December 3rd - December 9th

December 7, 1939

December 6, 1686 - A measure of local governance
December 3, 1860 - Town Meeting rejects purchase of land for park
December 7. 1939 - Disappearance of Barbara Newhall Follett
December 4, 2010 - Ice rink named for hockey star Jack Kirrane

December 6, 1686
A measure of local governance
Muddy River, a hamlet of Boston, requested and was granted release from Boston taxes on the condition that the residents maintain their own roads, provide care for the poor, and raise a schoolhouse within one year. 

This description of Muddy River appeared in John Josselyn's 1674 Account of Two Voyages to New-England

The population of Muddy River had grown since the 1630s when colonists were first given grants of land in the area that later became Brookline. The 1686 decision by Boston also called for the hamlet to "maintaine an able readinge and writinge master" for the school and to choose three men to manage local affairs.

Muddy River would become independent as the Town of Brookline in 1705. 

December 3, 1860
Town Meeting rejects purchase of land for park
Town Meeting narrowly rejected a proposal to purchase one or more of several parcels of open private land for public use. The vote was 130 against the proposal and 115 in favor.

The proposal came from a committee appointed to identify parcels that could "provide a suitable spot for a training field, and to furnish the several schools with sufficient playground, that the pupils may not be driven into the streets or be tempted to trespass upon private property."

Eleven years later, the town agreed to purchase one of those parcels -- now Cypress Field -- as well as today's Brookline Avenue Playground. These are widely considered to be the first examples in the United States of private land purchased for public parks.

These aerial views show today's Brookline Avenue Playground, left, and Cypress Field, right, which were purchased by the town in 1871, 11 years after an earlier proposal was rejected.

December 7. 1939
Disappearance of Barbara Newhall Follett

Barbara Newhall Follett, who had been a child prodigy in the 1920s with two novels published by the time she was 16, left her Kent Street home (shown at the top of this post) after a fight with her husband and was never seen or heard from again. The mystery of her disappearance has never been solved.

Follett's first novel, The House With No Windows, was written when she was 9 and published two years later, in 1927. "It is hard not to wax enthusiastic over this wonderful little book," wrote the New York Times in its review; the Saturday Review of Literature called it "almost unbearably beautiful." (The publicity photo of her at her typewriter at the top of this post is from that year.)

In 1929, not long after publication of her second novel, Follett ran away from an unhappy family life and reportedly attempted suicide. She married Nickerson Rogers of Brookline in 1934 when she was 19. She was 25 when she disappeared.

December 4, 2010
Ice rink named for hockey star Jack Kirrane
The town skating rink at Larz Anderson Park was named the Jack Kirrane Ice Skating Rink in honor of the longtime Brookline firefighter who was captain of the 1960 United States hockey team that won the gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games in Squaw Valley, California.

Jack Kirrane and his family are surrounded by local officials of his hometown in a 1960 celebration of the U.S. gold medal victory at the Olympics. (Boston Globe photo) 

Kirrane, who had been the youngest member of the 1948 U.S. Olympic hockey team, was the oldest member of the 1960 team that upset both of the favorites -- Canada and Russia -- on the way to winning the gold medal. 

Kirrane, who joined the fire department after serving in the army during the Korean War, took a four-month, unpaid leave of absence from the department to take part in the 1960 Olympics. He retired in 1990 after 36 years in the department. He passed away in 2016 at the age of 88.