The People

The Lands of Netherwood Park is a history of land ownership and subdivision development of 368 acres north and northeast of the University of New Mexico campus in Albuquerque and the stories of the people that accomplished this extraordinary feat.

Our story begins with four remarkable women, Ada M. Cutler, Alcida L. Morrow, Martha L. Taylor and Harriet E. Jenness, who between 1885 and 1893 emigrated from the Midwest to the New Mexico Territory as public school and university educators and had the foresight to envision the growth and development of Albuquerque’s barren East Mesa above the Rio Grande river valley.  Morrow and Taylor were some of the first professors hired by the University of New Mexico (UNM) when instruction commenced in June 1892.  Morrow is credited with establishing the Departments of English and Spanish, and Taylor with the Department of History.  Jenness came to UNM the following year in 1893 to teach drawing, dance & drama, and music.  After teaching public school in the Silver City area beginning in 1885, Cutler moved to Albuquerque in 1892 to assume teaching and Vice Principal duties at Albuquerque High School and this is when the history of The Lands of Netherwood Park begins.

Alcinda L. Morrow

Martha Taylor

Edward R. Schell

Ada M. Cutler was born in Illinois in 1859 and educated at Carthage Lutheran College.  She moved to Silver City, New Mexico Territory about 1885 to teach.  In 1892, Miss Cutler moved to Albuquerque and later purchased 157.83 acres north of the University of New Mexico campus from the U.S. Government.  She moved to Denver in 1899 where she married Edwin Netherwood.  They both returned to Albuquerque in 1908 and began their joint efforts in real estate development and home building.  Ada Netherwood died in 1937.        More…

Martha L. Taylor was born in Ohio in 1861 and educated at Oberlin College.  For several years after graduation, she taught Latin, Greek and history at Kidder Institute in Missouri. She arrived in Albuquerque in 1892 to teach English literature and history at the University of New Mexico.  In 1896, she purchased 160 acres north of the UNM campus from the U.S. Government.  She left Albuquerque in 1899 and married Robert Theilman in Los Angeles.  They settled in Yuma, Arizona where she died in 1947.             More…

Harriet E. Jenness was born in Maine in 1856 and educated at Harris Teachers College in St. Louis, Missouri.  She moved to Albuquerque in 1893 to teach drawing, drama, and dance at the University of New Mexico.  In 1897, Harriet Jenness purchased 160 acres northeast of the UNM campus from the U.S. Government.  She died during her short 2-year tenure at UNM and is buried in Danvers, Massachusetts.  She is credited with establishing “crimson & silver” as the UNM School colors.     
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Alcinda L. Morrow was born in Indiana in 1843 and educated at Oswego Normal and Training School in New York.  She arrived in Albuquerque in 1892 to teach in the Normal Department at University of New Mexico.  She entered into a number of real estate transactions with Ada Cutler and Martha Taylor, her friends and colleagues.  Miss Morrow moved to Los Angeles in 1897 and shortly thereafter began teaching at the University of Southern California.  She died in Los Angles in 1910.        More…
 
 

Edwin R. Netherwood was born in New York in 1845. He and his family moved to Wisconsin around 1860. He joined the 50th Wisconsin Infantry serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.  After the war he moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts were he engaged in construction and real estate in the 1880s. About 1899, he moved to Denver, Colorado and worked in a real estate company.  Edwin married Ada Cutler in 1900 in Denver and they both moved to Albuquerque in 1908 to begin their joint efforts in real estate development and home building.  Edwin Netherwood died in 1926.             More…

Edward R. Schell was born in Illinois in 1883.  He was Ada Netherwood’s (nee Cutler) nephew and sole heir to the real estate that Ada and Edwin owned north of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.  He arrived in Albuquerque in 1950.  Edward Schell was the driving force behind most of the current subdivision configuration and development.  He died in Albuquerque in 1967.   He arrived in Albuquerque in 1950 after serving as Dean of Wheaton Academy on the campus of Wheaton College.

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