Town of Natick history

The first railroad line stretching west from Boston arrived in Natick in 1835.

He bought the pattern and, in 1858, opened the first baseball factory in the United States.

The project was completed in the fall of 1897.

In 1899 Harrison L. Whipple started making “Grandmother’s Mincemeat.”

Lewis E. Whipple, Harrison’s son, took over the business in 1908 and began expanding the range of products to include several kinds of fruit-based pie filling as well as preservatives, jams, syrups and more, all under the “Grandmother’s” brand.

In 1947, the last location was established on North Main Street.

In 1950 Brown School was built on a beautiful woodsy, 22-acre site.

H. P. Harwood & Sons prospered through three generations of family ownership, and closed in 1988.

The school was named and dedicated in honor of two West Natick men, Harold B. Brown and Herbert M. Brown, Jr., brothers who lost their lives in World War II. In the spring of 1989 the Brown School district was expanded due to the closing of several neighborhood schools.

The Whipple company was a popular Natick enterprise for more than a hundred years until it was sold in December 2003.

In 2012, Natick Center became one of fourteen initial communities to be designated as a Cultural District by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

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