Walnut Tree Hill was originally upland pasture for residents of Charlestown in the seventeenth century and was densely wooded. That part of the hill on which the first College buildings were constructed was part of a large area annexed by the village of Medford in 1754. Tradition has it that the hill was stripped of many of its trees for firewood by Hessian soldiers captured as an aftermath of the Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolution and temporarily stationed in the area northwest of Boston until they could be transported overseas. The remaining trees were apparently cut down by Medford residents for firewood, or possibly for the shipbuilding business that flourished in the early nineteenth century along the Mystic River, which flows not far from the campus.

The southerly part of what later was to become "College Hill" and still later simply "the Hill" was transferred from Charlestown to Somerville in 1842. Charles Tufts, the fifth generation of his family in the Boston area, inherited several hundred acres of Medford and Somerville land and added to a rather princely domain by numerous purchases. It was from this large acreage that he donated

No well-defined road to the campus had yet been laid out. Those who had occasion to come to the College reached it "by crossing the fields by any route that suited the fancy of the visitor." For over a year after the College opened, and before a house was built for him on campus, President Ballou had to tramp some four miles each day to and from his home on Washington Street in Medford, through pastures, woodlands, and orchards. For many years the College, located as it was on the outermost fringes of the Boston area, was considered isolated and in fact inaccessible. However, there was a main link with the city via the (then) Boston and Lowell Railroad. In the 1850's and 1860's trains terminating in Woburn stopped at what was described as "the College Station." In 1860-61, the institution received the post-office designation of College Hill, Medford, and another link was forged with the outside world.

For several years faculty, students, and Medford townsfolk undertook to beautify the barren hilltop by planting trees of all kinds. Pleas for gifts of trees were made in Universalist newspapers, and in the spring of 1858 the campus could boast 300 such plantings. However, the tree-planting project seemed never ending because of the constant addition of land to the original twenty acres.

The exterior of the College Edifice presented a more imposing appearance than its surroundings. It was designed in what was

The Trustees had felt from the beginning that the College should be as residential in character as location and finances would permit. The public was even invited, via newspaper advertisements, to purchase land from the College on which to build living accommodations for students. In the spring of 1855 the College itself set about remedying this deficiency. The result was a three-story brick structure designated for a time merely as "Building A" but known from completion in 1856 until 1872 as "West Hall." The erection in the latter year of another dormitory, also christened "West Hall," necessitated another name for the older building. It remained "Middle Hall" until 1886, when the simple designation "Library" was chiseled over the entrance. The name "Packard Hall," familiar to later generations, was attached to the building in 1910 as a belated gesture toward Sylvanus Packard, the benefactor of half a century before.

The uses to which this second College building were put were

The third academic structure to appear on the Hill was a wooden building erected in 1857 and intended also as a dormitory. The College officers gave this addition to the campus the rather unimaginative designation "Building B." Unlike the first two, it never received a name. For three years it served its original purpose and then became a dwelling for two of the original faculty. Even another dormitory (East Hall), completed for use during the academic year 1860-61, failed to provide adequate student accommodations for long. East Hall was originally a rather grim-looking

"Building B" was removed from the top of the Hill in 1870 and relocated on what became known as "Professors Row" paralleling the south side of the hilltop. After serving as a faculty residence for years, the structure became the western half of Richardson House, a girls' dormitory. On the original site of "Building B" was constructed the largest, most ornate, and most luxurious dormitory on the campus up to that time - West Hall. This structure, completed in 1872 with four stories and a basement, and replete with Gothic-type windows, towers, cupolas, ironwork roof

Less than ten years after the College opened, the Trustees were approached by officials of Charlestown who wanted to construct a water storage facility on the highest point of the Hill.[5]  The result was a brick and stone reservoir with four and one-half acres of water surface over twenty feet deep, built between 1862 and 1864. Known to generations of Tufts students and alumni as the "Rez," and the scene of uncounted extracurricular activities, the facility was razed many years after it had ceased to serve its original purpose. The area became College property after World War II and was filled in to provide additional space for the growing campus. Many of the bricks were used to construct the Bray Mechanical Laboratory in 1946. The late Boston Post mistakenly announced that the "Rez" had been removed in order to build homes for Tufts faculty. Instead, the fringes of the old reservoir site became locations for three men's dormitories. The College long drew its water supply from the Rez, a privilege obtained in exchange for rights-of-way granted by the College for access roads and the laying of water pipes. Fragments of the old pipes were disinterred when the foundations were dug for the Lincoln Filene Center in 1962-63.

Those who live in an era of urban congestion and mechanization may find it difficult to realize how rural, and even pastoral, a college could be in the nineteenth century. From its opening until the late 1880's and early 1890's, both the College and its residential faculty engaged in extensive farming operations. Beginning in 1856, part of the pastureland which still comprised most of the Hill was let out at $60 per year. The College also operated its own farm for many years and raised a crop of hay so bountiful that the surplus that would not go into the barn then standing behind Middle (Packard) Hall was sold. As late as 1880 the Executive Committee of the Trustees reported that "a considerable portion of the college lands in Somerville has been cultivated . . . and four milch cows have been kept; the proceeds of the farm having been used, under the direction of the President, in the College boarding house, securing thereby board for students at a much cheaper rate."

The faculty were also allocated land for cultivation and grazing of cattle. For eight years one professor kept sufficient cows to furnish twenty quarts of milk a day to seven College families, and so expanded his agricultural activities that he had to hire student help and to rent a barn from another faculty member. The College owned several barns besides the one which remained behind Middle Hall until 1876, and as changes took place on the Hill the barns migrated from place to place or were torn down. Many of the old barns remaining on Professors Row were later converted into garages. The Trustees finally decided that farming operations, either by the College or by its faculty, were not in harmony with the dignity and purposes of the institution, and the last cow officially departed from the Tufts campus in 1893.

[1] Further details may be found in Richard B. Coolidge, "Walnut Tree Hill," Medford Historical Register, Vol. 39 (June 1936), pp. 21-36; there is an abbreviated version of this article in the Tuftonian, Vol. 2, n.s. (May 1942), pp. 164 ff.

[2] Stearns was one of the "Secret Six" who helped finance John Brown's famous raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. Stearns' home was for a period the Medford headquarters of a branch of the "underground railroad" organized before the Civil War to assist fugitive slaves from the South to escape. Many of those who were assisted by the Medford organization fled to Canada.

[3] Edwin B. Rollins, Class of 190l, Professor of Electrical Engineering Emeritus, devoted the better part of a decade following his retirement to compiling histories of the physical aspects of the Hill campus. In 1960 he generously donated to the University Archives eleven volumes of illustrated notebooks detailing the stories of every important building, gate, walk, and set of steps and containing other valuable historical information. The writer, and many users of these notebooks, have appreciated the great effort and care that went into their compilation.

[4] In this basement was born the only child known to have come into the world on the hilltop section of the campus. She was the daughter of Patrick Burns, a man-of-all-work around the campus for many years.

[5] The land was not at that time part of College property, but certain access rights had to be obtained from the College.