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Late 19th Century Massachusetts -- All Lots Properly Restricted . . . . (with Manuscript plan of a Cambridge Neighborhood on Verso)
Rare (possibly proof) example of this finely executed bird's eye view of the soon to be promoted residential neighborhood of "Norfolk Hills", immediately south of the Monatiquot River in Braintree, Massachusetts.
The view consists of 2 pieces, overlapping and perfectly joined, with a meticulous set of plans of a neighborhood centered on the Martin Luther King Jr. School in Cambridge Massachusetts.
Constructed as a combination map and view, Norfolk Hills was south of Commercial Street, between Brookside a the east, Stetson in the South and Bellevue Road in the west. The view offers a fine panoramic view of the area stretching out into Boston Harbor, with Boston at the top left, Hull at the top right and more or less centered on Quincy.
Norfolk Hills was promoted in 1898 and seems to have been sold out immediately and quite successfully. The view includes fine representations of prospective homes, public schools, and the public library in Weymouth.
The present example seems to be cobbled together from a larger sheet of paper previously used by a real estate agent to track activity in the area of Kinnaird Street, Putnam Avenue, Bay Street and Flagg Street. At the center of this area is Hews Street. As such, it is likely that this paper must have been provided to the printer by A.H. Hews, who is listed on this map as the owner of the property, or, perhaps less likely, is evidence of two different views being printed, later repurposed as hand drawn maps, then later rejoined as a single visual object.
We are not aware of the relationship between A.H. Hews and the colonial pottery company, A.H. Hews Company, which operated from Weston and later Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is credited with the invention of the stacking flower pot in 1888. It is indeed fascinating to see the re-use of the sheet of paper by the what we assume must have been the real estate promoter.
Rarity
We note only the examples at Harvard, mis-dated 1840 and Yale.
William Mason was a graduate of Andover college. He became a surveyor and civil engineer, and was at one time city engineer of Cambridge.
In early life he built many canals, either wholly or in part, notably the Erie canal, and those at Nashua, Lowell. Lawrence, etc.
His son, Mr. Charles A. Mason, continued the firm name of "W. A. Mason & Son."
![[ Boston Light ] A South West View of the Lighthouse. Situate at the Entrance of Boston Harbour.](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/97747.jpg)
