West Roxbury, located along the scenic Charles River, is a community of tree-lined streets and panoramic views, which has undergone tremendous changes since its incorporation as a town in 1851. Formerly known as "Westerly" or "South Street," West Roxbury has grown from a largely rural area, accessible only by train, into a charming neighborhood of Victorian homes that still offers many of the same advantages that attracted people a century ago—the quietness of small town life, with the attractions of big city living just a short distance away. West Roxbury is also the former home of Brook Farm, a utopian community founded by Reverend Ripley. Brook Farm was a center of literary achievement that attracted such foremost thinkers of the nineteenth century as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Horace Greeley.