Mother Brook and Mill Village Walking Tour

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Mother Brook was created from 1639 to 1641 by digging a canal from the Charles River to what was then Easte Brook which flowed to the Neponset River in the Hyde Park. Mother Brook was also known variously as East Brook and Mill Creek in earlier times. Dug by the English settlers starting in 1639 to power a grist mill, it is the oldest such industrial canal in North America. Mother Brook was important to Dedham as its only source of water power for mills, from 1639 into the early 20th century and was a thriving mill community for close to 300 years.

2. First Privilege & Merchants Woolen Mill

This is the location of the first mill built in Dedham by John Elderkin and Nathanial Whiting in 1641 to grind corn. It is known as the First Privilege, a privilege being the right of a mill-site owner to construct a mill and to use power created by damming the stream to operate the mill. Today this property is the site of Condon Park, but it once included the largest of Dedham's textile mills, Merchants Woolen Mills. The only factory building remaining at this site is the brick structure at 202 Bussey Street, known as Merchants Woolen Mill No 2 built circa 1855. This low, gable-roofed brick structure recalled the massive factory that once stood at this site until it was demolished in the 1930s. This privilege was powered by a dam located roughly in the same location as the Colburn Street Dam is locate today.

3. East Dedham Fire Station

The East Dedham Fire House originally Hose Company No. 3 was built by the Town of Dedham in 1897. The building is significant as the earliest fire station in the town still being used for its original purpose. The basement still contains stalls for the horses used to pull the early fire engines. Dedham has a telegraph fire alarm system, hard wired throughout the entire town with copper cable to wired boxes. The wired boxes have a lever when pulled, will send a signal to each fire station in Dedham identifying the location of the fire. On the inside wall to the left of the garage doors hang the boards with all the call locations for the call boxes alerting the firemen to the location of a fire when the tab on the call box is pulled. A fire whistle is sounded so that each firemen and citizen with the help of the location list can identify where a fire is located in Dedham.

4. 3rd Privilege at Mother Brook

The third privilege was developed in 1682 as a fulling mill by Jonathan Fairbanks and James Draper. The dam was located at the place where Sawmill Lane now crosses Mother Brook. The third privilege remained in the Whiting family for almost two centuries until it was sold to the incorporators of Merchant’s Woolen Company in 1863. A saw and grist mill were both operated at the third privilege until the premises were vacated in 1885. Prior to this, a corn mill had operated on Mother Brook for over 240 years. [1] Worthington, 4.

5. William B. Gould Memorial Park

William B. Gould was born into slavery in Wilmington, N.C. in 1837. During the Civil War, Gould escaped with seven others on September 21, 1862 by sailing 28 miles down the Cape Fear River where he was picked up by the USS Cambridge. He served for the rest of the war in the United States Navy, chasing Confederate ships to shores as far away as the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, and England. While in the Navy, Gould kept a diary that is today one of only three known diaries kept by slaves during the Civil War. After the war, Gould married Cornelia Read and settled on Milton Street in East Dedham. The couple raised 8 children, 2 girls and six boys in Dedham. William B. Gould went on to be a well respected citizen known as a trusted contractor and serving in the veteran's organization, The Grand Army of the Republic. He died here in Dedham 1923.

6. 4th Privilege, The Stone Mill 1835

The 4th privilege is the oldest of Dedham's existing mill structures. The 1835 Dedham granite mill is unlike the textile mills of the first and second privilege (at Maverick and Bussey streets) as it was constructed of stone not brick similar to the mills of the Blackstone Valley. The main mill building housed spinning jacks on the third floor and in the attic, weaving looms on the second floor, and a carding mill (for cleaning and preparing the cotton) on the first floor. The basement contained a sluiceway, breast wheel, gears and belts to power the mill and later a bolier and steam engine. The mill was expanded circa 1863 adding the wing to the rear right of the main building. Over the years mills located at this privilege have manufactured copper cents, paper, nails, wire, cotton cloth, carpets and colored handkerchiefs

7. Dedham’s Granite Cotton Mill 1835, Southern Cotton and Slavery

Dedham’s oldest and most important mill structure dates from 1835 and provides a unique window into slavery’s foundation of the American economy. Unlike the mills of the first and second privilege (at Maverick and Bussey streets) which had been consistently used to manufacture woolen goods, the mill at the fourth privilege was used to produce cotton goods. As it did to many cotton mills, however, the Civil War, by shutting off the supply of raw material, brought closure of the mill in the early 1860s. The mill reopened after the Civil War manufacturing woolen fabric.

8. Mother Brook Arts and Community Center (former Avery School)

The first school on this site was constructed in 1825 to serve the children of millworkers employed in the textile mills that rose on the banks of the nearby Mother Brook. Initially known as the Mill Village School, it was replaced by a second structure named The Avery School. At least 4 different school buildings have been on this site since the first school was built. A school serving the Mill Village or East Dedham community continued to operate here until 2011, when a new Avery Scholl was built at a different location on High Street.Today The Mother Brooks Arts and Community Center, which opened its doors in 2013, is now located here and is the home of artists’ studios, a gallery, classrooms and events.

9. Boston Envelope Company / Site of the 2nd Privilege

The first mill at this site, the 2nd privilege, was constructed in 1664 by Daniel Pond and Ezra Morse to grind corn.In 1935 the mill buildings were purchased by the Boston Envelope Company and replaced with a modern ‘daylight’ factory, the current structure.During World War II, the Boston Envelope Company contributed to the war effort by manufacturing all the envelopes that were used to mail ration books throughout New England as well as the draft board envelopes to the prospective military forces nationwide. Hundreds of different kinds of envelopes were required by the war, ranging from those that were used for pre-packaged foods to large envelopes holding confidential messages. The factory was capable of making 2,500,000 envelopes a day ranging in size from 2”x 2” to 20” x 20”. The workforce was almost entirely female at this time, as shown in the next photo. The Boston Envelope Company closed operations in Dedham in 1984. The building now houses Alimed, a medical supply company.

10. Mill Pond Village & The Immigrant Story

The neighborhoods of East Dedham sprung up around the mills for good reason. The mills were in constant need of laborers and creating housing near the mills helped attract the men and women needed to meet the labor demand. Many of these laborers and mill employees were immigrants. Census records from the 19th century indicate the mills recruited men and women from all over Europe and North America, not just the Irish or Germans but others came from Canada, Italy, Eastern Europe, Lebanon and Syria. In 1865 over one quarter of Dedham population were foreign born. The neighborhood along this section of the mill pond, Colburn Street to Maverick Street to Curve Street is densely populated neighborhood with many houses that were built or owned by the mills or by employees of the mills.

This Tour is a Walking Tour.

Mother Brook and Mill Village Walking Tour

Created by Dedham Historical Society on August 25th 2023, 8:28:26 pm.

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Mother Brook and Mill Village Walking Tour

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