Farm Town to Suburb tells the story of estate owners, their man­sions and gardens, and a way of life now gone by.

Settled by Puritan farmers and locat­ed along the important Boston Post Road, Weston enjoyed a brief commercial heyday before railroads replaced stagecoaches in the 1840s. While lacking water power for large mills, the town did have one major industry, the prestigious Hook & Hastings Company, makers of some of the nation’s finest church and concert hall organs.

After the Civil War, city dwellers who fancied the farm landscape found the town close enough to Boston for convenient com­muting to country estates. At the turn of the century, Weston was proclaimed “The Lenox of the East.”

Corn fields and dairy cows were a com­mon sight until after World War II, when the last farms were sold for development. As Weston’s population burgeoned, leaders struggled to keep up with growth and at the same time preserve rural character through rezoning and the purchase of conservation land.