of listening to some stories about the hill richardson family for those of you know anything about belmont they go back to the very beginning and whether they were fighting in wars farming and preserving we're going to china to tell the story of the hill which is a family but as you can imagine there's a lot of tangling branches because they intermarriage with different families amongst the time and so it's it's really been a project to try to cut it down into something that's doable so we try to organize a presentation and we're going to start with the the hills and we're going to go to farming and we're going to go to houses and then we're going to end up again and families so we're going to go through some slides here that we put together  on standby to to speak and then to give us some insights and things as we go along i don't know if it's better hold your questions to the end or but we'll try to be you know sort informal so that everybody can enjoy the program he will do that right after our presentation we are here to talk to us and he answer questions about that before we start i have to just give a special welcome to my guest which is and talks a little bit about the hill family the history of the house and all the work they did there it's beautiful it's in our archives and to anyone who wants to look at that but he talked about this property and you see it was built in sixteen ninety three by abraham hill and it's one of only three houses that are still left in belmont from the sixteen hundreds so it's pretty rare and pretty amazing to have such a gem down there on the street and you see the what a couple of the pictures the opec shell with a tree the spreading tree there and then the picture here on the side and we said that where they'd say seven successive generations of family lived there so it was very well cared for by the whole family begin at the beginning so here's an early play in a of belmont and this map actually predates the incorporation of the term but you can see most of the land then occupies the whole his farmland so we see the early farmers there with their plots and you see along there you know the familiar names of of farmers here including the helen richardson family here they were market gardeners one had a great reputation for fruits and vegetables really high standards so we're looking at them now and then we see a couple of pictures and if you were at mr james presentation again there were some slides that were found i think in the attic yes in the attic of that old house and there was a whole group of them and these these pictures were from that collection so you see the garden area along pleasant street the green house the tulip bed and the windmill there and then the barbecue just barn in the lower picture with the hill children all pose nicely in front of it there in pleasant street these these slides are now in our collection and we were glad to have them are great views of this era from nineteen zero to nine hundred twelve is when they were mostly in that area that they were taken so wonderful picture of the hill family there on pleasant street now here's an up to great so he's saying i'll repeat that just for that for the audience that this is right along the path by the weapons down by where cambridge is and you can if you go from home right either bright street or if you go through the l and eight sixteen thirty six extending from present day beaumont to charles town and past to abraham's descendants so it so happens that i guess when he was contacted by somebody from cambridge and they decided to put a bench here stone and beds to commemorate the lives you see historic land use and the fact that it's been in the same family for many years so you  have that still lives you can visit patton take your own photo and memories so those still on the hill family how many of you remember hill's crossing anybody remember when if you remember hill's crossing being in one of the stops on the railroad line the land was owned by henry y hill and we look at the slider it says an eight hundred forty three the old the station and the area of the game no one has hills crossing and  it wasn't too excited about having the railway come through his land but he did receive flagging privileges on the train which meant that in any time a train was coming by he could flag down one of the purchased and the room station was torn down other businesses were developed and that area there that's planters road now so that's a little bit about hills crossing my head a business crossing the so we're continuing later changed to health crossing and the westinghouse building i know a lot of you probably remember that your cambridge plaiting construction nine hundred seventy five part of hell's crossing there ok so we're going to talk a little bit about farming now the home we have on the hills were farmers and so were the richardsons so most of you probably see these from really your buildings this is  over it's actually accessed off of thirty four when rude and you can still go to the farm we see a nice collage picture being put together talking about little bit about the arm over in the thirty's they were first in watertown and somehow they were invited to come to belmont and begin to utilize the land the harris cars were interested in farm and they started the farming didn't hurt that they had nine sons and they all worked on the farm here in belmont through many generations and till just recently for over sixty five years actually they were there which is pretty easy and they farmed that way and basically so here are some other pictures of it now and says they retired in two thousand and eleven and a new era began so they continue to lease the property for farming and in addition i think there is some kind of an agricultural arrangement they call it fresh produce once a week and it goes from about the middle of june this year with a way to november yeah it's great so i'll just give it just to repeat that for the for the camera for the microphone and this is henry ovies telling farm dot com and you can get on to that website and they'll probably have a lot more information about how you can take advantage of this opportunity i just want to head to that chimney is  advantage of that this is really one of a an amazing and special of instead took place two thousand and two i can't believe it's been out long since that time but the family had  after several years of negotiation decided to place a restriction on killing and about nine acres so that in perpetuity it will be used just for agricultural purposes in other words waiving all development rights the land will actually be able to be used for farming and that restriction is held locally by the belmont land trust by nationally by the american farmland trust and so that was a wonderful gift really for the family from the family to the belmont community to say this land and to make sure it's devoted to the original purpose of agriculture and really it's the last working farm in belmont and still going strong so here you're looking yes yeah inst yes yes it's still family owned it is just that it will be granted as a farming for farming you so it can't be used for anything but farm and the topic should is that you mean you're being  red a certificate by i think by the state right the secretary said yeah yeah that was the day actual ceremony when you were being recognized for that and then this poster that i have taken a picture of here is hanging outside belmont it doesn't have to be a large amount it could be smaller parcels it could be personal it parsley they have they have several holdings since there but this is a great great effort on their part to get this all i have done and also  great pictures if you haven't been to the farm i courage to do it it's a great spot to just go and take a look around there we're going to leave farming for a little bit and talk about the family this said thomas richardson farmhouse built again in the early eighty's hundreds and there it sits on the topic should be low it is amazingly enough is the view towards a fresh pond from that location and if you know that locations it's along washington street you know where the new farmhouse and the family seated there that's we're going to see a little bit more dogs and teal and her husband james madison richardson and their children seven children they're all gathered around them for a wonderful fail portrait so there they are the parents of this group lived in the house the help of the richardson house for a long time farming talking about the barn that's there and this was builds actually before the house prior to the house and stands there now and it was after thomas richardson married abigail's st stone of course that's a familiar name on washington street you have the stone house and john that stone house just up the street so he married a local girl there and built the barn and then later built the house and also was a farmer  married living in sheila somerville took over both the house and the farmers and if you know his suburb you know and you know teal square that's the family we're talking about so this this family was connected their father was a somerville resident and the girls were somerville and they they owned all the land it's part of til square which is down by tufts university so another big landowner family ok and so you see the old look at the farmhouse when and then the altered view and so originally it was more federal style more balanced box style and then home along the way in later i think it was around eight hundred ninety queen  anne style architecture became popular so what they did is is updated you can see the different features they've been clued in they're pretty obvious that turrent a large edition stained glass and porches so th me and i was reading in our files the governess to recite his great information it was written by one of the granddaughters that knew this anna and james and she wrote a whole page about her grandparents and it's kind of interesting of things she said was once a week they lived off this large brick and he didn't out to big all their pies breads footings for that week so it's kind of a big event on saturdays to get the full of it going in the household and she remembered all the good memories of that being done and all the goods that were there once a week so here's the house today more modern contemporary look at it  this was the home of grace richardson and a lot of you might be have no grace lydia's mother longtime belmont resident very active in town and town affairs was in new york so i guess she married and moved there and so this is this is how this particular house there's look there's other regions that house will take a look at those two envelopment but this one is what they consider the homestead for they instead of family for the rich the family ok so now we move i guess looks like we're going to look at the bright house and this is next door if you will get to the map in another slide but you see this is at the head of grove street and this is actually the captain joseph bright fire house built seven hundred eighty one and if you see along the street there on the street see that's pretty much directly where the rotary is that goes around that spot and you see the gran same property and on the left hand side you see the water cult or water color doug and if you're with elmo sort of a side of you know the outside her classroom up stairs we have a whole series of frame to water color prints of historic houses and they were all done by c scott white who was a local artists and was commissioned to paint these houses by this clapton and then she donated so they're there on display upstairs in the displays rotate so that's one of the they lived there with their ten children his son josiah bought the property continued to farm it and then the price actually begun after a while to lease their farmland and so other tenants ca the land that was connected with the house for many years finally they decided to sell their property and that's when when his mother graze phippen stepped in and she purchased the the property and i think part of her reason was to protect it from development so that's sort of the same kind of legacy being carried on again the property the farm history was important to her and the property and so that it would be developed so that's interesting enough when i was going to the files our speaker her annual meeting coming up is going to be roger webb and actually in the sixty's mr webb who was involved in historic restoration came to the house and did a valuation so it's fun to read his sort of notes that he had done and he said it was a federal style that basically it was joe who owns up and down to over two or something and i can see in a central stair case and so the top rooms and the bottom was and had to chimneys and so they could have a fireplace in every room so he had some evaluation so there's a big dutch oven for cooking on one side of the house or other interesting details i'm saying here are the  know hinges wife for boards federal style still details but this other back wall kind of intrigued him and he made a comment about the bricks how they were made and the quality of them in the particular clay or something were being identified them and this was quite like this so that it when it's so supposedly block away and the cold or the winds from the from the occupants of the house and they put the house facing south and they put this brick wall to the president was clad door but this was a big brick wall in the back so that the earlier because we're going to see i don't know if you can see the atlas this is a bell my dad was thinking twenty two when you see the empty area there the curve where washington street goes around but but these are some of the houses you know we just looked at  a couple of of the air but the other how was that sort of a brown colored one is the henry richardson house and that is still there and also the bright house the yellow one also and so these are route and the other one is on richardson street which is the road but the one on the top is what i know you can see when the slide but it's on this big mound if you look over the top of the greenhouses the bridge greenhouse you see this house like sitting on top of a like a noble and and this was a large prominent no one there and it happened that one of the gales of the bright family the daughter to copy make a copy of it so we can look at it here so it's kind of dramatic dana hill when they when they finally sold this property to developers this is a steam shovel story she's talking about they took a steam shovel and they just began to level the area belmont center so to do that they had a plan to lay them out along grove street through the bright farm so so strange you know more in a straight line but as libby was saying he had some clout with the railway decided he didn't want to disturb his property so that's why there's a big job the job that went around and the old timers used to say they could hear all the trolley cars come because when they need that corner of this wheels as they would come along route three to then try to a program that was done by do you boss university students came out and assisted in collecting a lot of data about old homes of belmont they put it all together compiled it into the book that we have still for sale called the architecture and development of the town of home so it's basically a history of the architectural styles in belmont and so here is some of the results of them gathering this information and collecting it and putting it together both the properties that he is closely associated with so we see both three zero six washington street and three thirty six washington street houses that we've talked about here from the hundreds and just to show you that in two thousand and thirteen this area was put into a historic district so we have a pleasant street historic district that i'm sure you're familiar with and runs along the length the presence tree route sixty with many houses a great great into reflecting the styles the seven hundred eighty century architecture and we have the common street historic district which is west know and that includes the belmont lines the stone building there and also what wellington station is which is across the street from there on that corner that's the common street historic district  wellington at the marriage first son charles all over the wellington gentleman married i know we're girl so we see how and under what here being married to the wellington under so that's an important connection and then we see again how women as a grandmother and she has her grandchildren there and then we have underwood wellington cousins and then finally then we get to grace so grace daughter of j howard and my guilt we've met previously graduate from one high school ninety one vassar college she went on to study there and i think it was so that they wanted to keep her there to but she had three children one of them being lydia so lydia has children brothers clement hardy you met hardy in the previous picture and the draft picture and any she's clement and then we have  so that's a great way to end just to end the slide part of it and i think if anyone has questions her money has any other story she wants to tell us about but it's been fun to just take a look through  these this family has made to the year so many many generations and continue to make when they're acting the way they protect the way and they care for these their active intel governments their own social and civic organizations i mean even now you can't hold any doubt she's she's active in the historic district commission the historical society she's a member of the women's club probably the legal women voters i think it's just incredible the thing the care that they vietnam veteran this is on the committee so we have gotten together and we have decided to work with the bigger group the big group is the one that we picked to cite the site that we picked right and the flag pole is there and we decided that we wanted to expand that site and make it a site of bailable to too tall bell one veterans for all was starting with the civil war and  one of the important parts of this project is to make it interactive and to to to make it so that the students can go down there and so what we're going to have is each of the stones will help little microsoft and you'll be able to do it with your i phone or whatever click on the marker and go to a website that website and tie you into everything that we know  redoing the flagpole replacing the flagpole let's gaping it putting the stones in we're selling we have to raise about two hundred fifty thousand dollars out of the complete project and we're selling bricks and  that thank you for having us in here to talk about this project and so i just mentioned most importantly the great group of people and we're looking for your input as we move forward  incredible how much for example of somebody who is over there you know they came home safely and through whatever committed suicide oh or whatever two or three months after they returned home is that is that you know despite the day you die this is all for the war so it's very very complicated so what we decided to do is we're going to have the the the the individual stocks to be something like each individual story we're doing interviews we're project maybe other places there are lots of organizations that make plans available for projects like this that we are soliciting those organizations as well we're looking to work with the towns to put some of the businesses in town for significant contribution