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. (1890) 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, 1630–1906(Allston, Mass., 1907).