John R. Farnum was born in Mount Vernon, New Hampshire on May 12, 1823. He was of six children. Later his family moved to Newton where he bought a horse and wagon and sold pots and pans door to door. In 1858 he married Henrietta Beal. In 1861 he became a partner with Fred Davis in the Davis and Farnum Foundry on Felton Street in Waltham. After the Civil War the company moved to east Waltham near the Watertown line where the company continued to prosper mainly due to the demand for gas piping. On June 3, 1876 he opened a nearby racetrack named Central Park, off Grove Street, where great harness races were held for 30 years.
Farnum helped sponsor the publishing of “The History of Middlesex County”. Three volumes issued in the late 19th Century. He was also the founder of the Music Hall (later the Waldorf) Theater on Elm Street on October 19, 1880.
His home was a small mansion at Rose Hill, across Main Street from the Grove Hill Cemetery. He had three daughters. Today there is a Farnum Road which runs off of Rose Hill Way. John Farnum died on November 15, 1905.
Taken from the Watham Museum Newsletter January, 2005.
Thomas Ruggles Plympton
Thomas R. Plympton immigrated to Waltham from England around 1800. He was a watch repairman for many years before the Waltham Watch Company started. There was lots of open space in Waltham at that time as the population was only 1000.
In 1824 he bought a dwelling with an attached tavern on the Great Road and renamed it the Plympton Tavern. This was a profitable investment for him as travelers going west on the Great Road (Main Street) would stop here for lodging, meals, and drinks. With this income he acquired lots of farmland in that area as an investment. This would in later years make him one of the wealthiest men in Waltham. (In later years, under new owners, the Plympton Tavern location would become the Central House location and today is the location of the Waltham Public Library.
On November 18, 1827 his wife, Betsy, gave birth to a son named George W. Plympton.
On August 7, 1832 he sold 6 acres of his land holdings to the town and the town built the North Grammar School on a portion of this land at the corner of what is now School and Lexington Streets. In 1920 this school was replaced by the North Junior High School and today it’s known as the Government Center.
In 1851 Plympton was the director of the Waltham Bank.
In 1883 the town of Waltham replaced the old wooden Bacon Street School with the new brick Bacon Street School. In 1891 this school was renamed the Plympton School.
This old school was demolished in 2003 and a new Plympton School opened in 2005.
Taken from the Waltham Museum Newsletter September, 2005
The Charles River Carnival of 1904
On the evening of Wednesday, August 17, 1904 the Seventh Grand Charles River Carnival was held in Waltham, The sponsor of the event was the G.A.R. (Grand Army of the Republic). The newspapers said that it was the grandest spectacular ever witnessed in the United States. The splendor par excellence was amplified by the pyrotechnically illuminated flotilla, consisting of hundreds of gaily decorated and illuminated floats, boats, canoes, together with thousands of variegated lights, sparkling from the trees and buildings along the course of the pageant.
The late General Banks said of the last Carnival “I was present at the opening of the Suez Canal when navies of the world were illuminated in honor of the event, and from that time to this, I believed that it was a site of a lifetime, but tonight my town people and neighbors haven not only equaled the effects of the world navies, but have far exceeded them, that I can forget that night only to remember this”.
At 8 o’clock the illuminated flotilla started promptly. At a given signal a cluster of 300 white electric lights were hoisted to the top of the Watch Factory chimney, this signified that the flotilla parade had begun. (Credit for this idea belongs to E. A. Marsh, superintendent of the Watch Factory.) From a point opposite the Waltham Canoe Club the flotilla went all the way to the Moody Street Bridge where it turned and proceeded to the point of origin. The event was spectacular.
Taken from a 40 page souvenir booklet at the Waltham Museum.