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Column: Norwell says ‘yes’ to the trolley, but ‘no’ to the train
By Sam Olson
Fri Aug 03, 2007, 04:28 PM EDT
Norwell -Possibly nothing opened up Norwell more to additional social, educational and employment opportunities at the turn of the century than did the trolley.
But despite “mixed signals” from time to time, the prospect of a train passing through the town never materialized. The Hanover Branch of the Old Colony division of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad remained a branch.
June 22, 1896, was a gala day in Norwell with the opening of the Hanover Street Railway. Flags and bunting decorated the four open and two closed cars, each of which contained 10 reversible seats. The line connected with a Rockland and Abington Company at Union Street in Rockland.
The original intent was for the line to operate east on Webster Street — Route 123 — to Assinippi Corner.
The directors, however, petitioned the Norwell and Hanover Selectmen to allow them to build from Mann’s Comer in North Hanover and then proceed north on Main Street in Hanover and down High Street in Norwell, to Washington Street to Queen Anne’s Comer, where it would connect with the Hingham line.
Thus, the Hanover Street Railway would operate over a six‑mile route.
The line was capitalized at $10,000 with shares selling at $100 each. There were two turnabouts built, one on Webster Street near Mann’s Comer and the other just beyond Assinippi Corner near the Norwell line.
A car barn with a capacity for eight cars, a superintendent’s office and an employee’s room would be built opposite the Grove on High Street.
The construction took only two months from start to finish with Italian immigrant workers employed to lay the tracks, each of which was 10 feet long weighing over 1,000 pounds each.
Electricity for the overhead wires was purchased from an Abington power company.
Later, plans were formulated to extend the line down Main Street through Norwell Center and on to Scituate Harbor and Cohasset.
It was thought that Norwell with its cheap land and stately homes might become a streetcar suburb such as those growing up around Boston and other cities.
But a combination of factors such as neighborhood opposition and management concerns as to whether the extension would pay thwarted the project. For many of the same reasons, the section of Washington Street from Oak Street to Assinippi Corner was never built.
An early schedule for the line, later absorbed by the Bay State Company, called for the first car to leave Queen Anne’s Comer for Rockland at 5:30 a.m. and from Assinippi at 6:35 p.m. The last car from Rockland would leave at 10 p.m. Fare for the whole route cost five cents with another 10 cents, allowing one to ride on the Hingham line to Nantasket.
On Labor Day weekend in 1897, the Rockland Standard reported that the cars were always full leaving for Nantasket every 15 minutes.
The Standard also reported that in one summertime week, Ridge Hill Grove was the site for outings for the Union Glee Club of Rockland, the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Abington, the Odd Fellows, the South Hingham firemen and a baseball game between the Emerson Shoe Factory of Rockland and Winthrop’s of Abington. The electrics allowed everyone to be on the move.
But the heyday of the electrics locally was brief with the greater use of automobiles and jitney buses for short trips. Gradually, schedules were pared down and in 1917, the Bay State Company voted to discontinue the portion of the line from Mann’s Corner to Assinippi.
There was an outcry of protest both from local riders and the businessmen of Rockland. Representatives from both groups brought their protests before the Public Service Commission. The line was granted a “stay,” but the inevitable end came on Dec. 9, 1920.
Early in the second decade of the 20th century, it appeared highly probable that Norwell would get train service. Ostensibly at any rate, it appeared that most of Norwell’s business and civic leaders were in favor.
A May 12,1912, article in the Rockland Standard told of a meeting having been held regarding extending the Hanover Branch from Hanover four corners across country to Greenbush, which would put Rockland on the main line.
Present at the Boston meeting, which was held in the office of Timothy Byrnes, vice president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, were Horace Fogg and Ernest Sparrell, representing a committee appointed by Norwell at a recent Town Meeting.
Editorially, the Standard opined that the people of Norwell want such a line and will do almost anything to get it.
Later in the year, when the proposed route was outlined, it was obvious that trouble was brewing. The route would cut through the estate of the wealthy Sylvester family and also the poultry farms of Henry Tolman and Henry Smith, cutting them in two.
Riverdale Farm, owned by Henry A. Turner and sons, would be divided, the track coming between the house and the barn.
Professor Solon Bailey and his brother Dr. M.H. Bailey, both of Harvard, had two summer places on the banks of the North River. The proposed railroad would come between the two houses.
Almost a year later, on April 25, 1913, the Standard reported that Horace Fogg had received a letter from railroad president Mellen saying, “The present business outlook is such (there was a countrywide recession occurring at the time), that we do not feel we can justify, the expenditure of capital.”
Thus, Norwell remained an economic “backwater” through two world wars and a major depression in the eyes of many observers.
With improved roads, trucks began carrying more and more freight, and most residents felt that the bucolic solitude that remained in Norwell was an adequate payoff for not having a railroad.
Helen Fogg, daughter of Horace Fogg, put the onus of not having a railroad squarely on the shoulders of her influential father. Horace, a graduate of Harvard and scion of one of Norwell’s most prestigious families, followed both his grandfather and father as treasurer of the South Scituate Savings Bank.
He also served as town treasurer and treasurer of Plymouth County. In 1907, he was one of the founders of the Rockland Trust Company and later became its president. In 1930, as president of the Marshfield Horticultural and Agricultural Society, he was on the bandstand introducing the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts when he collapsed and died.
Over the years, he was responsible for bringing many notable political figures, such as Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., to Norwell on various ceremonial occasions.
Norwell’s Ruth Chipman Bailey, in her biography of Helen Fogg, “Where in the World?,” quoted Helen concerning Norwell’s projected railroad.
It is obvious from her remarks that she felt strongly, not necessarily approvingly, that her father played a commanding role in keeping the railroad at bay: “My father knew about the progress of mankind – but the railroad did not figure into his scheme of advance.
He threw his energy and influence into blocking the cockeyed plan which would have run tracks through lovely stretches of woodland with danger from flying sparks, and would have brought little factories making tacks or shoes in its wake.
But most of all, it would have brought outsiders, foreigners, into our midst and with them would certainly come the devil and booze and heaven knew what other nameless evils.
