About 20 participants, including several high school students, were led on a tour of South Acton the afternoon of Saturday, November 9, by Acton resident Amy Cole. Cole, who has been leading tours of Acton Center sponsored by the 250 Committee, was assisted in the development of the tour by historians Anne Forbes of Iron Work Farm, stewards of the Jones Tavern and Faulkner Homestead, and Bill Klauer of the Acton Historical Society.
The first historical reference Cole provided the group, gathered in what is known as the Great Hall of the Faulkner House at 5 High Street, was an acknowledgement of the presence of Native peoples in the area for thousands of years. She mentioned the Pine Hawk site further down High Street, where hundreds of artifacts dating back more than 7000 years were recovered during an archaeological excavation that took place prior to the construction of the Middle Fort Pond Brook Wastewater Treatment Plant.
South Acton was once part of a land grant to Concord’s Major Simon Willard in the 1650s. The 1,000-acre land grant permission from the General Court on authority of the British Crown to expand, was worked to support the employees of the iron works, located in what is now known as West Concord. The land did not belong to the Crown, but these “acquisitions” were being made at the time through what Native peoples understood as memorializing an agreement to share the land, as had been done for thousands of years with other tribes.
The Faulkner House, so named for the six generations of the Faulkner family who lived there after purchasing the home and mills in 1742, was built in 1707 for Ephraim Jones. He, Samuel Jones and Jonathan Knight had purchased 600 acres of the Iron Work Farm in the fall of 1701 and established a partnership to develop and operate the mills at the north and south end of the dam on Fort Pond Brook.
A fulling mill (where cloth was cleaned) across the road from the Faulkner House was in operation until 1848, when it was converted into a plaster mill, where gypsum was ground as fertilizer. Cole described a number of other mills that operated on the site, including a sawmill and gristmill. That property was purchased by Henry Erickson in 1943, and the continuous business interest of the site since 1702 is being carried on today by the Erickson family with the feed store, Erickson Grain Mill.
Iron Work Farm, Inc. a 501(c)(3) non-profit, chartered in 1964, purchased the Faulkner Homestead at 5 High Street, and the Jones Tavern, built in 1732, at 128 Main Street. Both buildings are listed on the National Register Of Historic Places. The Faulkner name most familiar to Acton residents is likely that of Colonel Francis Faulkner. He commanded the South Acton militia, participated in the alarm of April 18, 1775, and also the writing of the Massachusetts Constitution, the oldest constitution in the country still in force. Col. Faulkner was elected Justice of the Peace, his home serving as Acton’s courthouse for a time, and he also served as Town Clerk for 35 years.
By the 1840s, Acton enjoyed 4 lines of rail service, including in South Acton. There was also a trolley line until 1923, when the expansion of automobile use made this mode of transit obsolete.
After crossing the bridge that travels over the railroad tracks, the group wandered a ways down School Street, so named for 3 district schoolhouses, built at numbers 86 and 54 between 1797 and the 1840s. The schoolhouse at #86 was moved to School Street Garage site after a larger school was built at #54, and the Acton Patriot, the town’s first paper, was produced here.
Following a stop at the South Acton Congregational Church that was built in 1892, Cole led the tour back up to Main Street and then across to Railroad Street, which the original front house facade of the Jones Tavern faces. The home was built in 1732 for Samuel Jones, Jr. and expanded in 1750 to become a general store and tavern, a likely spot for revolutionary talk among residents in the 1770s.
Pausing briefly at the Old Post Office built in 1852, the group next visited Exchange Hall back on School Street. This Italianate building, also on the National Register of Historic Places, was a precursor to the modern department store. Cole pointed out that Acton was a dancing town in the 1860s-1880s, and orchestras played for Acton residents and out-of-towners traveling in on trains specially scheduled to bring people for the entertainment and social dances up on the sprung dance floor. The Main and School intersection was originally known as Exchange Square and then as South Acton Square. It’s been known as Quimby Square since 1923, so-named by a Town Meeting vote after Howard L. Quimby, who died in service during World War 1.
Cole plans to hold additional South Acton Walking Tours. Keep an eye on the Acton 250 Committee page of the town website for upcoming dates and registration information.
Alissa Nicol is a community events beat reporter for the Acton Exchange.
