Some Newton Folklore -"Squash End 02465"

                              SQUASH END, MA 02465

      Newton is a city of villages; we have Auburndale, Riverside, Waban, The Lake, The Village, West Newton and other place names, the origin of which often involve a story and a bit of folklore.  In the 1920s a story circulated about “Squash End” a derogatory place name that time and village pride erased from the vocabulary of some Newton residents. 

      We know Newton as a city of many villages but In 1778 the general court divided Newton into the East and West parish by a line that ran through Newton from “Watertown to a point a little west of Echo Bridge…”  The position of the line became a point of contention among early Newton residents.  Seth Davis a prominent West Newton figure and another Newton resident attempted to fix the exact position of the boundary line separating the East and West parishes.  Their collaboration didn’t work too well, their project became contentious, and when the imaginary line approached the intersection of Pearl and Watertown St in Newton Corner it passed through the middle of a vegetable garden loaded with Squash plants.  The amateur surveyor who assisted Seth Davis in surveying the position of the line decided to designate Seth Davis’ side of the line and his neighborhood, West Newton, as the “Squash End”.  It was probably a village name that West Newton residents did not like repeated.  I talked with several longtime West Newton residents, some of whom had resided in the city for almost a hundred years and none could recall ever hearing any reference to the phrase “Squash End”.