A report on Newton, Massachusetts and Watertown, Massachusetts

Located at the first convenient Charles River crossing west of Boston, Newtowne was one of several towns (including Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, and Weymouth) founded by the 700 original Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under Governor John Winthrop.

The town comprised a much larger area than the present city, with various outlying parts becoming independent towns over the years: Cambridge Village (later Newtown and now Newton) in 1688, Cambridge Farms (now Lexington) in 1712 or 1713, and Little or South Cambridge (now Brighton) and Menotomy or West Cambridge (now Arlington) in 1807.

Waltham was first settled in 1634 as part of Watertown and was officially incorporated as a separate town in 1738.

Part of Newton annexed to Waltham.

It is bordered to the east by the town of Winthrop and the Boston Harbor Islands, to the northeast by the cities of Revere, Chelsea and Everett, to the north by the cities of Somerville and Cambridge, to the northwest by Watertown, to the west by the city of Newton and town of Brookline, to the southwest by the town of Dedham and small portions of Needham and Canton, and to the southeast by the town of Milton, and the city of Quincy.

Weston was originally part of the Watertown settlement of 1630, but until the end of the century, the land was used mainly for grazing cattle.

Interestingly, the extreme southeastern portion of Weston is within one mile of Riverside Station, a park-and-ride facility which serves the Green Line D branch in the neighboring city of Newton.

It is included in the Census Bureau's Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The county was created by the Massachusetts General Court on May 10, 1643, when it was ordered that "the whole plantation within this jurisdiction be divided into four shires." Middlesex initially contained Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Concord, Woburn, Medford, and Reading.

It is a four-lane highway from the New York state border through its interchange with I-84 at exit 78 in Sturbridge; it expands to six lanes beyond this interchange, and briefly travels with eight lanes from exit 127 in Newton through exit 133 by the Prudential Center in Boston.

Complicating the matter, Callahan's planned extension route was not universally accepted by others within the state, such as newly elected Governor John A. Volpe and Newton Mayor Donald Gibbs, who sought to construct a freeway that would follow a different route between the Borders of Newton, Waltham and Watertown along the Charles River and U.S. Route 20 and be constructed using the funds now being provided by the Federal Highway Administration.

Most of the watercraft activity occurs from the Museum of Science to the center of Watertown, above which is a dam.

At the time of European colonization in the early 1600s, settlements of Massachusett people were present along the river at Nonantum in current day Newton and Pigsgusset in current day Watertown.

In 1630, land comprising present-day Allston–Brighton and Newton was assigned to Watertown.

Watertown: 1630 (on land now part of Cambridge)

Newton: 1630