The Stone Institute

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Click on the button above to contact us, to request more information or to schedule a tour. History of the Stone Institute If sometime in the still of night there can be heard the clinking of metal in the basement of the present Pettee House, or perhaps in the mists of early morn there can be seen strolling about the grounds a small man wearing a tricorn hat and clad in homespun shirt, knee breeches, long hose and buckled shoes, one may be hearing and seeing the spirits of early owners of this ancient hill. Thomas Tolman, our small man, got the word and hurried off when the alarm was rung at Lexington that 18th day of April, 1775. Too old to be a Minuteman he went anyway - recorded later on the "Alarm List," made up of volunteers over military age. In 1763 Tolman, a cordwainer (shoemaker) by trade, had purchased a house and shop together with nine acres of land from Joseph and Mary Cheney of Newton Upper Falls. Tolman's property was acquired some time in the late eighteenth century by Simon Elliot, an early Upper Falls manufacturer. In December, 1826 Otis Pettee, a 31-year-old mechanic, with $1,000 (the fruits of his inventive mind in the development of early cotton machinery) purchased from his employer, the Elliot Manufacturing Company, these nine acres then called the "Tolman Place." In 1828 he built on the highest point his beloved "Sunnyside", part of which is our Home today. Here he and his wife, Matilda, raised a family of three boys and three girls. Many years later another Newton resident, Joseph L. Stone, and his wife, Elmira Reed Stone, recognizing a need for housing for the elderly, left in their wills a fund in trust to establish a home for "aged and respectable Men and Women in indigent circumstances." The Home was to be called "The Stone Institute." Mr. and Mrs. Stone died in 1889. Mr. Spencer Richardson and Mr. Charles A. Rand, trustees of the fund established by the Stones' wills to carry out their wishes, formed the Stone Institute Corporation in February, 1894. By 1898 the fund had grown sufficiently to enable the trustees to purchase Mr. Pettee's estate (still in the family), and to renovate and furnish the house. Lacking the money to maintain and operate the Home, however, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Rand sought further financial assistance from a group of prominent Newton citizens led by the mayor, the Honorable Henry E. Cobb. This group formed the Newton Home for Aged People Corporation, with Mayor Cobb as its president. The corporation was funded through the generosity of its seven original members and many other interested Newton residents. The Home was opened on May 4, 1899, and in his speech at the dedication, on turning over the Home to Mayor Cobb and the Newton Home for Aged People Corporation, Mr. Richardson said the following: "And now, Mr. President, the Stone Institute hereby confirms its offer to you and your associates of the use and occupancy of this building and its fittings and furnishings, and from time to time the income from its fund, as a gift from Mr. and Mrs. Stone, placing the same in your hands for the purposes of carrying out their wishes and intentions, as expressed in their will.

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