildings and dig cellars for the beginning of construction of Perkins. In the course of its peaceful history, part of the farm had become the "Stickney Estate" and a lover of nature had planted many beautiful trees along the drives and around the pond. In the course of building construction, some of these trees were sacrificed but the finest were left by Dr. Allen (third director of Perkins) for our enjoyment. Along the shores of our little pond there were several old lindens and willows, but in general it was an open and untidy area. After the buildings were completed, Dr. Allen planted a great variety of shrubs and trees around the pond, which today have grown to make a place of beauty.

With the addition of the plants and shrubs which Dr. Allen started, there has become a growth of natural wild life in the field of plants and animals. Many ferns and wild flowers have come up on the banks of the pond and under the trees, and also in the water itself has sprung up a variety of water plants which make the pond area seem like a bit of the natural wilderness. With the growth of trees, birds have been encouraged, and wild life of various kinds finds a happy home here.

Since Mr. Coon wrote this 36 years ago, there has been a change in the ecology of the pond area. The use of pesticides to control Dutch Elm disease and air pollution have all effected the ponds development. In the 1950's one time in the pond there were a stock of fish and for a short while students and staff had an opportunity to fish its waters. The fishing came to an abrupt end when pollutants got into the pond killing off all the fish. The filling up process referred to by Mr. Coon is still going on at a fast rate and in a short time if nothing is done to clean it out we will soon have nothing but "a little spring pool in the woods". A secular fence now encompasses the pond so it's not accessible, but the area is a great recreation area and a wild-life sanctuary in a busy town. "When you enjoy your picnics at the pond area or take a walk with the class, do a little observation of your own and think of the many interesting things that are to be remembered about this tiny fraction of the earth's surface. One can recall that no other section of the earth is just like this one and that there are millions of areas, each having its own history, and its own place in the scheme of things, which is nature's progress".