All About Wayland: A Year's Worth of History

The Wayland Historical Society and Patch are working together to bring you a year's worth of facts about Wayland. Each weekday from July 15, 2013 onward, you'll find one fact in the "5 Things" articles Patch runs each weekday morning.

On Saturday, we'll recap the week's worth of facts. Enjoy learning all about Wayland.

For more on who compiles these factoids and where she gets her info, check out "Wayland Woman 'Lives' with Rockstars, War Heroes, Stuff of History."

1. The first English settlers came to present-day Wayland in 1638 - 375 years ago.
2. Wayland is the original settlement of the Sudbury Plantation.
3. The first meetinghouse was built in 1643 on the site of the North Cemetery. A stone and plaque mark the spot.
4. In 1780, the east and west side of Sudbury divided- the west side took the name Sudbury and the east side became East Sudbury.
5. In 1835, East Sudbury changed its name to Wayland.
6. At least three buildings still standing in Wayland were colonial taverns in the 18th and 19th centuries- Hopestil Bent's on Old Connecticut Path, Reeves Tavern on Old Connecticut Path East, and the Luther Moore Tavern on Oxbow Road. Today they are all private residences.
7. In 1881, the railroad came to Wayland and the Wayland Depot was built.
8. In 1954, teacher Ann Hale was fired by the School Committee for prior membership in the Communist Party
9. In 1971, Katy Seiler became the first woman to be elected to the Board of Selectmen-332 years after its founding.
10. Mainstone Farm is the sole survivor of Wayland's agricultural past. In 1885, there were 106 farms, 141 farmers and 110 farm laborers.
11. Wayland has been known under three different names: Sudbury, East Sudbury and Wayland
12. In 1835, East Sudbury changed its name to Wayland. While no one know the reason for the change, it is believed that Wayland was named for Rev. Francis Wayland, the president of Brown University.
13. The earliest known mention of a slave in Sudbury was 1701.
14. In 1754, each town in the Bay Colony appointed assessors to report on the number of slaves in their towns. Sudbury reported nine males and five females.
15. The 1771 Provincial Census stated that 911 residents of the Bay Colony owned 1169 "servants for life" (i.e. slaves). Twelve slaveowners on that list lived in Sudbury.
16. In the winter of 1775-76, Col. Henry Knox transported 59 pieces of field artillery from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to Roxbury, which ended the occupation of of Boston by the British troops. Knox's Trail would take him from Framingham over Stone's Bridge, along today's Old Connecticut Path and the Boston Post Road into Weston.
17.  A small triangle is all that is left of the 9 acre training field (corner Glezen Lane and Training Field Rd.) where the milita drilled from 1714 to 1804. Later it would serve as the central gathering place of the minutemen and milita who marched to Concord on April 19, 1775.
18. Fifty-six veterans of the American Revolution are buried at North Cemetery.
19. On April 19, 1775, Sudbury sent 302 men to answer the Lexington-Concord alarm. It was the largest representation from any one town on that day.
20. In 1639, a man aptly named Thomas Cakebread became the first miller.
21.  In 1953, the Sudbury Valley Trustees was founded by seven Wayland men, led by Allen H. Morgan, to protect wildlife and preserve open space.
22. In 1999, twenty-nine miles of the Sudbury, Concord and Assabet Rivers were designated as “Wild and Scenic” by act of Congress.
23. In 1640, the progenitor of Wayland's First Parish was established.
24. Wayland's first Catholic Church St. Zepherin's Church held its first service on March 2, 1890.
25. In 1978, for the first time a Reform Jewish Congregation held services at First Parish. In 1981, Shir Tikva acquired a home of its own.
26. In 1988, the Islamic Center opened.
27. From 1950 to 1960, Wayland's population skyrocketed from 4,400 to 10,000.
28. In 1954, the Wayland Historical Society was formed.
29. In 1961, annual Town Meeting established a Conservation Commission.
30. The earliest mention of a slave in Sudbury (modern Sudbury and Wayland} is 1701. Slavery was legal in Massachusetts until 1783.
31. In 1956, Wayland got its first full-time professional firefighters, 2 in Wayland and 2 in Cochituate.
32. From 1917-1952, Chief Ernest Damon was the only full-time policeman in town. In 1953, an additional full0time policeman was appointed.
33. In 1971, passenger service on the railroad through Wayland ended after 90 years.
34. The Puritan Village Evolves, the first history of Wayland (not Wayland and Sudbury) was published. It was written and researched by Wayland resident Helen F. Emery in 1981.
35.  On October 20, 1973, Pres. Richard Nixon fired special Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox, a Wayland resident, in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.
36. In 1775, future president and founding father, John Adams, stopped at Reeves Tavern on Old Connecticut path. It is now a private residence.
37. In 1955, Hurricane Diane destroyed the Old Town Bridge and Stone's Bridge across the Sudbury River. Rather than rebuild them, new causeways and bridge were constructed nearby.
38. Collins Market, at 21 Cochituate Road, became Wayland's first muncipal building when it was constructed in 1841. Town meetings were held here from 1841-1878 and it also housed Wayland's first library.
39. The bell of the First Parish was cast by Paul Revere in 1815. This is considered a mark of honor for a New England town. 
40. The ca. 1690 Noyes-Parris House on Old Connecticut Path is Wayland's oldest extant house.
41. Arizona is named for Wayland-born Dwight B. Heard, who became a rancher in Arizona in the early 20th century.
42. Edmund H. Sears, who once served as Unitarian minister in Wayland, wrote one of America's few Christmas carols, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” in the 19th century.
43. Brandeis professor and Wayland resident, David Hackett Fischer, won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2005.
44. Wayland author, Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880} has been honored in the National Womens Hall of Fame and the National Abolition Hall of Fame.
45. In 1898, Warren G. Roby bequeathed ½ acre of land next to his home and $25,000 to erect our current Wayland Library.
46. George Pitman was the first professional superintendent of schools in 1895. His was a joint superintendency with West Boyleston and other towns.
47.  In 1878, the Grout-Heard House, today home to the Wayland Historical Society, was moved west to Old Sudbury Road to make room for a new town hall. It was returned to its original site on Cochituate Road in 1962.
48. The 1826 Mellen Law Office on the town green is one of the few remaining examples of a simple two-room law office of the early 19th century.
49. On June 9, 1721, the General Court granted what is today the Village of Cochituate to Sudbury (and after division, to Wayland.)
50. Dr. Roland Lombard, a Wayland veterinarian, was a famous sled dog racer in Alaska, winning the Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Race eight times in the 1960s and 1970s. He trained his dogs off Stonebridge Road.
51. Wayland resident, Harold Russell (1914-2002), a World War II disabled veteran, became one of two non-professional actors to win an Academy Award for acting: Best Supporting Actor (1947) for The Best Years of Our Lives.
52. Dr. Amar Bose (1929-2013), acoustic engineer and inventor, founded the Bose Corp. in 1964.
53. Frank Smith, Wayland High School Latin teacher for 39 years, was Massachusetts Teacher of the Year in 1985.
54. In 1981, Robert Anastos founded SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving) at Wayland High School. It became the nation's leading peer-to-peer youth education and prevention organization in America.
55. Four Wayland men died in World War I. They are honored with tall metal signposts in the “Squares” that bear their names. See if you can find them.
56. Evidence of native peoples in Wayland goes back about 8,000 years.
57. Rev. Samuel Parris was the minister of Salem Village, where the Salem Witchcraft scare started in his home in 1692. He later moved to Wayland and served as schoolmaster for a time.
58. Long Pond was renamed Lake Cochituate in the 1840s when it became Boston's water supply. The mayor of Boston thought that an Indian name would be more appealing to Bostonians.
59. In the 1800s, cranberries were harvested in Wayland's meadows and became a seasonable source of income for local farmers.
60. Between 1835 and 1841, Lavius Hyde, minister of the Evangelical Trinitarian Church (predecessor to the current Trinitarian Congregational Church) and an early abolitionist, organized a number of women parishioners, who otherswise had no voice in government, to offer petitions to the U.S. House of Representatives to end the slave trade, prohibit the extension of slavery and to declare the District of Columbia free of slavery.