Farewell to the South Natick Dam: Honoring the Place That Shaped My Years
For almost 40 years, I’ve called South Natick home. While it’s never been the place where I’ve felt deeply rooted, it’s where I raised my children, built our businesses, and lived a full chapter of life.
Now, as I begin to explore the rich history that surrounds us, there’s no better place to start than the South Natick Dam.
This dam has been a quiet, constant landmark for as long as we’ve lived here. We’ve taken countless photos of its rushing waters, walked our dogs to its banks, launched our canoe from its edge, and watched the seasons shift through the branches of the willows Emmy so beautifully captured with her lens.
But soon, that view will be only a memory.
Our town has voted to remove the dam—a decision made for reasons I do not fully agree with. And yet, I know change is coming. This familiar place, where water has flowed and families have gathered, will one day be gone.
So I begin this journey, of exploring the history of South Natick, with the dam as my starting point. As we look forward to what this landscape will become, I want to honor what it has been. Because even in a place where I never quite felt rooted, the memories made along this river have shaped a life I’ll always cherish.
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Home of Calvin Ellis Stowe
This 1816 Federal-style home in South Natick was the childhood home of Calvin Ellis Stowe a biblical scholar and later the husband of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Calvin Stowe became a scholar of Hebrew and biblical literature and met Harriet Beecher at the Lane Seminary in Cincinnati. They married in 1836, […]
The Harwood Baseball Factory
In 1858, Harrison Harwood, a Natick resident and local businessman, built what would become one of the most historically significant small factories in American sports: The Harwood Baseball Factory. This factory was more than a local industry, but the birthplace of professional baseball. Harwood’s factory was the first in the US devoted entirely to the manufacture of […]
Natick: The First Praying Indian Town
In 1651, missionary Rev. John Eliot established Natick as the first of the “Praying Indian” towns in Massachusetts. He named the town after the Natick American word Natick, translated as a place of hills or a place of searching. He worked closely with local Massachusett and Nipmic people, teaching them Christianity in their native tongue and translating the Bible […]
