The Future of Maynard

“As the mill goes, so goes Maynard.” That was a truism for over one hundred years, until the woolen mill cratered in 1950. Then true again 1953 to 1993 when the complex – more than one million square feet of space – was renting to office and industry needs of myriad businesses, in time all gradually displaced by Digital Equipment Company. DEC bought the complex in 1974, then emptied it in 1993 as part of a massive downsizing before selling itself to Compaq. Then true once more after Wellesley Management took over in 1998, and with a generous tax break from the Town of Maynard, managed to fill the complex again. The recession that began in 2008, coinciding as it did with the winding down of the tax break, crushed Wellesley Management, leading to a sale to Mill & Main at fire sale prices in 2015. Repopulation was stalled by COVID-19, so we find ourselves well into 2022 with a partially filled complex of buildings that date to being 103 to 163 years old.   

Two generations ago, Maynard was a live, work, shop, play and pray community, but no more. Most working people commute, shop on line, play video games ditto, and if they pray, do so at a house of worship that has its own parking lot. The twenty-first century has seen the closing of the Episcopal, Methodist, Congregational and Evangelical churches. Candlepin bowling lanes and pool halls are no more.

“As the mill goes, so goes Maynard” is no longer true. Despite the partially rented status of the mill complex, the population of Maynard is at an all-time high, having increased by ten percent between the 2010 census and the present. New housing – owned and rented – is being squeezed in everywhere, the construction at 129 Parker Street added huge amounts of commercial space, and the cost of housing is at an all-time high. New houses on Wisteria Lane, with two-car garages, are selling for more than $800,000. If ever the mill complex fill again – be it some combination of office, industry, retail, housing (?), community college (??) or mid-sized hotel (?!?) – Maynard has moved on from being wholly dependent. According to the 2020 federal census, residents report an average work commute time of 30 minutes. Maynard, to some degree, has become JABS (just another bedroom suburb).

Can Maynard remain ‘special’ against a gentrification trend? The existing infrastructure of the downtown triangle lends itself to Maynard staying host to non-chain shops, restaurants, bars and live entertainment venues. This envisions downtown Maynard being a destination for residents and people from neighboring towns. Think a smaller Waltham or a lower rent Concord. Doing so will require the Town of Maynard to continue to be friendly to commercial development. Being designated by the state as having a “Cultural District” helps, as would a rescue of ArtSpace, but there has to be fostering of live cultural events. Diversity contributes to urban vitality, but Maynard is lagging on affordable housing.

David Mark in ONLY IN MAYNARD shirt

One unforeseen consequence of the COVID pandemic is that there appears to be a trend away from needing to be physically at a place of work five days a week. This plays in Maynard’s favor, as commuting from Maynard – at significant distance from I-95, I-495, Route 2 and the train station – made commuting a bit of a struggle. The other side of the coin is easy access to attractive recreational opportunities such as offered by the Assabet River Rail Trail, the Assabet River National Wildlife Reserve, town-managed woodland trails and parks, plus small boat recreational opportunities on the Assabet River.

It will all take work, but who knows? Perhaps some day Maynard will be such a vibrant cultural nexus that people will say “As Maynard goes, so goes the mill.”

With the end of Beacon-Villager as a printed newspaper, this is Mark’s last column. He thanks the paper and Maynard for given him a forum for twelve years, 425 columns and three books.

Maynard's Poor Farm

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, distinctions were made in the definitions for hobos, tramps and bums. “Hobo”, may derive its roots from homeward bound, in reference to a time after the Civil War, when discharged soldiers hopped on trains in order to get home. Two generations later, the term was popular again during the Great Depression, to describe men again hopping trains, traveling from place to place looking for work, either steady or seasonal. A “tramp”, on the other hand, was someone who traveled from place to place but did not seek regular work. Tramps depended on the kindness of strangers or other means of support besides gainful employment. The term probably comes from the idea of tramping from place to place. Lastly, a “bum” does not travel and does not seek work, although earlier in life may have held a steady job. A bum is often an alcoholic. The term was probably taken from the German slang word ‘bummler’, meaning loafer.

The song, “Big Rock Candy Mountains,” dates to the hobo era. It describes a lush outdoor life for the unemployed, with perfect weather, empty boxcars, food aplenty, cigarette trees and streams of whiskey. Furthermore, “There ain't no short-handled shovels, No axes, saws nor picks, I'm goin' to stay, Where you sleep all day, Where they hung the jerk, That invented work, In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.” Versions later recorded for children substituted candy canes and lemonade for the cigarettes and whiskey.

Long before there were state or federal programs to support the poor and infirm, responsibilities fell on families and towns. A person or family appearing in town would be “warned off,” i.e., made to leave if they had no proof of financial support, such as a job or relatives to take them in. If an existing resident came into hard times, the town would arrange to pay for that person to be taken into someone’s household via auction at town meeting – lowest bid winning.

The "William Smith" house was built circa 1780, added to over the 
years. In 1892 it was purchased by the Town of Maynard to serve 
as housing for resident and transient poor. Closed 1920. Image
courtesy of Maynard Historical Society.

In time, towns established a workhouse, poorhouse or poor farm, with a paid resident manager. In 1891, the Town of Maynard rented a building owned by Lorenzo Maynard to function as a poorhouse. Mr. and Mrs. Alonzo Knapp were hired for $325 for the year to manage the house and farmland, and to put up transient hobos and tramps. The next year the town purchased the “William Smith” house at 206-208 Great Road as a poor farm. The Smith family were extensive land-owners in what later became Maynard, including land sold to Amory Maynard for the construction of the mill and mill pond. Poor Farm residents and transients (the aforementioned hobos and tramps) were expected to work according to their ability, which included working the farm fields on the other side of Great Road, that in 1928, was transferred to the school department “for athletic and playground purpose,” in time becoming Alumni Field.

Transients were expected to report to the police station before evening. They were taken to the Poor Farm where they got a meal of herring and crackers, and a bed for the night. Those caught ‘sleeping rough’ were arrested and spent the night in a jail cell without a meal. This system was needed to reduce the numbers of non-resident men wandering about town evenings and nights, scaring homeowners by knocking on doors and asking for food and permission to sleep in a barn or shed. The number of transients spending nights in Maynard rose and fell with the national economy, suggesting that men were roaming in search of work after having lost their regular jobs. In good years the counts for the year were in range of 100-200 men, but in bad times, often exceeded 1,000. In return for a meager meal, access to a washroom and an outhouse, plus a roof over their heads for the night, the men were expected to cut firewood for the schools.   

By 1910, Maynard’s Poor Farm had steam heat, electric lights and a telephone. Mr. and Mrs. Dunham, the managers, received a salary of $500 a year. The Poor Farm was closed in 1920. The few remaining residents were transferred to the Hudson Poor Farm. The building became a rental property, finally sold off in 1947.

In time, state and federal agencies and programs took on care of the institutionalized, the indigent, the mentally ill, the homeless, with varying degrees of successes and failures. One Stow-related anecdote: March 1911, Phineas Feather, former superintendent of the Gleasondale Mills, attempted to murder Alfred Gleason, mill owner. Feather and Robert Bevis were injured in the struggle for Feather’s two guns; Gleason was unharmed. Feather was remanded to the Bridgewater Hospital for the Criminally Insane, an institution under supervision of the wonderfully named Massachusetts State Board of Health, Charity and Lunacy. He was released in 1915.

Maynard Rod & Gun Club

Trout fising derby (1960) (courtesy of Maynard Historical Society) 

After several short-lived starts,  April 15, 1915, saw the beginnings of what became, in time, the Maynard Rod and Gun Club. Growth was rapid. The first annual banquet, held at the Masonic Hall on January 21, 1921, drew a crowd of 90 members and guests. During the early years, the Club purchased and used land near White Pond, in Hudson. This era ended after the U.S. Army has seized adjacent land in 1942 for the creation of a munitions complex, and then forbade shooting events on the too-near Club grounds.

As World War II drew to a close, the Maynard Gun Club leased its clubhouse to the Army, and then turned its eye to acquiring land in Maynard. Over years, several purchases were made, cumulating in 93 acres of club-owned property, about half in Maynard and half in Sudbury. For a while, the Club made do with renting space for meetings, but in late 1948, committed to constructing a clubhouse on the grounds. Plans were drawn in 1949, construction followed, and on May 21, 1950, the Maynard Rod & Gun Club held a Grand Opening of the clubhouse and grounds, soon followed by building a dam on the Second Division Brook, so as to create a fish pond.

(courtesy of the Maynard Historical Society) 

Weekend mornings, if it is quiet enough (no lawnmowers or leaf blowers), one can hear the dulled bang of shotguns from club members and guests shooting at clay targets flung into the air be spring-powered devices. The sound can be disconcerting to new residents.

Clay targets are also referred to as clay pigeons. Their use began to replace live pigeon shooting around 1875. In the United Kingdom, live-bird shooting competitions were made illegal in 1921, but a target may still be called a "bird", a hit, a "kill", a missed target, a "bird away", and the machine which powers the targets is still known as a "trap". In “trap shooting”, the targets are launched singly in a direction generally away from the shooter. In “skeet shooting”, targets are launched across the shooter’s field of view from either side, either singly or two at once.

Present-day, the Club offers a complete set of pistol, rifle, trap and skeet ranges for members to hone their skills, an archery range, and a trout-stocked pond. Access is via Old Mill Road, off of Waltham Street. The main lodge houses the member’s lounge, a function hall and an indoor pistol range. The Club is in the process of renovating the indoor range. There is also an open pavilion first built in 1984, refurbished in 1996. Indoor and outdoor spaces often hosts weddings. An annual fishing derby – suspended in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic – is expected to take place this May, and be open to the public. In past years, children have much-enjoyed this opportunity.  

Some of the club’s land on the east side is leased to Boston Paintball, which has several fields for paintball events and competitions. Fields include building-to-building, an outdoor field with terrain and structures, and competition fields that comply with National Xball League specifications. Equipment can be rented or bring-your-own. Access to this is via Sudbury’s Powder Mill Road.

For a not directly related piece of history, years ago the Maynard Rod and Gun Club was host to an annual event that brought hundreds of motorcycle riders. Memories are of more than an hour of rumbling roar as bikes were guided west on Summer Street, down Nason Street, then east on Main Street, to finally finish at RGC for an afternoon of family picnic and entertainment. Given such a visually striking event, it’s a glaring omission that the Maynard Historical Society has no photographs. Finding a written history was also difficult. The only documents found so far are a 2011 write-up in the Somerville newspaper, describing the “7th Annual Massachusetts Motorcycle Ride for Recovery” as an all-day event, with a police-escorted, road-closed ride to Maynard, also a copy of a 2013 flyer for the “9th Annual Bob Herne Motorcycle Ride for Recovery” culminating in Maynard as a family picnic, with musical entertainment provided by James Montgomery Band, with guitarist Jon Butcher. This was put on by the Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery.

  

The End of a Newspaper (Maynard, MA)

Beacon-Villager ends print, goes digital only, after May 5, 2022

A few years back, I stepped out our front door to get the Sunday New York Times, which is delivered in a blue plastic bag. Across the street was my neighbor and his young son. The boy pointed to what I was about to pick up, and asked "What's that?" 

His father answered "Mr. Mark gets a newspaper delivered to his house every morning. It's inside the bag."

Then, the boy asked, "What's a newspaper?"

And now, this announcement: “The Beacon-Villager will cease publishing a print newspaper and will instead exclusively offer news online at www.wickedlocal.com/beaconvillager, on social media, via digital newsletters and other platforms. The final print edition of The Beacon Villager will be May 5, 2022.” Thus ends 135 years of Maynard having a print newspaper. The transition is not unique. Weekly newspapers of some neighboring towns (Acton/Boxborough, Sudbury, Chelmsford/Westford) will also cease. The Concord Journal and Lexington Minuteman will remain in print – as least for now.

These were GateHouse Media/Gannett Co. decisions. Across the country, GateHouse owned more than 100 daily newspapers, including MetroWest Daily News, and hundreds of weekly town newspapers.  In November 2019, GateHouse acquired Gannett, making it the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, and in the process assumed the Gannett name. Gannett is a publicly traded company, but it is managed by Fortress Investment Group, which in turn is owned by the Japanese-based, international conglomerate, Softbank.

There have been trends that foretold the end of print. The Beacon-Villager, serving Maynard and Stow is a weekly. It shows up Thursdays, home delivery and in stores. Starting in December 2021 it had shrunk to 12 pages, down from 16, but in recent past had been 24 pages. Here and across the nation, the demise of print advertising tore the financial hearts out of newspapers. Subscriptions to digital-only versions have not replaced lost revenue. According to an article in the Washington Post, more than 2,200 local newspapers have closed in the past 15 years, creating “news deserts” for some regions. Not surprising consequences from a decline in local news coverage are declines in civic engagement of citizens, less competition for local office and lower voter turnout for local elections.

Maynard’s history of having its own weekly newspaper dates back 135 years. “The Enterprise Weekly” later renamed to “Maynard Enterprise,” started print in 1888. Individual copies were three cents, a year’s subscription $1.50. Advertisements are interesting reading: Distasio’s Market offered beef at 15-25¢ per pound. Lerer’s Clothing Store had men’s shoes for $2 and suits for $10-20. An oak dining room table with six chairs for only $25. Ford Motor Company offered car models starting at $700. To put all this into perspective, factory pay was less than two dollars a day. The Enterprise ceased publication in 1970.

“The Maynard News,” a weekly published in Hudson, serviced the towns of Maynard, Hudson, South Acton, Stow and Concord Junction (West Concord). It started in 1899, ceased publication in 1943. What is surprising is how little actual “news” was in the paper. Week after week, the pages were filled with announcement-type items, such as a wrestling match at the Finnish Hall, a lecture on the “White Slave Trade,” engagement announcements and school concerts. Apparently, the main function of the newspapers of a century ago appears to have been akin to what we now think of social media - personal items people wanted to share with the community. Most of the old issues exist as bound folios at the Maynard Historical Society and on microfilm at the Maynard Public Library.

“The Beacon” was the forerunner of the Beacon-Villager. It launched in 1945. In the summer of 1953, the Beacon Publishing Company was the first business to move into Maynard’s mill after the conversion from woolen factory to rentable office and industry space. As “The Beacon” and later “The Assabet Valley Beacon” it served several towns. In time this evolved to papers for each town, including Acton’s “Beacon,” the “Concord Free Press” and the “Sudbury Citizen.”

How Wickedlocal digital will work for Maynard and Stow is not entirely clear. Until now, the digital version of the Beacon-Villager has been free. Going forward, not clear if part of the content will continue to be free and part by paid subscription, or all within paid. There appears to be an introductory subscription offer of $1 for the initial six months, then $7.99 per month thereafter. The digital appearance may emulate the layout of a printed paper.

This column was not published in the Beacon-Villager.