When Newton changed from a town to a city form of government in 1873, James F. C. Hyde was elected its first mayor. Born in 1825, the seventh in line of descent from Newton’s fifth permanent English settler, Jonathan Hyde (whose first wife Mary died in 1672 and now boasts the oldest grave-marker in the old burying ground on Centre Street).  A good account of James F. C.’s early years comes from a speech given by Mayor Sinclair Weeks in 1933 when, on behalf of the city, he accepted the portrait of Hyde.

To quote: “At the age of fifteen he took an interest in good politics, attending meetings and caucuses and working at the polls - long before becoming a voter himself.  At seventeen his plans to study law were changed when it became necessary for him to stay at home to care for his father and mother....” [Nevertheless he was the Trial Justice for Newton for six years and a Justice of the Peace for four decades.]  “he was, however, not to be denied an education.  After each day’s work of 12 or 14 hours upon the farm, he devoted three or more hours to reading and studying....”  “He was elected selectman at the age of 29 years and remained on the Board for sixteen years.  At 31 he was elected representative to the Massachusetts General Court.  He was on the ballot for various offices for the town [including the School Committee], and later for the City of Newton more than fifty times, and was never defeated.”  In addition he served several terms on the State Board of Agriculture and was active on the home front during the Civil War.

J.F.C. Hyde’s first Inaugural Address included a number of proposals for the consideration of the City Council.  He urged them to promulgate such rules and orders and ordinances as would enable the new city to “secure the most perfect arrangement for the transaction of public business and the highest good of all”: to provide additional space at the high school either by expanding the existing building or by putting up a new one;  to investigate the possibility of a municipal water supply; to provide for a Highway Department and a Superintendent of Streets; to upgrade the system of street-lighting; to pass ordinances to prevent the erection of improper and dangerous buildings and to consider remodeling the Town Hall to accommodate the business of the City rather than by constructing a new building.

In his second address, the following year, he strongly recommended what he had advocated some years previously, namely that the City accept the transfer of the Newton Free Library from the Board of Management of the Association that had started it.

By profession a realtor, insurance agent and auctioneer with offices in Boston, Hyde served on the Board of Directors of two insurance companies and three banks.  However, much of his time was devoted to the nursery in Newton Highlands started by his father, James, and he became a recognized authority on the nomenclature of flowers and trees.  He was one of the “earliest, most active and constant members” of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, chairing the Fruit Committee, holding the office of vice-president from 1859-1866 and that of president for the subsequent four years.  He was instrumental in organizing the Newton Horticultural Society and served a term as president.

His concern for the natural environment led Hyde, in 1852, to organize, with others, the Newton Centre Tree Club “for the purposes of beautifying the roads and commons in Newton Centre”.  Although it lasted less than three years, the Club was, in fact, the first improvement society in the country, and the predecessor of the Newton Center Improvement Association.  Some years later, in 1869, Hide chaired yet another predecessor of the Association, the Prudential Committee of the First School District [Newton Center] in the town of Newton, formed to consider matters such as roads, water and gas supply and “the development of such natural advantages which need only judicious and concerted attention to make this the favorite Village in the Town for residences.”  In addition his expertise secured him a place on Newton’s first Park Commission in 1885 and made him a valuable member of the Board of Trustees on the Newton Cemetery Association.  In this capacity he was the first descendant of any of Newton’s founding families to break with the two-hundred-year tradition of burial in the old Puritan burying ground on Centre Street.  At a time when, generally speaking, the religious affiliation of most proponents of the “garden cemetery movement” was Unitarian, Hyde remained a staunch Congregationalist and was one of the organizers of the Newton Highlands Congregational Society.

The Newton Circuit Railroad went into operation in 1886.  Credit for conceiving the idea and for persuading two reluctant railroad companies to go forward with the enterprise was largely, if not exclusively, Hyde’s.  In the end the Boston and Albany Railroad bought the New York and New England Company’s tracks running through Newton from Chestnut Hill to Upper Falls and laid new tracks from Newton Highlands to meet its own existing commuter line at Riverside.  Making travel possible between all Newton’s suburban villages triggered a period of unprecedented residential development that lasted until World War I.

James Francis Clark Hyde died in 1898.  His obituary in the Newton Graphic reads in part: “No man has occupied a more prominent place in the history of Newton or possessed a greater degree of respect of its inhabitants.  During his entire life he identified with the development and growth of Newton, and until his health failed there was hardly an enterprise of importance in the city with which he was not connected.” 

The Jackson Homestead has a collection of J.F.C. Hyde papers including a record of the judgements he handed down while serving as a trial judge in Newton, as well as materials from earlier generations, most notably an 18th century diary.