Present day Newton has its origins in the mid-1630s as an early offshoot of Cambridge. As the early settlement was sparse, residents were forced to travel to Cambridge to attend religious services. However, as the number of settlers increased, sentiment grew for the establishment of a church in Newton. In 1660, the colonists were granted their independence from Cambridge and a meetinghouse was built at the corner of what is now Centre & Cotton Streets. While the building itself has long since disappeared, the East Parish Burying Ground is still in existence and a monument marks the location of the early building near the top of the hill.

By 1774, the population of the settlement had shifted south and the remoteness and inconvenience of the first meeting house’s location resulted in the construction of a new meeting house at the corner of Centre and Homer streets, which was then considered to be the approximate center of the town. This marked the founding of the area now known as Newton Centre. A militia training field which had been located at the old meeting house site was also moved at this time and eventually became the Newton Centre Common. Newton’s first Baptist church was also established in Newton Centre in 1781.

While Newton Centre was developing as a religious center for the township, it lagged behind the more accessible northern villages in the development of residences and business enterprises. In 1848, town meetings were shifted to the more prosperous village of West Newton, cementing a longstanding rivalry between the two villages. At the same time, Newton’s growing industrial community was focused on the villages along the Charles River. As late as the mid-19th century, Newton Centre was a sparsely settled village with only ten buildings facing the common and a few structures located along the outlying roads.

This trend began to change with the establishment of the Charles River Railroad in the 1850s. Development was moderate at first as the service on this line was infrequent and unreliable - it had primarily been built to serve the needs of the Upper Falls industrial community and to transport fill for the development of the Back Bay beginning in the 1860s. In the early 1870s, however, improvements were made to the railway line that resulted in frequent commuter service between Newton Centre and Boston. This, in turn, triggered constant and steady growth in Newton Centre resulting in its transformation from a small agricultural crossroads into a relatively affluent railroad suburb.