Hannah Williams
Playground Is Open -- Enjoy!

History -- Textbook

From "The Puritan Village Evolves" by Helen Fitch Emery (1981) about the creation of the playground and its namesake.

From pages 302-303 in a passage about the early 1900s:

"In this era there were others who used their private resources to benefit the town. Around 1910 there was a movement spearheaded by a private Park and Playground Association to set aside land for play areas for children. Edmund Sears took the lead in acquiring land for a large playground in Wayland Center. No sooner did the wealthy Edwin Farnham Greene become a property owner in Wayland than Sears persuaded him to help buy in 1910 thirty-three acres of land behind the Odd Fellows for use as a park and playground area. Edmund Sears also was a leader in acquiring land in the center of Wayland Village to beautify the area and make room for expansion of public facilities in the future. In 1912 Noble Griffin had given land on Main Street from the Cochituate School to Lyons Corner for skating and this was managed by the Playground Association. In 1919 the four-acre Griffin ballfield was bought by the town. Then in 1920 Arthur Williams, who had been very successful in business after leaving Wayland in 1908, along with his brothers, bought store properties on the east side of Main Street and created a young children's playground, naming it for their mother, Hannah Williams. This property was privately owned and managed by local trustees until bought by the town in 1966."

Also in the Puritan Village, in the section on "Other Shoe Firms in the 1890s" is some background on the Williams family here. Beginning on page 251:

"A small but increasingly profitable shoe company was the Williams Shoe Company. From the late 1880s Chester B. Williams, from the Taunton area, had been making shoe accessories in Cochituate.... In 1897 Chester ... purchased Charles W. Dean's old factory on Maple Street and moved it one hundred feet to the east side of Winter Street. The building was the house the box toe company and a shoe manufacturing firm, the Williams Shoe Company in which Chester participated at first with his brothers Arthur and Ernest who were later to carry on the shoe business. ... By 1906, the company, then known as the Arthur A. Williams Shoe Company was putting on an addition. ... At 3 am on March 13, 1908, a spectacular fire destroyed this factory. Much to the dismay of Cochituate shoe workers, the owner decided not to rebuild or to resume business in Cochituate but to take advantage of an opportunity to move to a much larger plant in Holliston. (It) was very successful.

At one time or another five of the Williams brothers of a family of thirteen children of James F. and Hannah J. Williams lived and did business in Cochituate. Chester B. Williams was a leader of men and the most prominent. In 1900 he served as state senator from the district which included Wayland. In 1905, well into adult life, he graduated from Boston University and took bar examinations to become a lawyer. In 1910 he was a county commissioner."

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1. We continue to accept donations for the long-term maintenance of the play structure -- make checks payable to Friends of the Hannah Williams Playground; mail to 26 Garden Path, Wayland, MA 01778.
2. Buy a T-shirt -- both long-sleeve and short-sleeve now available

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