BROOKLINE  , a township of

Norfolk county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., about 3 m . S.W. of Boston, lying immediately S. of the Back Bay district . Pop . (189o) 12,103; (1900) 19,935, of whom 6536 were foreign-born; (1910, census) 27,792 . The area of the township in 1906 was 6.75 sq. m . It is served by the Boston & Albany railway, and is connected with Boston by an electric line . Brookline is the wealthiest of the residential suburbs of Boston; and contains a number of beautiful estates and homes . Within its limits are the villages of Cottage Farm, Longwood, and Reservoir Station,or Chestnut Hill—the Chestnut Hill reservoir is just beyond the township . Brookline has an excellent public library . At Clyde Park are the grounds and club-house of the Boston Country Club . Brookline has long been regarded as a model city suburb . It is connected with Boston Common by boulevards of the Metropolitan Park System .

The first

settlement was probably made about 1635, and it was called Muddy River until 1705, when it was created a township under the name of Brookline . Up to 1793 it belonged to Suffolk county, of which Boston is a part, and since that time it has belonged to Norfolk county; but Boston has in its growth almost surrounded it, and because of its great wealth there has been a long struggle for and against its merger in Boston . Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous landscape gardener, had his home in Brookline, where there are various examples of his work . See H . F . Woods, Historical Sketches of Brookline (Boston, 1874) ; C . K . Bolton, Brookline, The History of a Favored Town (Brookline, 1897) ; and J . W . Denehy, History of Brookline, 1630—1go6 (Allston, Mass., 1907) .