COLUMN: A thumbnail history of the Town of Needham
Gloria Greis
Needham History Center & Museum
Every week I try to highlight some small corner of Needham’s history – an interesting fact or place, or a picture, or some other detail that does not usually figure into the larger narrative.
This week, Needham historian Gloria Greis updated a summary she wrote, a while ago, that covers the town’s whole history. That’s 320 years in about 1,000 words, so hang on tight.
Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the area of Needham lay within the territory of the Massachusett, an Algonkian-speaking tribe related to the Wampanoag and Nipmuc. Artifacts excavated near the Charles River banks in Needham showed that Native American communities had lived here for nearly 9,000 years.
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Needham History: The Norfolk Rifle Rangers
Gloria Greis
Needham History Center & Museum
The United States Army was founded on 14 June 1775, when the Second Continental Congress created a unified force to fight the British. George Washington was appointed its first commander.
Washington rode to Cambridge to take control of the Army, arriving on July 3, 1775. Washington assumed his command on the Cambridge Common – it is said, under the large elm tree that once grew in the middle of the intersection of Garden and Mason Streets.
The elm tree died in 1923 (by then it was in the way of traffic anyway), and is represented by another elm at the nearby edge of the Common.