A Short History of Our School
by Gregory Livingston
Bigelow Middle School Music Teacher from 1993 to 2018
Have you ever wondered about the name of our school? We have all seen the name "Bigelow" around Newton, but where did it come from? Well, our school was named after Dr. Henry Bigelow, who was the first superintendent of schools in Newton. Here is the story of our school.
Henry Bigelow was born in Worcester, MA, on May 20, 1817. He graduated from Harvard in 1836, practiced medicine in Maine for a short while, then moved to a large house on Washington Street in Newton Corner. In 1895, that house was moved to Bigelow Terrace. It still stands today, a short walk from the Bertucci’s Restaurant.
Dr. Bigelow had no children of his own, but he was very interested in the education of Newton's children. At the time, there were several wooden elementary school buildings and one high school for all of Newton, and going to the high school was voluntary! He was appointed Newton's first superintendent of schools in 1859. Dr. Bigelow brought Latin and Greek into the high school curriculum, and lengthened the school year to 40 weeks.
He also had a major role in the creation of the Newton Cemetery. Dr. Bigelow died on January 21, 1866, and his grave is in the Newton Cemetery. We can also thank him for his role in establishing the Newton Cemetery.
Now that we've met Dr. Bigelow, let's have a look at our school and its history.
The first school to be named after Henry Bigelow was located on Vernon Street, just about where the present school is now and dates back earlier than 1865. In 1880 there were 345 students in grades 4-9.
Classes began at 9 a.m. and at 11:30 a.m. everyone went home for lunch, then came back from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Everyone lived within walking distance and could hear the bell ring, calling everyone back. There were seven classrooms and seven teachers for the whole school.
As the student population grew, a new building was needed. While it was being built, the students traveled by streetcar to classes at the Horace Mann School–not the present day school, but the original building) on Page Road in Newtonville, not far from where the Star Market is now. The Bigelow Grammar School, as it was called, opened in September 1900. It was located on the corner of Arlington Street and Park Street (where the parking lot is now) and the front door faced the entrance to Burr Park.
The school had three floors and a basement. In the basement were the furnace and all the bathrooms for the whole school. The first floor had six classrooms and the office, and the second floor had six classrooms and the library. Each classroom was designed to hold 48 students who stayed in the same room with the same teacher all day long. The third floor was a large, open assembly hall with a stage at one end.
There were about 400 students from grades 3 through 9 attended the Bigelow Grammar School. The day began at 8:30 a.m. and at 11:30 a.m. everyone went home for lunch. They all returned at 1 p.m. and stayed in class until 4 p.m., when the day ended and everyone went home. Kids could either walk to school or take the streetcar.
A new wing was added in 1930, and a cafeteria was added in 1932, so students could eat lunch at school. They walked to and from school and had a recess period of 30 minutes each day.
The student population of each school was growing. The Lincoln School and the Eliot School, both on Pearl Street, were torn down; in 1939, the brand new Lincoln-Eliot School was built, halfway between the two original buildings.
By 1963 there was discussion about replacing the school with a modern building, and plans were drawn up in 1967. The new building was built right next to the old one, and the original was torn down and that space became the parking lot that we have today. The new Bigelow Junior High School opened in the fall of 1968.
Image from Jackson Homestead
A 4th grade class at Bigelow
Image from Jackson Homestead
From the Jackson Homestead
From the Jackson Homestead
The 8th grade graduation photo of Edith Richmond Fisher, who lived from 1891 to 1985. She was in the Class of 1904
From the Jackson Homestead
From the Jackson Homestead
From the Jackson Homestead
The 9th grade graduating class of 1891, with Principal Sawin. This photo was taken in the yard of 92 Franklin Street.
In 1966, the Newton schools voted to join the METCO program. METCO stands for Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, and its goal was to eliminate racial imbalance in our schools. In the very beginning, there were only 50 METCO students in grades 3-6 in just seven of the Newton schools, and there are now over 430 students in all of the Newton Schools.
Newton went through a period of low student enrollment in the 1980s. At that time, there were five junior high schools in grades 7-9; Bigelow, Day, Meadowbrook, Weeks, and Warren. The first to close was Warren Junior High, and it is now an apartment building in West Newton. Weeks Junior High, in Newton Centre, became senior citizens housing, then Bigelow Junior High closed in 1985 and the building was used for office space for the City of Newton, and was also used by various community groups. Boston Ballet used the auditorium for its rehearsals.
When Weeks Junior High closed in 1981, the school merged with Meadowbrook Junior High and the name was changed to Brown Junior High, in honor of Charles E. Brown, a former superintendent of schools. Now only Day Junior High and Brown Junior High were open.
But in a few short years the student enrollment went up again, and Bigelow was reopened in September 1993. At the same time Newton switched to a middle school model; the 6th grades were moved to the middle schools and the 9th grades were moved to the high schools. Four years later, Newton needed another middle school. It was too expensive to build a brand new one, so the former Oak Hill Elementary School (which had closed in the 1980s and was being used by a private religious school) was reopened as Oak Hill Middle School in September 1997.