South from “The Centre” towards the Worcester Turnpike, which opened in 1810, a wooded area inhabited by a hermit named Thompson, came to be known as Thompsonville. A small number of families had settled there by mid-century and in 1867, members of the First Baptist Church in Newton Centre began holding Sunday school classes in the home of Mrs. Hammel. A chapel was built in the same year on Langley Road, then called Station Street, and in 1878 the first school was housed in that chapel. The second Thompsonville school, a two-room frame building on Langley Road built in 1888 was replaced in 1902, and in 1909 officially named for a member of the Newton Baptist Church advisory committee, Edward B. Bowen, the man who had first recognized the need for a school in this area. The present Bowen School on Cypress Street remains a focal point for the neighborhood.