USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 33
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mill and outhonses, and twenty acres of land here in 1642. He had also the grant of a farm of six hundred acres from the town in the vicinity of his mill, whose ancient dam still remains in the mill- pond of Samuel A. Fowle, and was in use till the present century.
A road from Woburn, " leading to Cambridge- mill and town," was laid out in 1643. In 1664 John Adams bought of Mr. Joseph Cooke, then of England, and brother of Colonel George Cooke, thirteen acres, meadow and upland, lying by 'Noto- my River, and abutting on the highway leading from Cambridge to Concord, east. Adams also, in 1664, had a farm of 117 acres, by him purchased of Gol- den Moore, and laid out on the " waste lands " in the limits of what is now Arlington, with allowance for the "great road " or highway that leads to Concord. This John Adams was a millwright, and resided in the old Adams house that was standing near the present centre railway-station till a recent date. He died here in 1706, aged about eighty-five.
In 1665 "Capt. Cooke's mill-lane" is men- tioned in a deed from John Brown, then of Marl- borough, to Robert Wilson, the former conveying luis dwelling-house and barn, with six acres of land, showing that he was one of the early residents of this district. The Wilsons occupied this property for over a century afterward. The mill-lane led from the mill-gate to the Concord road, and is now called Water Street, and was a portion of the road to the Watertown line laid out in 1638. In 1724 the road leading to Watertown was removed from the northerly to the southerly side of the land reserved for a burying-place; in which probably there were no interments before 1732, and very few before 1736, the date of the earliest gravestones.
The inhabitants of this district furnished some dozen soldiers in the Indian war of 1675. 1 tax-list for 1688 contains the names of twenty- three tax-payers in that year. In 1693 Cambridge granted the Menotomy people land upon their com- mon in that part of the town, near the highway, for the accommodation of a school-house.
In 1703 several persons, residents of Menotomy, and worshipping at Cambridge Old Parish, were granted liberty " for the erecting a conveniency -- against the college fence, northward of our meet- ing-house-for the standing of their horses on Sabbath days."
In 1725 the people of Cambridge on the westerly side of Menotomy River, desiring better accom- modation for public worship, petitioned the town,
unsuccessfully, to consent that they might become a separate precinct. The request was renewed in 1728, and granted in 1732, when, after several petitions to the General Court on the subject, the order for a new precinct in Cambridge was issued, December 27, 1732, and the section by legislative act set off as a distinct precinct.
The first meeting of the freeholders and inhabi- tants of the Cambridge Northwest or Second Pre- cinet, as this part of Cambridge was now called, was held January 29, 1732-33, at the school- house in the said precinct, when a precinct clerk was chosen and sworn, and a committee was chosen to assist in calling meetings. At a second meeting, in March following, the other precinct officers were chosen, and it was voted to desire " our neighbors in the adjacent part of Charlestown to join with us in settling the gospel ministry among us."
The land which had been reserved out of the commons for a burying-place was the spot selected as the most convenient place for a meeting-house to stand, and near the northeasterly corner of that land. A sum was voted for building the house, which was to have a suitable belfry, and a building committee of five was chosen. A committee was chosen also to provide for a reading and writing school in the precinct.
October 8, 1733, several Charlestown inhabi- tants entered into agreement to assist in building the meeting-house, and for settling and supporting preaching in the precinct. April 1, previous, Thomas Osborn was baptized by Rev. John Han- cock of Lexington, who records this as "the first child baptized in the congregation at the school- house at Menotomy."
In 1734 the first meeting-house was built, and it stood just seventy years. It first had eighteen pews, one being the ministerial pew, which was next to the pulpit stairs; no others were then allowed. A Mr. Smith was preaching here in 1734, and a gift of fifty pounds from various in- dividuals was made toward building the meeting- house during this year. February 1, 1735, this meeting-house was opened and consecrated.
Attempts were made to settle several gentlemen as ministers, but unsuccessfully till the choice of the Rev. Samuel Cooke, May 21st, 1739, who accepted their invitation and took part in the or- ganization of a church in the precinct September 9, 1739, and September 12, following, was ordained pastor of this church and congregation.
The church thus gathered contained eighty-three
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original members, including the pastor, eighty of whom were from the Cambridge church, and three had belonged to other churches. The Rev. John Hancock of Lexington had charge of the exercises of organization.
The Rev. Sumuch Cooke, the first minister of the Second Precinct in Cambridge, was a native of Hadley, and a graduate of Harvard College in 1735. At the ordination of Mr. Cooke the Rev. Ebenezer Turell of Medford preached a sermon, which was printed.
After Mr. Cooke's settlement nothing particu- larly eventful happened in the precinct for many years. He was an able preacher, and his sermons and papers contain much that is interesting and valuable. He was a good penman and a careful record-keeper. He preached on many public occa- sions in other places. A number of his discourses were published.
In the year 1749 there was a large mortality in the precinct, the number of deaths reaching twenty-six.
In 1758 Captain Thomas Adams and company served eight months in the French War, and re- turned from the service with the loss of only one man, who died in a fit.
In 1762 the Second Parish in Cambridge, with certain inhabitants of Charlestown, was incorporated into a district, generally called Menotomy, which included all the territory in the two towns on the westerly side of the Menotomy River.
In 1764 occurred in the precinct the death of Hannah Robbins, a dwarf, at the age of twenty- seven years; who from about fifteen months old continued the same in stature and understanding to the day of her death, and had the actions of a child of that age.
An important part of the battle of April 19, 1775, took place in this precinct. The people of this part of the town were almost without excep- tion patriotic. A company of minute-men was raised previous to April 6, 1775, in Menotomy, which under its captain, Benjamin Locke, was afterward in service during the siege of Boston, and on whose roll, under date of October 6, 1775, were fifty-three names.
The British passed through the present town of Arlington on their way to Concord on the night of April 18, 1775. Their progress was stealthy, and no attempt was made to molest any one except members of the Provincial Committees of Safety and Supplies, at Wetherby's tavern, some of whom
were spending the night, intending to meet at Woburn on the 19th. The British, having in- formation of the presence of these persons, halted opposite the house and proceeded to search the premises. The members, without dressing them- selves, escaped by the back way into the fields.
At midday on the 19th the British reinforce- ment under Lord Percy made its appearance on the main street in Menotomy, on the march to Lexington. The wagon-train of the British, be- coming separated from this body of troops, was captured in front of the meeting-house in this pre- cinct by a party, mostly exempts, or men too old to go into active service. The papers of the time say the body of the enemy guarding the stores were twelve in number. The party who made the capture posted themselves behind a stone-wall, and fired on the train when it came up. They killed one - some accounts say two - of the British, wounded several, and took six prisoners ; shooting five horses, and taking possession of all the arms, stores, and provisions, without loss on our side. One of the killed was said to be a lieutenant, who went with the convoy for his recreation and to view the country. The wagons were drawn to the hollow, to the east of the present railway station, and the traces of the skirmish on the road were obliterated.
The passage of the British through Menotomy, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, during their retreat from Lexington and Concord, was through an incessant fire. On the descent from the high grounds to the plain the fire was brisk. Here a musket-ball struck the pin out of the hair of Dr. Joseph Warren's earlock, and the militia were so close on the rear of the enemy, that Dr. Eli- phalet Downer of Roxbury killed one of them in single combat with the bayonet.
A body of men, principally from Danvers, entered a walled enclosure and piled bundles of shingles to form a breastwork near the house of Jason Rus- sell, where they were surrounded by the British and many were killed. Some, when overpowered by the British, songht ineffectually a shelter in this house. Few, save some in the cellar, escaped death. The balls poured through the windows of the house, making havoc of the glass. Daniel Townsend of Lynnfield leaped through an end window, carrying the sash and all with him, and fell dead instantly outside. It is difficult, in our limited space, to convey an idea of the severity of the engage- ment at this spot. Russell, the owner of the house, was here killed, and his body, with cleven others
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slain by the British, was afterwards interred in a common grave in the precinct burying-ground. The British, galled by their losses, were determined that all who fired on them from the houses on the line of march should be put to death.
The destruction of property caused by the Brit- ish during their retreat through Menotomy was considerable. Damage was done to the meeting- house and school-house, and houses were phumdered and some fired. Bullets were shot into many of them. The pursuit of the provincials, however,
was too close for the British to effect much. Mrs. Hannah Adams was driven from her bed by them, and forced to take shelter with her new-born child in an outhouse. Jabez Wyman and Jason Win- ship were killed while drinking at Cooper's tav- ern. Old Captain Samuel Whittemore was badly wounded by the foe, and though shot, bayoneted, and left for dead, recovered, and lived full eighteen years afterward. Two men, Samuel Frost and Seth Russell, were missing from Menotomy after the bat- tle, being made prisoners by the British, and con- fined on a war-vessel at Boston until exchanged, June 6, 1775. The battle continued until the enemy reached Bunker Hill in Charlestown, and it became so dark as to render the flashes of the muskets visible.
The militia company of this district, under William Adams, captain, marched at the request of General Washington on the taking possession of Dorchester Heights, March 4, 1776. The muster-roll of the company contained forty-nine names, and the term of service was five days. Other men from Menotomy served in the army dur- ing the Revolution. The precinct in 1778 voted " to assess the money that Captain Locke hired to pay the men that went to Ticonderoga."
June 4, 1783, the Rev. Samuel Cooke, pastor of the church, died, aged seventy-five. His epi- taph in the precinct burying-ground speaks of him as one " in whom were united the social friend, the man of science, the eminent and faithful clergyman whose praise was in all the churches." The pre- cinct paid his funeral expenses.
An extended notice of his death in the papers of the time says he was of superior powers of mind and distinguished literary accomplishments, diligent in study, catholic in principle, and apt to teach ; a judicious preacher, a wise counsellor, and agreeable and edifying in conversation ; an invariable friend to his country and the rights of mankind.
Lawsuits with the Baptists are mentioned in
1785. After an unsuccessful trial of two ministers, the precinct chose Rev. Thaddeus Fiske for their pastor, who accepted the invitation and was or- dained the second minister of the parish, April 23, 1788. In 1809 he delivered a discourse on the anniversary of his twenty-one years' settlement, and another, April 23, 1828, at the close of his forty years' ministry, both of which were printed. He graduated at Harvard in 1785, received the de- gree of Doctor of Divinity from Columbia College in 1821, and at the time of his death, November 14., 1855, aged ninety-three, was the oldest clergyman in Massachusetts. The parish was feeble at the time of his settlement, but when he left it had attained a considerable degree of prosperity.
In 1793 liberty was given to set a. number of trees around the meeting-house. In 1796 money was subscribed to purchase a bass-viol for the house of worship.
A factory for making cotton and wool cards was established in the precinct in 1799, originating with the invention of an ingenious machine for that purpose, about 1797, by Amos Whittemore of this place. The card-factory did much to enlarge the precinct. The removal of the business to New York, about 1812, had a depressing influence here which lasted for several years.
Abont 1827 Gershom and Henry. Whittemore, sons of the inventor, commenced business in West Cambridge, having purchased machines of their uncle in New York. Their factory was destroyed by fire in 1862.
There were two school-houses in this parish in 1800. October 10, 1803, the precinct voted to build a new meeting-house. The old house (erected 1734) was sold at auction in 1804. It is now a dwelling-house, standing about a mile from its first site. The new meeting-house was raised in July, 1804, and dedicated March 20, 1805. It was torn down in 1840. The third edifice was burned January 1, 1856. The fourth edifice is the one now standing on the site of all its predecessors.
The parish was incorporated as a town by the name of West Cambridge, February 27, 1807: the act had force June 1, 1807. The old religious society (organized 1732) thus became the first parish in West Cambridge. A tower-clock was procured for their meeting-house in 1808. The first stove and funnel in the house was authorized in 1820. The ministers of this church and society have been ten in number, as follows : Samuel Cooke, 1739-1783 ; Thaddeus Fiske, 1788-1828;
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Frederick H. Hedge, 1829 - 1835 ; David Damon, 1835 - 1843 ; William Ware, 1845 - 1846; James F. Brown, 1848- 1853; Samuel A. Smith, 1854 - 1865; Charles C. Salter, 1866- 1869; George W. Cutter, 1870 - 1876 ; William J. Parrot, 1878.
In 1808 the 4th of July was celebrated in the town by a salute, a procession with military escort, an oration, and a repast with toasts and music ac- companied by the discharge of canon. The oration on this occasion, by William Nichols, Jr., of West- ford, was printed.
Two persons in the place - Anna Winship and Thomas Williams - died, each at the age of one hundred and one years; the former February 2, 1806, and the latter February 5, 1809. It is remarkable also that Mary, the mother of the centenarian, Thomas Williams, died here Febru- ary 17, 1772, at the age of one hundred and two years. John Adams, whose boyhood was spent here,
West Cambridge in 1817.
and whose father was a native here, died, after a long residence at Ashburnham, in this state, at Harford, Pennsylvania, February 26, 1849, at the great age of one hundred and four years, his facul- ties being wonderfully preserved to the last.
During 1809 - 10 trouble occurred in the town about the location of the Middlesex Turnpike. In the year 1810 there was a great volunteer muster in West Cambridge, which combined all the attrac- tions the militia could present in a sham military, naval, and Indian battle at Spy Pond. In 1811 there was another exciting volunteer muster, which comprised a mock battle that resulted in the cap- ture of a fort erected for the occasion in the upper part of the town, near the old Baptist Meeting- House.
The first printed town report was issued in 1811. In 1813 the second inauguration of President
Madison was celebrated in this town with con- siderable display.
In 1814 the town made provision for its safety in case the British should attack Boston, as was at that time feared. In 1816 the town provided itself with fire implements, ladders, hooks, etc.
In 1820 the town purchased a fire-engine, and in 1824 provided for the inoculation of the inhabi- tants with the cow-pox.
The part of Charlestown which had hitherto been a part of the district of Menotomy was annexed to West Cambridge February 25, 1842. In consequence of this annexation a large addition was made to the William Cutter School Fund of the town, established in 1836.
In 1843 the town purchased the lot on Medford Street for a new burying-ground, since known as Mount Pleasant Cemetery.
On the stone erected in this yard to the Rev. David Damon, D. D., eight years the minister of the First Congregational Society in West Cam- bridge, who was seized with apoplexy at a funeral service, and died on the following Sunday, June 25, 1843, is inscribed the statement : " His body is the first interred in this cemetery, which was consecrated by him a few days before his death."
In this yard is also an inscription to William Fletcher, who died February 26, 1853, aged eighty- three years, stating : " He was the first man that ever carried ice into Boston market for merchandise."
The Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad Company was incorporated in 1845, and the sev- eral streets and avenues in the town were regularly named in 1846.
Isaac Hill, the well-known politician and gover- nor of New Hampshire, published a sketch of West Cambridge in the "Farmers' Monthly Visitor " for April 30, 1847. He originated in this town, and a kinsman, John Hill, who in 1847 had 20,000 tons of ice for sale, first receives his attention. Mr. Hill was an experienced ice-cutter, and in 1844, when Boston Harbor was frozen over, he superintended the cutting of a channel through the ice, seven miles in length, to the open road- stead for the passage of the Cunard steamer. He had also carried on at West Cambridge, in connec- tion with his father and brothers, a market-garden and fruit-farm on a portion of the land which had been owned by the Hill family for two centuries. This was on land which in Governor Hill's boyhood was poor coarse sand and gravel along the shore of Spy Pond. There had been sufficient good land
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in the old parish of Menotomy for all the purposes of the occupying farmers. The increase of families enlarged the area of territorial occupation, and brought the larger portion of the sandy sterile plains and the rocky, hard ridges around them to the highest point of production. The water surface of the ponds, by the business of ice-cutting, was made even more valuable than the best lands adjacent. Capacious ice-houses, covering some acres, had already been built at Spy Pond, in which a stock of ice could be preserved sufficient for a year in advance. The business commenced with Fresh Pond, and numerous teams were then employed to transport this ice to Boston and the wharves on Charles River. About the time of the commence- ment of the Lowell Railroad the ice business sug- gested a railway to Fresh Pond for the cheaper and quicker transport of that article. Out of this Fresh Pond Railway grew the Fitchburg Railroad, and, branching off in another direction along the shore of Spy Pond, a track extended through the village of West Cambridge to the centre of Lexington. By this branch of the Fitchburg Railroad the ice of Spy Pond was brought as near the wharves of Bos- ton, in point of expense, as if it had been cnt from a pond on Boston Common.
The depot for this railroad at West Cambridge usurped the place of some of the vencrable elms that stood before the door of the ancient Adams House. The course of the railroad toward Lex- ington had rendered it necessary to cut off the westerly end of this old house, which was one of the earliest erected in the limits of the town, and was the same which had been occupied by Jolin Adams, one of the first settlers in this district.
The house was built of wood, and bricked up between the inside and outside finishing. On that part of the building which remained the bullet- holes through the outside clapboards could be seen, which were made when the house was rid- dled during the passage of the British troops through Menotomy on their retreat from Lexing- ton and Concord, April 19, 1775. Many bullets that had lodged in the bricks were taken out as the house was being torn down. It had its fancy- work coving directly below the roofing, and its front-door capping was in imitation of the Corin thian style. Governor Hill probably never saw the entire demolition of this house of his ances- tors, for his death occurred March 22, 1851. The old house stood at least one hundred and thirty years before it became a target for the soldiers of
the mother country. The same old mansion, after such a riddling, stood seventy-one years longer, till 1846, before it was mutilated for the benefit of the railroad.
The generations succeeding each other on the various estates in the town are agricultural in character ; all, from the first, have been taught to labor with their own hands. Many have gone forth from them carrying their habits of thrift and industry into all the states of New England and many states of the Union. Nevertheless, much of the land continues in the ownership of the same families and names as those who first settled here. They never have been a people to be carried away by any enthusiastic madness or uncommon revival of religion. From their position, they have always labored more hours than the people living farther inland, who would not think of rising at two o'clock in the morning to supply milk, vegetables, meal, or meat for the daily food of the people of a city half a dozen miles distant. In former years the education of hard work in early youth, perhaps, left too little time for improvement in the more scholastic accomplishments ; but the increasing wealth of the community has enabled their chil- dren to receive better opportunities in this respect than their fathers enjoyed.
A large share of the permanent inhabitants have become so interwoven by marriage that they are nearly all of blood relation. A remarkable feature of these races has been the numerous instances of longevity, due in part to their uniform living and their outdoor occupation.
From these statements of thirty years ago we make the attempt to bring our record to the present time.
June 24, 1848, a monument was erected over the grave of the Revolutionary heroes in the old burying- ground. The expense of its erection was $460.67, of which the voluntary contributions of inhabitants were $360.67, and the donation of Hon. P. C. Brooks, of Medford, $100. It is a plain obelisk of New Hampshire granite about nineteen feet in height, encircled by a stone and iron fence, having inserted in the main shaft this inscription on a marble tablet : -
" Erceted by the Inhabitants of West Cambridge, A. D. 1848, over the common grave of Jason Russell, Jason Winship. Jabez Wyman, and nine others, who were slain in this Town by the British Troops on their retreat from the Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775. Being among the first to lay down their lives in the strug- gle for American Independence."
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The grave was opened and the remains of the twelve occupants disinterred and placed in a stone vault, now under the monument, April 22, 1848.
In 1851 a new almshouse was erected. A former almshouse was built about 1817.
The town was visited by the great tornado - remembered for its immense velocity and power - August 22, 1851. Its path through West Cam- bridge was marked with the greatest destruction. Men, animals, and other objects were carried up into the air, houses unroofed, turned around, or destroyed. The estimated damage done to property by the tornado in this town amounted to $23,606. Its course was from west to east, and it crossed the Mystic River and entered Medford with unabated force.
In 1852 the present town-house was built. In 1854 the West Cambridge Gaslight Company was incorporated. In 1856 the town voted to furnish a clock to be placed in the tower of the meeting- house about to be built by the First Congregational Parish.
In 1857 the West Cambridge Horse Railroad Company was incorporated. In 1859 the town first paid the expense of keeping the streets lighted with gas. March 18, 1859, the sontherly part of the town was annexed to Belmont. The town had also lost a small piece of its territory by annexation to Winchester, April 30, 1850.
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