Thomas Wiswall
| Thomas Wiswall | |
|---|---|
| Born | Warrington, Lancashire, England |
| Baptised | 30 September 1601 |
| Died | 6 December 1683 Cambridge Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British America |
| Resting place | East Parish Burying Ground, Newton, Massachusetts |
| Monuments | First Settlers Monument |
| Residence | Cambridge Village, Massachusetts |
| Citizenship | Kingdom of England |
| Known for | early settler of Cambridge Village, Massachusetts, founder of Cambridge Village Church |
| Children | 10, see text |
Thomas Wiswall (1601–1683) was an early settler of British America, a prominent early citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a key figure in the founding of Cambridge Village, now known as the city of Newton, Massachusetts.
Wiswall was baptised in Warrington, Lancashire, England on 30 September 1601. He married Elizabeth Berbage in 1632, and had ten children:
Wiswall arrived in New England on August 16, 1635 (leaving behind him brothers Adam, Abiel and Jonathan), and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts with his twin brother John, who had arrived in 1633. He was a grantee of land in 1637, subscriber to the school fund in 1641, and served as a selectman in Dorchester from 1644–1652.
Wiswall left Dorchester and resettled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, some time in 1654. In 1654, he sublet a 400-acre (1.6 km2) tract of land there from Captain Thomas Prentice. This land had been the property of the recently deceased John Haynes, former Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, and Prentice was the lessee and not the owner. Wiswall built a new homestead that year, beside the Dedham Trail (now Centre Street), on the south shore of a lake located on that tract of land. This was the first house to be built on the shore of what would be known—for 150 years—as Wiswall's Pond. The lake is now known as Crystal Lake, in Newton, Massachusetts.
John Jackson (the first settler in the area) donated an acre of land to be used as a burying place and for a meeting house. Wiswall built this meeting house, where today the East Parish Burying Ground (also known as the Centre Street Cemetery) and the First Settlers Monument are currently located.
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