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Continued from 26 Weybridge Road part one

The first occupants of this house after its acquisition by the Blakes were William and Jane D. Whitman and their family. William Whitman (1842-1928) was a leading textile manufacturer. He was the head of Arlington Mills and other companies and for many years was president of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers. He wrote frequently on economic topics and was a prominent voice in debates over tariffs for the wool industry.

Whitman was born in Nova Scotia and came to Boston at the age of 14. He worked for a dry goods commission house for 11 years, according to his obituary in the New York Times (8/21/1928), "showing such aptitude that he attracted the attention of woolen manufacturers." At the age of 25, he was named treasurer of Arlington Woolen Mills (later Arlington Mills) in Lawrence. He later became president of this and other textile firms and of William Whitman Co. Inc., a Boston-based dry goods firm.

William Whitman and his wife Jane (1842-1929) had a large family. One of their sons, Malcom D. Whitman (1877-1932) later became a tennis champion. He beat Harvard schoolmate Dwight Davis (of Davis Cup fame) for his first of three straight U.S. National Championships (now the U.S. Open) in 1898. Two years later, he teamed with Davis and a third Harvard player to win the first Davis Cup competition for the U.S. over Great Britain in 1900.

The Whitmans were listed here in various Brookline directories from 1883 until 1894 when they moved to Goddard Avenue.

Following the Whitmans here were Henry A. Young and his family. Young (born c1838) was a Boston bookseller, but was listed alternatively as a merchant and an "estate trustee" in various directories during the time he lived in the old Wild house. His wife Sarah had apparently died before the family moved to Brookline, but three grown children, daughters Agnes and Elsie (or Essie) and son William, lived with him for at least part of the time he was here. The Young family was listed in this house from 1894 to 1902.

Major changes were made by the Blake family to the property in the years that the Whitmans and Youngs were its occupants. First, the portion of the property farthest from Washington Street (approximately between today's Stanton and Somerset Roads) was broken off into separate lots in the 1880s.

More significantly, a new road across the property, leading from Washington Street to Gorham Avenue, was cut through as far as Cypress Place and maintained as a private road known as Greenough Street. (See the 1895 plan by Ernest Bowditch, from the files of the Olmsted Brothers firm, below.) In 1899, the road was taken over by the town and extended to Gorham Avenue.

Courtesy of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site
(Click on image for a larger version)

Some time after the private road was built, the portion of the property across the new street from the house was broken off and divided into separate lots. The house itself, which was first listed with a numbered address (446 Washington Street) in 1897, later had a separate entranceway added from Greenough. It was briefly listed as 9 Greenough Street during part of the Youngs' occupancy, before reverting to the Washington Street address.

The house and the stable underwent some renovations in 1904, after the departure of the Youngs. (They moved to 35 Gardner Road.) A permit was issued in August 1904 for a $1,500 project to change something. (The word after "change" on the permit may be "driveway," but it is difficult to read.) Additional buildings permits were issued in September and October. Those permits are recorded in town records, but the permits themselves, with any details of the work, have apparently been lost.

The architect for one of the stable permits is listed in town records as Frederick S.W. Richardson. This could be a typographical error; he might actually have been Frederick L.W. Richardson, Frances Blake's son-in-law and the youngest son of H.H. Richardson. No architect is listed for the work on the house itself.

The builder on all of the 1904 permits was Burton W. Neal. A prominent Brookline builder and businessman, Neal did work for the Blakes on several of the older buildings that were later incorporated into Blake Park, including 12-14 Lowell Road, 128 Gardner Road, 53 Greenough Street and 55-57 Greenough Street. He also built 150 Gardner Road for the Inter-City Trust in 1922 and did additional renovations on 26 Weybridge Road for its new owner in 1929.

The occupants of the house changed frequently between 1904, when the renovations were done, and 1916, when the property came under the ownership the P.H. Park Trust as part of the Blake Park development. (Sources for those years include both the official Street List and the Brookline directory published by the W.A. Greenough Co.)

William Wyndham, the British consul in Boston, lived here in 1906 and 1907, according to the Greenough directory. (The 1905 edition was not available.) The Street List, however, showed the residents as two coachmen: James Corbett (born c1879) in 1905 and 1906; and Thomas Ryan (born c1877) in 1907. (One possibility is that Wyndham lived in the house itself, and the coachmen in the carriage house.)

There was no one listed again in 1908 and 1909. The 1910 Street List showed Fisher Ames Jr. (born 1869), a lawyer and writer, while the Greenough directory for that year listed him and his father, former Boston city solicitor Fisher Ames Sr. (1838-1919). Abbie F. Ames, Fisher Ames Sr.'s stepmother, was listed (without the two Fishers) in 1911.

The last residents of this house (1911 to 1916) before it was sold to the P.H. Park Trust were Mary Izod Weld and her brother-in-law Richard Poe-Palmer. Weld and Poe-Palmer were both natives of Ireland who came to the U.S. in 1886 or 1887.

No occupation was given for Weld in the Greenough directory (she wasn't listed at all in the Street List), but she was shown as proprietor of a sanitarium before and after she lived here (in both the 1910 and 1920 U.S. Census; the 1900 Census had listed her as a church missionary.) In 1910, she was at 50 Cypress Place, along with three sanitarium servants, one of whom was a nurse, and several boarders. In 1920, she was at 316 Harvard Street with three nurses, four patients, and a housekeeper.

Richard Poe-Palmer (born c1847) was listed with Weld before, during, and after she was in the old Wild house. His wife, Weld's sister, was listed with them in 1910 but not after that. Poe-Palmer was shown as an inspector in the Street List, but as a collector in the Greenough directory. (The 1910 Census listed him as a collector for the telephone company; no occupation was given in 1920.)

In the fall of 1916, the former Wild property was acquired by the P.H. Park Trust from the trustees of Arthur Blake's estate for inclusion in the proposed Blake Park development.

The story of 26 Weybridge Road continues on the next page.