Weston is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, about 15 miles west of downtown Boston. The population of Weston, as of June 2017, was 11,389.
Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Wellesley is part of Greater Boston. The population was 27,982 at the time of the 2010 census. Wellesley College, Babson College, and a campus of Massachusetts Bay Community College are located in Wellesley.
Charles Sprague Sargent was an American botanist. He was appointed in 1872 as the first director of Harvard University's Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts, and held the post until his death. He published several works of botany. The standard botanical author abbreviation Sarg. is applied to plants he identified.
The Emerald Necklace consists of a 1,100-acre chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula. In 1989, the Emerald Necklace was designated as a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, established in 1872, is the oldest public arboretum in North America. This botanical research institution and free public park is located in the Jamaica Plain and Roslindale neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. The landscape was designed by Charles Sprague Sargent and Frederick Law Olmsted and is the second largest "link" in the Emerald Necklace. The Arnold Arboretum's collection of temperate trees, shrubs, and vines has a particular emphasis on the plants of the eastern United States and eastern Asia, where Arboretum staff and colleagues are actively sourcing new material on plant collecting expeditions. The Arboretum supports research in its landscape and in its Weld Hill Research Building.
The H. H. Hunnewell estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts was the country home of H. H. Hunnewell (1810–1902), containing over 500 species of woody plants in 53 families. The estate remains in the family, and includes the first (1854) topiary garden in the United States, featuring intricate geometrically clipped native Eastern white pine and Eastern arborvitae. A collection of specialty greenhouses feature over 1,000 plant species. The estate has been cared for by six generations of the Hunnewell family.
Horatio Hollis Hunnewell, was a railroad financier, philanthropist, amateur botanist, and one of the most prominent horticulturists in America in the nineteenth century. Mr. Hunnewell was a partner in the private banking firm of Welles & Co. Paris, France controlled by his in-laws which specialized in trade finance between the two countries. Practicing horticulture for nearly six decades on his estate in Wellesley, Massachusetts, he was perhaps the first person to cultivate and popularize rhododendrons in the United States.
The Gardens at Elm Bank, home of Massachusetts Horticultural Society, occupies 36 acres (15 ha) of Elm Bank Reservation, a 175-acre (71 ha) recreational area of woodlands, fields, and former estate property on the Charles River managed by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. The estate's entrance is located at 900 Washington Street, Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States, with the major portion of the grounds located in the neighboring town of Dover. In 1987, the entire site was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Elm Bank.
The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest land conservation nonprofit organization of its kind in the world and has 140,000 dues-paying members as of 2018. In addition to land stewardship, the organization is also active in conservation partnerships, community supported agriculture (CSA), environmental and conservation education, community preservation and development, and green building. The Trustees of Reservations own title to 120 properties on 27,000 acres (11,000 ha) in Massachusetts, all of which are open to the public; it maintains conservation restrictions on over 200 additional properties. Properties include historic mansions, estates, and gardens; woodland preserves; waterfalls; mountain peaks; wetlands and riverways; coastal bluffs, beaches, and barrier islands; farmland and CSA projects; and archaeological sites.
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style country house designed principally by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, and constructed in 1886 and 1887.
The Case Estates is a botanical garden located at 135 Wellesley Street, Weston, Massachusetts. Measuring 65 acres (260,000 m2), the estates were at one time the active plant nurseries of the Arnold Arboretum.
The Mission House is an historic house located at 19 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It was built between 1739 and 1742 by a Christian missionary to the local Mahicans. It is a National Historic Landmark, designated in 1968 as a rare surviving example of a colonial mission house. It is now owned and operated as a nonprofit museum by the Trustees of Reservations.
The Brandegee Estate is a historic estate at 280 Newton Street in Brookline and Boston, Massachusetts. Developed at the turn of the 20th century, it is one of the largest essentially intact estate properties in either community. It was developed by Mary (Pratt) Sprague, a direct descendant of Joseph Weld, one of Boston's first settlers, and is noted for its large Renaissance Revival mansion, and landscaping by Charles A. Platt. The estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. Its name derives from Mary Sprague's second husband, Edward Brandegee.
The Ash Street Historic District is a residential historic district on Ash Street and Ash Street Place between Brattle and Mount Auburn Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, off Brattle Street just west of Harvard Square. The district consists of ten well-preserved houses, most of which were built between 1850 and 1890. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The Hunnewell Estates Historic District is an historic district between the Charles River and Lake Waban in Wellesley and Natick, Massachusetts, about 17 miles west of Boston. It consists of the large group of 18th to 21st century agricultural and estate properties with farmland, gardens, residences, and landscapes of the Hunnewell and Welles families. The properties in the Historic District are still largely owned and occupied by members of the Hunnewell family. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
The River Road–Cross Street Historic District is a rural agricultural historic district in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It is representative of Topsfield's development first as an agricultural community, and later as place for rural retreats. The district, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005, is roughly bounded by River Road, Rowley Bridge Road, Cross Street, Hill Street, and Salem Road, and also includes properties facing Prospect Street and Bradstreet Lane. Much of the district was consolidated under the ownership of William Appleton Coolidge in the 20th century, and bequeathed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with restrictions to preserve its rural character. MIT sold the donated properties in 2000.
The Wellington Farm Historic District encompasses a historic farm property at 487—500 Wellesley Street in Weston, Massachusetts. Included in the 35-acre (14 ha) district are a main house built c. 1760, a barn complex with buildings dating from the 19th and 20th centuries, a modern greenhouse, and farm fields lined by stone walls. It is historically significant for its well-preserved buildings, and for its later transformation into a summer estate. It is also one of the town's few remaining working farms. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
The Middlesex Fells Reservation Parkways are the roadways within and bordering on the Middlesex Fells Reservation, a state park in the northern suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. The park includes portions of the towns of Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham, and Winchester. The roads inside the park and around its perimeter have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Other portions of some of the roads are covered by more than one listing in the national register; see Fellsway Connector Parkways and Middlesex Fells Reservoirs Historic District.
Newton-Wellesley Hospital (NWH) is a community teaching medical center located in Newton, Massachusetts on Washington Street. It is affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. Founded in 1881, part of its campus is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Newton Cottage Hospital Historic District.
Robert Winsor was a leading American financier, investment banker, and philanthropist who, as head of the Boston investment banking firm Kidder, Peabody & Co., was at the forefront of industrial consolidation during the period leading up to the Great Depression. After beginning his career at Kidder, Peabody in 1880 as a lowly clerk just out of college, Winsor was quickly promoted because of his business acumen, and was held in such great esteem by the 1920s that newspaper articles would refer to him as the "J.P. Morgan of Boston" and "one of the country's leading bankers."
