Oak Hill Park

Oak Hill Park is a residential subdivision located in the Oak Hill village of Newton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Oak Hill Park is shown as a separate and distinct village on some city maps, including a map dated 2012 on the official City of Newton website. Situated adjacent to Boston, Oak Hill Park is roughly bounded by Mount Ida College to its northwest, Dedham Street to the northeast, the Charles River to the southwest, and Mount Lebanon Cemetery and the Boston city limit to the southeast.Early historyThe first settler to build a homestead in the area which later became Oak Hill Park was Robert Murdock of Roxbury. He purchased 120acre of land from Jonathan Hyde and John Woodward in 1703, for the sum of £90. The land he purchased, on which he built a homestead, was bounded to the east by land of the Oak Hill School and Dedham Road.After Murdock died in 1754, the property passed to Capt. Jeremiah Wiswall, who had been living there since marrying Murdock's daughter Elizabeth four years earlier. The Wiswalls were a prominent family of the early Massachusetts Bay Colony, dating back to 1635. Jeremiah Wiswall was a great grandson of the founder of this family, Thomas Wiswall. This tract of land would remain the property of the Wiswall family from 1754 until well into the 20th century. With the exception of the adjoining Bigelow Estate and Esty Farm, most of the land upon which Oak Hill Park was eventually built had in fact been the property of the Wiswall family.