October 15th - October 21st

October 20, 1931

October 18, 1869 - Opening of first library building
October 17, 1904 - Murder of Officer McMurray
October 20, 1931 - Harvard Church burns
October 15, 1949 - Larz Anderson Auto Museum opens

October 18, 1869
Opening of first library building
Brookline's first free-standing public library was opened on the site of the current library on Washington Street in Brookline Village. The new library replaced the one established 12 years earlier on the first floor of the 1844 Town Hall.

The 1869 Public Library of Brookline. The building behind it on the right was the town's high school from the 1850s to the 1890s.

The site was chosen over several others. It was also decided not to have the library included in a new town hall. (Brookline would construct a new town hall four years later.)

The 1869 building, with an 1888 addition, continued to serve as the library until the first part of the current library building opened in 1910. The older building was moved to the corner -- where the house is in the picture above and where the Civil War statue is today -- and continued to be used until the new library was completed.

These photos from the Public Library of Brookline show the 1869 library raised on railroad ties to facilitate its move to the corner of Washington and School Street. It was torn down when the new library was ready for use. 

October 17, 1904
Murder of Officer McMurray
Brookline police officer Joseph McMurray, responding to a report of a fight and a gunshot in a house on Boylston Street in Brookline Village, was fatally shot as he broke down the door of the apartment. The gunman, who was arrested by other officers, had shot and killed his wife.

McMurray, a Brookline police officer since 1893 who lived on Davis Avenue with his wife and six children, was the first Brookline police officer to be killed in the line of duty. (There would be one more in 1930.). He had won special recognition for rescuing a young boy who had fallen through the ice on Leverett Pond in 1894. In 1900, he had rescued another man from drowning: the same man, Henry Bowles, who killed him four years later.

Residents of the town raised $10,000 to support McMurray's widow, Mary, and her children. Boles, who had been fired from his job with the town's water department for drunkenness,  was sentenced to life in prison.

October 20, 193
Harvard Church burns
The Harvard Church, Brookline's 1873 Congregational edifice at the corner of Harvard and Marion Streets, was destroyed in a Tuesday evening fire. Firefighters are shown battling the blaze in the photo at the top of this post.

The tower of the church was the only part that could be saved. The tower had been rebuilt just a few years earlier due to defects discovered in the original structure.

These images show the Harvard Church as it originally looked and after it was rebuilt following the 1931 fire. The differences in the tower, the only part of the church that was preserved, reflect its rebuilding just a few years before the fire.

The church was rebuilt on the original foundation. It is now known as United Parish, the result of a 1970 coming together of three congregations: the Harvard Church (United Church of Christ, UCC), St Mark’s Methodist Church, and the Baptist Church in Brookline.

October 15, 1949
Larz Anderson Auto Museum opens
Brookline marked the official opening of the Antique Auto Museum (now the Larz Anderson Auto Museum) in the former carriage house of Larz and Isabel Anderson on Newton Street. 

On display, reported the Brookline Chronicle, were "twelve ancient autos and forty horse drawn vehicles" formerly owned by the Andersons, plus six "old-time cars" belonging to members of the Veteran Motor Car Club of America.

The opening of the Antique Auto Museum was announced in the Boston Globe, which also  included pictures of youngsters enjoying some of the old cars.

The ceremonies included a ribbon cutting and a speech on the early days of motoring, plus a parade of old cars driven by collectors and a series of road tests, races, and competitive events.