USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Melrose > Ancient Melrose and some information about its old homesteads, families & furnishings, 1915 > Part 2
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Later this same year, 1849, Malden, foreseeing that with these railroad facilities, and the varied and natural beauty of our situation, we should in a very few years become a grow- ing, thrifty and prosperous community, at a legal meeting of the inhabitants of the town of Malden, held Nov. 26, 1849, it was voted:
valuation of the Town of Melrose tas alifeand in 14,49 a Jane Colity From Malden Book Real Estate 3.36.3.52 Personal Estate 48509 Total 3,84461 Finnlocar Ports 272
"To choose a committee to view and report to the town such line as the committee shall think to be the proper line between the town of Malden and the proposed town of Melrose. That if the inhabitants of Melrose petition the Legislature for the division line as reported by the Select- men to advocate the setting off of Melrose but if any other line be asked for then to oppose the setting off."
staral GreenL A & Jaylag
El gressore %Metrise
A petition was presented to the Legislature early in 1850, by Elbridge Green and others, pray- ing that the northerly part of Malden, which had been called North Malden for many years, be set off and incorporated as a separate town to be
called Melrose.
At a town meeting held in Malden, February 7, 1850, it was voted:
"That whereas, a petition had been presented to the Legislature, by Elbridge Green and others, praying that the northerly section of Maken may be set off and incorporated as a separate town, to be called Melrose, and whereas an order of notice has been issued on said petition therefore, Resolved, That we, the citizens of Malden in town meeting assembled, called according to law, to act on said order of notice, do hereby express our approval of said petition.
Resolved, That the line of separation petitioned for is a proper line, and one that meets our approval, and which, in our opinion, ought to be adopted, and the prayer of said peti- tion be granted.
Resolved, That the representative be, and he is, hereby instructed to aid the petition, in all honorable ways, to accomplish the object of their petition, keeping always in view the interest of the town in wording the act of incorporation."
In accordance with the mutually expressed wishes of the inhabitants of both sections, an act was drawn and reported to the Legislature, which was adopted; and Melrose was incorporated May 3, 1850. It then had 1,260 inhabitants, and an assessed valuation of $483,446.00.
A committee of three from each town was appointed "to make a just and equitable settle- ment of all the financial concerns appertaining to said towns & the property belonging
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to the same." Gilbert Haven, Lemuel Cox, and Daniel A. Perkins were appointed for Malden, and George Emerson, Isaac Emerson and Aaron Green for Melrose.
In 1853, that part of Malden which was set off to Stoneham in 1734, most of the terri- tory of which is now known as the Melrose Highlands, and which embraced also what is now the Sewall Woods Park, containing about twenty-five houses with seventy-five in- habitants, was set off and annexed to Melrose, thus adding three hundred and eighty- one acres to the area of our territory, making a total of thirty-one hundred and fourteen and seventy one-hundredths acres.
Melrose is situated in the eastern part of the County of Middlesex, and is seven miles .directly north of Boston. It is bounded on the north by Wakefield, on the east by Saugus, (which is in the County of Essex,) on the south by Malden, and the west by Stoncham, and a small corner of Medford. Its shape is somewhat irregular, having a width on the Wakefield line of about a mile and a half, on the Saugus line two and a half miles, a little less than three miles on the Malden, and nearly two and a half miles on the Stoneham and Medford line.
Melrose is divided into several distinet villages, the Middlesex Fells,-generally shortened into Fells,-and Wyoming in the southern part of the city; the Centre; the Melrose High- lands, in the north, -each of these having a station on the Boston and Maine Railroad.
THE NAMING OF MELROSE
The name, Melrose, was adopted by the advocacy of the late William Bogle, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who had been a resident several years before our incorporation, and before the Boston and Maine Railroad was built in 1845, and when he had to go back and forth to his business in Boston by the stage-coach line which ran between Boston and Read- ing; and which was established in 1798. Mr. Bogle evidently had at least two objeets in view in offering us our name: one, a sweet sounding one, nogle that had not been in common use, we being the first to adopt it in our country; another, as a memory of his native land. The name was adopted by a committee, consisting of the late Hon. Daniel W. Gooch, William Bogle, David L. Webster and John Shelton, which met at Mr. Shelton's house, No. 75 Lake Avenue.
[In connection with the claim that William Bogle is entitled to the distinction of nam- ing Melrose, it is well to note that German S. Phippen, who was an inhabitant of North Malden, several years and after the incorporation of Melrose served many times as both moderator and assessor, not only stated to the writer that Rev. John McLeish, pastor of the Methodist Protestant Church at that time, first proposed the name but he also asserted it in a communication published in a local paper in July, 1900. Mr. J. P. Mellus, a highly respected citizen for many years, also published a statement about the same time saying that he was present at a conference in the house of L. H. M. Cochran, a prominent citizen of North Malden, attended by both Mr. Bogle and Mr. McLeish, on which occasion, he reports that MeLeish said, "I know a beautiful little town in Scotland which resembles this section so much that I should like to have our new town named after it. Mr. Bogle has seen it often, I allude to Melrose." As all favored the suggestion Mr. McLeish was dele- gated to circulate a petition in behalf of the name. While I do not wish to detract from any honor which may be due to an intimate personal friend, as Mr. Bogle was, I am of the opinion that the testimony of highly creditable living witnesses should be taken in prefer- ence to hearsay. I was well acquainted with Rev. John McLeish and heard him preach many times. Both he and Mr. Bogle were "canny Scotchmen." *He formed a company of "Forty Niners," composed of several North Malden men, who with others, bought the Brig Sea Eagle and sailed around "the Horn" from Boston March 8th, 1849, arriving in 'Frisco October 28, seven months and twenty days! His son, John Jr., went and in due time returned with him. John Senior died years ago. The son built the finest tomb in
* See folio 65 regarding Bogle and Mcleish.
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Wyoming Cemetery, in which lies the body of his first wife who was a daughter of Lorenzo H. M. Cochran and a schoolmate of the writer. John, Junior, is deceased but was buried in Cincinnati.
[L. S. G.] ]
The earliest local name applied to our territory, before it came to be known as "Malden North End," and "North Malden," was "Pond Field;" so called when describing the pos- sessions of Ralph and Richard Sprague, around Ell Pond, in the Charlestown Book of Pos- sessions, 1638; it is there written "Pond feilde."
Although Melrose is one of the younger municipalities of this Commonwealth, its terri- tory had been occupied, at the time of its incorporation, for a period of over two hundred years. There are at least eight families whose ancestors made their abode in this beautiful valley, a part of them nearly, and a part over two centuries and a half ago. These are the Spragues, the Greens, the Barretts, the Lyndes, the Uphams, the Vintons, the Howards and the Goulds. Descendants of all of them are among its citizens today.
They came determined to succeed, and succeed they did. Would that we had a minute chroniele of many of the events that took place in the lives of these early settlers of Mel- rose. A few years ago, many of the past generation were living, who could have related much pertaining to the early history of the town, which they had received from their ances- tors. But they have passed away, and with them many local incidents, events and anecdotes that would now be interesting, and which they could have rehearsed, are no longer attain- able.
In those early days, besides the prowling and savage Indian, our surrounding forests, many of which have not yet wholly disappeared, were full of wild animals; wolves, deer, bears, foxes, and wildcats. So plentiful were they that laws were passed concerning them, and bounties offered to aid in the extermination of the most obnoxious and destructive of them. A law was passed by the Colony, in 1630, giving bounty for the killing of wolves; one in 1635 for wolves and foxes; and in 1640, the following law was passed:
"Ordered, that every man that kills a wolfe wth hounds shall have 4os alowed him, & whosoever kils a wolfe wth trap, peece, or other engine, shall have Ios alowed him, to bee paid by that towne where the wolfe is killed, & if hee bee kiled out of any towne bounds it shall bee paid by the Treasurer."
Wood, in New Englands Prospect, speaks of the "three great annoyances, of wolves, rattle-snakes and mosquitoes."
The former were nightly visitors among the unprotected herds and flocks. In the time of deep snows they hung around the settlements in great packs, and their fierce barking was a terror to man as well as beast. They infested the Saugus woods as late as 1753 and were not entirely extirpated until many years after. Bounties were offered for their scalps, and the grisly trophies were sometimes nailed on the meeting-houses. "For Beares," says Wood, "they be common being a great blacke kind of Beare, which be most feirce in Straw- berry time." They are said to have been seen in Malden woods, within this century, and they yet prowl along sequestered roads in the traditions of old families.
Concerning the topographical features of Melrose, geologists have made the statement that the Merrimack River once flowed through this valley to the sea; but that by some up- heaval of nature its course was changed to its present channel. Had that been so, and such a change had not taken place, how different would have been the history of this region. But such is not the case. In place of a wide flowing river occupying nearly all of the level lands, we have the City of Melrose, most beautifully situated, with its charming and diversified scenery, of valley, hill and wildwood.
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ENSIGN THOMAS LYNDE'S HOMESTEAD, BUILT 1670 The oldest house now standing in Melrose
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EARLY SETTLERS
The territory now Melrose, has been occupied by certain original families and their descendants for many generations.
Among the early settlers in Charlestown was Thomas Lynde, who came from England, where he was born in January 1593-4. He became a freeman in 1634. He bought a tract of land which included the site of the present State Prison, and which was known until after the time of the Revolution as Lynde's Point. He was one of the Deputies to the General Court for several years, serving first in 1636.
The Land -
In the Charlestown Book of Possessions, for 1638, issued in 1878, as the Third Report of the [Boston] Record Commissioners, which has been called the Domesday Book of Mystic Side, Thomas Lynde is credited with thirteen items or parcels of real estate, besides his homestead "on the southeast side of mill hill." In the various allotments of out-lying lands which had been previously made, he had received a number of tracts belonging to Mystic Side. One of them, evidently received in the division of hay-lots, was deseribed as follows:
"Three Acres of meaddow by estimation, more or lesse, lying on the north side of mount prospect, [Wayte's Mount, now crowned with Malden's water reservoir,] butting southeast upon Edward Convers, and to the northwest upon the riverett, bounded by the comon on the southeast and northeast."
Ile also received by allotment, "Eightie Acres of land lying in Rockefeilde." Concern- ing this tract, the following record occurs in Charlestown Archives, xx:
"[18. 12m 1638.] Inasmuch as it apprs yt the Land in the great Lotts yt was laid out to Thomas Line & Richd Sprague prooves altogethr unusefull being nothing but Roekes wch was wholly besides or intent, & only through oversight of the Surveyors wee Judge it to bee Just & equall yt they have allowance elswhere to theire satisfaction they leaveing the afforesd Rocks to lye Common."
Therefore, Aug. 26, 1639, it was agreed "yt Tho: Line shall have some Land by the Mount Prospect, if upon view it may bee had by his Hay ground." This was laid out as proposed; and "Here, as the Lynde family increased, several houses were built, the oldest of which was probably built by Thomas the grantee, near the site of the brick-end house now standing near the entrance of the [Forest Dale] Cemetery on Forest Street."
These two allotments of land formed the beginning of the future ownership, by Thomas Lynde and his descendants, of not only this land on the northerly side of Wayte's Mount, in Malden, but of nearly all the territory adjoining and now included in the southern part of Melrose.
Ensign Thomas Lynde, eldest son of Deacon Thomas Lynde, was born in England in 1616, and came to Malden some years before its incorporation, when it was known as Mystic Side. He may have lived for a while in the first house built by his father, but soon after, about 1645, his homestead was built either by himself or his father, just south of Boston Rock on the present Sylvan Street, near the north-western entrance to Wyoming Cemetery. This was the first house built on Melrose territory. As evidence of this early residence of Ensign Thomas Lynde, there is a remonstrance, dated March 16, 1648, recorded in the Massachusetts Archives, vol. 121, page 21, against the laying out of the highway from Winne- simet to Reading as they contemplated, in which reference is made to his farm lands, the appointment of Mr. Lynde on a committee to take the matter into consideration, and the report of the committee thereon, in 1648; and his house is referred to in the final laying out of this road in 1653.
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In the year 1670, Ensign Thomas Lynde built a homestead on what is now the corner of Main Street and Goodyear Avenue, which, with its farm of many acres, was owned up to within a few years by one of his descendants of the sixth generation, another Joseph Lynde. Soon after, Ensign Thomas left his old home under Boston Rock and went to live with his son Joseph, where he remained until his death in 1693; and another son, Capt. John Lynde, occupied the old homestead of his father.
From Ensign Thomas Lynde descended all the Lyndes that are now living, or have lived in Melrose. He was one of the Selectmen of Malden during the years 1678, 1684, 5, 6, 7 and 8. He died Oct. 15, 1693, aged 77 years. By his will, dated Oct. 3, 1693, on file in the Probate Court at East Cambridge, he divided his farm between his sons Joseph and John; giving to Joseph the southern portion, and to John the northern. This farm embraced a region about as follows: Beginning at the southwestern corner and extending northerly along the line of Washington Street to near Wyoming Avenue; thence easterly along the line of that Avenue, and nearly or quite to Lebanon Street, then southerly, embracing the territory of Boston Roek, Wyoming Cemetery, Pine Banks Park, and Forest Dale Cemetery, to Forest Street in Malden; thence westerly to Washington Street, embracing "Island Hill," between Main Street and the Boston and Maine Railroad, which in early days was sur- rounded by the meadows of Three Mile Brook.
Joseph Lynde, born Dec. 13, 1652, who received the old homestead, and the southern and eastern part of the original farm, embracing what is now Wyoming Cemetery, died in 1736, at the age of eighty-three years, leaving his real estate to his son Joseph.
This farm of Dea. Joseph Lynde was bequeathed to his son Joseph, who was born Sep- tember 2, 1690; and it was while in his possession that the changes in the old house, here- tofore spoken of, were made, leaving its outward appearance about as now seen. In finishing and embellishing the parlor, he adorned the large, old-fashioned fireplace with tiling. His father considered this a piece of extravagance, and was so incensed that he struck one of the tiles so hard with his cane that it broke; and it so remained for many years. When this house passed out of the possession of the Lynde family, a few years since, during a time of some re- Joseph Lynd pairs, these tiles mysteriously disappeared. [One of them is set in the chimney of my house.] [L.S.G.]
Joseph Lynde was an active man in town affairs; was one of the Selectmen for fifteen years, between 1735 and 1760, and a member of the Legislature in the years 1739, 1741 and 1743. He died March 16, 1763, aged 72 years. In his will he bequeaths his "Negro Dinah," and his farm to his son Nathan, who was born July 13, 1732. From Nathan the homestead descended to his son Joseph, born July 30, 1769; and he bequeathed it to his son Joseph, 0 who was born Nov. 19, 1804, and never married. He tilled its acres until he died in 1875, at the age of seventy years, when the homestead passed into the possession of his sister, Mrs. Rebecca Lynde Eaton; and in 1881, the farm, then consisting of 175 acres, was bought by Hon. Elisha S. Converse of Malden. Thus had these original acres remained in possession of the Lynde family, descending from father to son, through seven generations, and for a period of nearly two and a half centuries. While the farm and hamestead was in the possession of the Lyndes, it always evidenced thrift and enterprise. Beautifully situated in the valley between ranges of hills, its spacious mansion, shaded by tall ancestral elms, its well-tilled acres, large and commodious barns, well filled with the products of the farm, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, all indicated one of the good old-fashioned New England homesteads, which, alas! grow scarcer as the years go by!
Capt. John Lynde, who received from his father, Ensign Thomas, the northern part of the farm, left the old original house at the foot of Boston Rock and built his new house in 1693, and it stood where lived the late Warren Lynde. The farm and new homestead is now owned by his son, Henry Lynde.
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Warren Lynde, of the seventh generation, was born May 15, 1799, and died in 1888 at the age of eighty-nine years. The old house first built by Ensign Thomas Lynde, near the entrance to the Wyoming Cemetery was abandoned. The old cellar-hole and well existed until the wall of the cemetery was built. The story is told among the Lynde descendants, of a very severe winter in those early times. A long-continued snow-storm completely buried the house from sight; and the relatives and neighbors went to the house on snow- shoes, and could only communicate with the snow-entombed family from the top of the chimney, through which provisions were passed and the inmates thus kept from starvation.
The Warren Lynde house, with its contents, was burned April 10, 1819, in the night time, the family barely escaping with their lives, and the present capacious mansion was built
the following year by Warren's father, Benjamin Lynde, born Oct. 2, 1758, Benjamin Lyade who inherited the place by will from his father, Joseph, together with "Island Hill" district of fifteen aeres, situated in Maklen just south of the Melrose line, and the sixty acre "Hill Pasture" now known as Boston Roek. Benjamin was a member of Captain Benjamin Blaney's Malden company that marched to Lexington, April 19, 1775, "to resist the ministeral troops."
Another Lynde homestead was that of another Joseph, brother of Benjamin, who died in 1798, giving to his son John, grandfather of A. Wilbur Lynde, his farm of thirty acres situated between Grove and Upham Street, east of Lebanon Street, together with the homestead now standing on the corner of Grove and Lebanon Streets.
Two other farms joining this on the easterly side, belonging to John and Samuel Grover, were purchased and added to this in 1786. The old homestead still remains in the pos- session of the Lyndes, the present owners being Miss Louisa Lynde, and Mrs. William Lynde, but the farm, together with some adjoining land, was bought in 1856, by Hon. Daniel W. Gooch, Walter Littlefield and Otis Clapp; surveyed, streets built, and laid out in house lots, under the name of the "Home Association." Several lots in the square between East Foster, Sixth, Laurel and Larrabee Streets were reserved, and they form what is now known as "The Common." Most of these lots were then sold, or soon afterwards, and have been very generally built upon. Additional traets of land were afterwards bought and many dwellings built thereon. The whole region has come to be known as East Side.
There were still other Lynde homesteads. The very old house on the corner of Glen and Russell Streets, is still in possession of the Lyndes, being owned by Franklin G. Lynde, who inherited it through a number of generations, from the original owner, Captain John Lynde, who inherited the land from Ensign Thomas Lynde. It was built about 1700, by Captain Lynde, for his son John, born April 1, 1672; afterwards it was bought by Jabez Lynde, born January 10, 1744; from whom it descended to the late Jonathan Lynde, born January 15, 1785, grandfather of the present owner; and who died in 1869, aged eighty- five years. The oldest portion of this house, to which an addition was built many years ago, with its low-studded, beam-crossed ceilings, is two centuries old. In it was born the late Aaron Green, whose father once tilled the farm, which then embraced the estate now owned by heirs of the late Hon. Daniel Russell; also the land now Russell Park. [This house was burned recently.]
[L. S. G.]
Captain John Lynde also built for his son Thomas, born Oct. 24, 1685, at about the same time, 1700, the old house situated about one hundred rods west of the previous one, being the last house on Washington Street before reaching the Stoneham line.
The Sprague families have ever been very prominent and intimately connected with the history of this town from its earliest days. It is quite certain that our territory was visited and traversed by the three brothers, Ralph Sprague, Richard Sprague and William Sprague, who came over from England, at their own cost.
There is no doubt whatever, but that the Spragues and their companions, were the
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