Around Town

Section of Path Along Charles River to be Closed This Week

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The following announcement was provided by the DCR:

Beginning on Tuesday, September 12, 2023, and continuing through Friday, September 15, 2023, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) will close sections of the sidewalk and main trail of the Watertown Riverfront Park Trail along Charles River Road (eastbound) between Perkins Hill and Paul Street in the City of Watertown from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. to accommodate resurfacing operations. Pedestrian detours will be clearly marked, and signage will be posted. 

Around Town

LETTER: What the Delta Saw: A (slightly) Irreverent and Rambling History of Watertown Square (Parts 1 & 2)

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Photo by Chuck Dickinson”Charles River, Watertown”

By Linda ScottWatertown Resident

Part 1: A River Runs Through It

I’m not going to lie to you folks. I started out intending to write a brief history of our Delta, and that’s where the trouble began. I got majorly sidetracked. So many different issues that played into this, and so many ways to approach it! But in the end, I decided that it all started with a river, the source of life for all creatures that inhabited what is now called “Watertown.”

Around Town

MWRA to Install Water Mains in Several Watertown Streets

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The following information was provided by the MWRS:

A Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) project will be commencing in your neighborhood starting on Monday, September 11, 2023, or shortly thereafter. This project will provide critical water system redundancy and operational flexibility in the event of water main pipe failures in your area. The project will clean and rehabilitate or replace 120+ year old water main pipes and replace two water meters.

Around Town

Our History: The War Horses of Watertown

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Union Market Stockyards on Arsenal Street with the Perkins tower in background (Courtesy of the Watertown Free Public Library)

The following story is part of a series on local history provided by the Historical Society of Watertown. It was written by Historical Society of Watertown board member Mary Spiers. Mary served as our Recording and Corresponding Secretary for several years. (Mary retired from the Board in January 2923 but is still a volunteer. She wrote this article for our January 2013 newsletter, “The Town Crier.”) Information concerning what appears to have been a significant political clash over using the stockyards for the export of war horses was gathered from the archives of the 1915-1916 Boston Globe and the Watertown Tribune-Enterprise.

Did you see the movie “War Horse”? Did it ever occur to you that there might be a connection between Watertown and those brave cavalry horses of World War I? Maud Hodges wrote in her manuscript “The Story of our Watertown” (1956), “After the start of WWI in 1914, thousands of little shaggy Canadian horses and mules filled the Union Market Stockyards, and snow whitened their backs in the open pens.” The horses were there at the arrangement of the Canadian and French governments. They would rest briefly at the yards between railroad car and steamship to St. Nazaire, France.