USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Medford > History of the town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from its first settlement in 1630 to 1855 > Part 2
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" March 7, 1748: Put to vote to know the mind of the town, whether they will choose a committee to use their best endeavors to have the lands with their inhabitants, now belonging to Charlestown, added to this town, which now are on the southerly and northerly sides of this town."
This was not successful ; but, May 14, 1753, the effort was renewed ; the town asked for twenty-eight hundred acres, and their prayer was granted.
The bounds mentioned in the petition to the General Court were as follows : -
" On the southerly side, those that the town petitioned for in the year 1738; and those on the northerly side, bounded northerly on Stoneham, on the town of Woburn, and by the northerly bounds of Mr. William Symmes's farm, and easterly on Malden."
The bounds designated in the petition of March 6, 1738, are as follows : -
" The southerly tract lying in Charlestown, bounded northerly with the (river) . .. westerly with the westerly bounds of Mr. Smith's, Mr. Joseph Tufts's and Mr. Jonathan Tufts's farms, and then running from the southerly corner of Mr. Jonathan Tufts's farm, eastward straight to the westerly corner of Col. Royal's farm, again westerly
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
with the westerly bounds of Col. Royal's farm, again southerly with. its southerly bounds, and then running from the south-easterly corner thereof eastward straight to Medford River."
The action of the Legislature is thus recorded : -
" April 18, 1754: John Quincy, Esq., brought down the petition of the town of Medford, as entered the 17th December last, with a report of a committee of both Houses. Signed - Jos. Pynchon."
" Passed in Council ; viz., In Council, April 17, 1754. Read and accepted, with the amendment at A; and Ordered, That the lands within mentioned, together with the inhabitants thereon, be and here- by are set off from the town of Charlestown to the town of Medford accordingly. Sent down for concurrence. Read and concurred."
Thus on the 17th of April, 1754, Medford was enlarged by all its territory now lying on the south side of the river.
PONDS AND STREAMS. - Medford Pond, known now as Mystic Pond, is a charming sheet of water, and, though cousin-german to the sea, is as quiet, and retired from the. ocean, as if it never felt its tidal waves. It is about three miles in circumference, half a mile in width, and nowhere more than eighty feet in depth. It is divided into nearly equal parts by a shoal called the Partings, where was once a road used by several persons, some of whom are yet living. The lands on each side are slightly elevated. Several ele- gant residences have been erected there. In 1861 the city of Charlestown, by permission of the Legislature, built a stone dam at the Partings, thus forever excluding the tide from the upper pond. From this pond Charlestown is, supplied with water.
A brook rising in Lexington, and flowing through Arling- ton, enters this pond south of the Partings, at the western, side ; and another stream of much larger dimensions, flow -. ing through Baconville, and called Abajona River, enters. it at the north. These are fresh-water streams, and are: the only tributaries of this pond. The Mystic River has its source in this pond, and every twelve hours the water in the lower pond is raised from two to six inches by the inflowing tide, through this stream. The shore of this. pond was a favorite resort of the Indian tribes ; and, for many years after the white man enjoyed its beauties, an Indian chief continued to reside there. In the early years of the township this was a famous place for fishing ; and shad and alewives were taken in abundance in these waters.
Spot Pond. - In 1632, the Governor, with Messrs. Now-
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ell, Eliot, and others, went over Mystic River at Medford ; and, going north-and-by-east among the rocks about two or three miles, they came to a very great pond, having in the midst an island of about one acre, and very thick with trees of pine, beech, and other kinds of wood. This pond had " divers small rocks standing up here and there in it," and this feature suggested the name which they gave to it. The chronicler of their adventure says, -
" They went all about it upon the ice. From thence (towards the north-west about half a mile) they came to the top of a very high rock, beneath which (towards the north) lies a goodly plain, part open land and part woody, from whence there is a fair prospect; but, it being then close and rainy, they could see but a small distance. This place they called Cheese Rock, because, when they went to eat somewhat, they had only cheese (the Governor's man forgetting, for haste, to put up some bread)."
Cheese Rock may be easily found on the west side of Forest Street, half a mile north-west of the northerly bor- der of Spot Pond.
Mystic River. - This river in a special and very unusual sense belongs to Medford. We may almost say that it has its beginning, its full course and end, within the limits of this township.
Why it was called Mystic River we do not learn from any record or tradition that has come down to us, save that which is found in Trumbull's History of Indian Names, Places, etc. This writer says that the name "Mystic" belongs to the estuary Missi-tuk, "great tidal river ;" but the fact just named, and more probably the fact that the current in this stream flows sometimes in one direction, and sometimes in the opposite, may have seemed, to those who first witnessed the phenomena, something mysterious, and have suggested the name.
This river presented to our ancestors strong inducements in their choice of a settlement; for it gave assurance of unusual fertility of soil; of a pure and invigorating at- mosphere, always affected by the flowing tide ; and of the most convenient opportunities for navigation, that came, as it were, to every man's door. The river is, probably, very much as it was two hundred years ago.
The tide rises within its banks about twelve feet at the Cradock Bridge, and about eight feet at Rock Hill; but its motion is so gentle that it does not wear the banks, even
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
when the ice floats with the tide. The first record that has come down to us in which this river is mentioned bears the date of Sept. 21, 1621. On that day a band of pilgrim adventurers from Plymouth came by water "to Mas- sachusetts Bay ;" and they coasted by the opening of our river. In their report they remark, --
" Within this bay the savages say there are two rivers; the one whereof we saw (Mystic) having a fair entrance, but we had no time to discover it."
Johnson says, -
" The form of Charlestown, in the frontispiece thereof, is like the head, neck, and shoulders of a man; only the pleasant and navigable river of Mistick runs through the right shoulder thereof."
In many places, rivers were the first highways ; and, as . it was easier to build a canoe than to open a road, trade took the course of navigable streams. The building of small barks on the banks of Mystic River, in 1631, shows an early recognition of its adaptability to that purpose. Trade with Boston commenced before 1645, and the river was the thoroughfare. Long open boats were used for transporta- tion, and the people substituted the tide for oars and sails wherever it was practicable ; while in some places long ropes were attached to the vessels, and they were drawn by men who walked on the banks of the stream.
The depth of the river is remarkable for one so narrow, as is also its freedom from sunken rocks and dangerous shoals. Its banks are generally very steep, showing that it becomes wider with age, if it changes at all. It has not probably changed its current much since our fathers first saw it ; and the marshes through which it flows look to our eyes as they did to theirs. Few events of extraordi- nary interest have been witnessed upon its waters. The well-known curve in the bed of the river, near "the Rock," extending more than half a mile, made the passage around it so difficult, especially with sails, that it soon received the name of Labor in Vain. In 1761 the inhabitants of Medford proposed to cut a canal across this peninsula ; and they voted to do it, if it could be done by subscrip- tion ! The expense was found to fall upon so few, that the plan failed ; but it was accomplished later.
In the Revolutionary war our river was occasionally a scene of hostilities. Aug. 6, 1775, Mr. Nowell says, -
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" This day skirmishing up Mistick River. Several soldiers were brought over here (Boston) wounded. The house at Penny Ferry, Malden side, was burnt."
Aug. 13, he says, -
" Several Gondaloes sailed up Mistick River, upon which the Pro- vincials [people of Medford] and they had a skirmish; many shots were exchanged, but nothing decisive."
Lightering had become so extensive a business as to need every facility ; and in April, 1797, the town chose a committee to examine the bed and banks of the river, and, if they found that any clearing was necessary, they were empowered to do it.
There was a ford across this stream at the Wear till 1748. The ford in the centre of Medford continued in use till 1639, and was about ten rods above the bridge. The Penny Ferry, where Malden Bridge now is, was estab- lished by Charlestown, April 2, 1640, and continued to Sept. 28, 1787. There was, till recently, but one island in the river, and that is near the shore in Malden, at Moul- ton's Point, and is called "White Island." Two have since been made, -one by cutting through "Labor in Vain," and the other by straightening the passage above Cradock Bridge.
A good depth of water in this river was an object of vital importance to the ship-builders, and while the tonnage of the ships was small, it was deemed sufficient; yet there were many who wished the town might widen and deepen the bed. Several applications were made, but always with- out success.
March 7, 1803, a committee was appointed by the town "to find out what rights the town has on the river." In 1836, a still more earnest effort to improve navigation was made by those most interested in ship-building and light- ering ; but the majority of voters decided that no expense was necessary until some vessel had found it impossible to float down on the highest tides. This misfortune never occurred. It always has had depth of water sufficient to float any empty, unrigged ship of twenty-five hundred tons.
At the time when Medford was the centre of considera- ble trade ; when vessels were loaded at our wharves for the West-India markets; when bark and wood were brought from Maine, and we had rich and active merchants among us : at that time it was no unusual sight to see two, four,
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or six sloops and schooners at our wharves, and as many in our river. On the 14th of March, 1843, the town voted to remove and prevent all obstructions to the free ebb and flow of the water.
Soon after Fulton had propelled vessels by steam, a vessel so propelled came up our river to Medford, and was here repaired.
On the borders of this stream there have always ex- isted what are now called "landings." These were used by the Indians for rendezvous during their annual fishing seasons. Afterwards they were used by our fathers for loading and unloading sloops and schooners. Later still, they were used by our fishermen for emptying their nets, and some within fifty years have been occupied as ship- yards. In the Wade family there is a tradition that their ancestor, Major Jonathan Wade, gave to the town, about the year 1680, the landing-place recently occupied by Mr. J. T. Foster, who carried on a very extensive ship-building business on those premises.
Casualties by drowning in this river have been numer- ous, and many of those who perished were adults. Deaths that occurred in this way were frequently mentioned in the public records, and seventy or eighty years ago there seemed something like fatality in this matter. One death by drowning occurred each year, through so many years in succession, that the inhabitants came to think that there was a river-god who would have his annual sacrifice.
Judge Sewall, under date of Feb. 21, 1698, wrote of this stream as it then was in the winter season, saying, -
" I rode over to Charlestown on the ice, then over to Stower's (Chel- sea), so to Mr. Wigglesworth. The snow was so deep that I had a hard journey. Could go but a foot-pace on Mystic River, the snow was so deep."
Four Brooks in Medford. - That which runs a short distance east of the West Medford Depot, on the Lowell Railroad, was called Whitmore's Brook, after the pious deacon, whose house was on the north side of High Street, about two rods west of the brook. It rises in Bear Meadow.
Marble Brook, now called "Meeting-house Brook," crosses High Street about forty rods north-east of Rock Hill.
In the spring, smelts formerly ran in both these brooks in great abundance, and they continued to come into them
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in large numbers until the beginning of the last half of the present century. Very few are found there now.
The brook or creek over which Gravelly Bridge was built was formerly called Gravelly Brook, but more recently it has borne the name of Pine Hill Brook. The stream is small, but much swelled by winter rains. It has its source in Turkey Swamp.
The brook which crosses the road, at a distance of a quarter of a mile south of the " Royal House," was named " Winter Brook." It has its source near the foot of Wal- nut Hill.
Medford has always been remarkable for its freedom from epidemics, and this, in large degree, is to be attrib- uted to the great length of the river-bed that lies within its territory. The water in the Mystic is always brackish at high tide, and at the spring tides it is quite salt ; and as the banks of the stream are wet anew every twelve hours, and are then left to dry, as the water leaves them, the exhalations by that process, though invisible, are very great, and they fill the atmosphere with salt, cleanse it, and render it healthful. The exact reverse of this would be the case, if there could be a fresh-water tide, which should leave fresh-water vegetation exposed every day to the action of the sun. This beautiful and breathing stream, which seems to have studied the laws of grace, as it winds and wreathes itself through the intervale, has one more claim to notice, if not to gratitude : - to the boys of Med- ford how welcome are its waters through the warm season !
The writer of this volume learned to swim in the Mys- tic ; and many an aged man, by whom the events of the long-ago are largely forgotten, has vivid recollections of his daily bath in the dear old Mystic, when he was young ; and, if such a one is hale and vigorous when threescore and ten years have entered into his life, he will give large items of credit for health and longevity to the waters in which he swam and sported in boyhood.
The hills of Medford contribute to the picturesqueness and beauty of the town. The one commanding the widest prospect, and which is most frequented by pleasure-parties, is Pine Hill, in the north-eastern part of the town, near Spot Pond. It is the highest elevation in that low range of hills called "The Rocks," which runs east and west, and marks the present boundary of the town on the north, and extends easterly to Saugus. It was once cov-
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ered with as dense a forest as its thin soil could sustain ; but when the army was stationed near it, in 1775-76, its wood was cut off to furnish a supply of fuel, and to provide an unobstructed view of the position and move- ments of the enemy. The wood was allowed to grow again, and became a heavy forest that was unmolested until about fifty years ago. Since then the hill has been denuded, and much of its picturesqueness is gone forever. It looked best with its crown on. This eminence - which commands a view of Chelsea and Boston Harbor on the east ; Boston, Roxbury, and Cambridge on the south ; Brighton, Watertown, and Arlington on the west; and largely uncultivated on the north - has on its summit a flat rock called " Lover's Rock," one of those register-surfaces where a young gentleman, with a hammer and a nail, could engrave the initials of two names provokingly near together. The view from this hill, so diversified and grand, fills the eye with satisfaction and the mind with delightful thoughts.
Pasture Hill, on which, as old settlers will remember, Dr. Swan's summer-house once stood, is so high as to com- mand much of the eastern and southern scenery already noticed. This hill is mostly rock, and may, in subsequent years, afford a magnificent site for dwellings.
The next most interesting hill, on the north side of the river, is called Mystic Mount. It is in West Medford, be- tween High and Woburn Streets, and it commands much of the same prospect that Pine Hill does, only at a lower angle. It is a small hill ; but to those who have made it a favorite lookout for half a century it has charms inde- scribably dear, and by them is regarded as an old friend. Its neighbor, Rock Hill, on the border of the river, is a barren rock, so high as to overlook the houses situated at the east, and to afford a most delightful view of Arlington.
Walnut Hill, now College Hill, on the south side of the river, was once covered with walnut-trees. By the erec- tion of Tufts College on its summit, it has become classic ground, - the most renowned of Medford's hills. From the roof of the college the eye rests upon a panorama of surpassing beauty. The spires of numerous churches are clearly in view, lifting their taper fingers above the splen- did homes and public buildings of Charlestown, Boston, Cambridge, and Medford. The State House, Bunker-Hill Monument, and the college buildings of Harvard, are in
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
sight ; and these prominent objects in the midst of the cities where they stand, and in near proximity to beauties of upland and valley, meadow and marsh, river and ocean, make the view among the most delightful in the State.
There are many smaller hills in Medford, making parts of the "Rocks " at the north, which have not yet received names. One fact is worthy of notice, that among these hills there are copious springs of the sweetest water. In imagination we can see them falling in beautiful cascades in the future gardens of opulent citizens.
CLIMATE. - We cannot learn that there has been any considerable change in the local climate during the last two hundred years. The snowfall seems to be less now than formerly.
Gov. Winthrop wrote, July 23, 1630 :-
" For the country itself, I can discern little difference between it and our own. We have had only two days, which I have observed more hot than in England. Here is sweet air, fair rivers, and plenty of springs, and the water better than in England."
But an experience of only six weeks in June and July was not enough to warrant a safe judgment concerning the climate; and another testimony, Oct. 30, 1631, is as follows : -
" The Governor having erected a building of stone at Mistic, there came so violent a storm of rain, for twenty-four hours, that (it being not finished, and laid with clay, for want of lime) two sides of it were washed down to the ground; and much harm was done to the other houses by that storm."
The form of the land in this neighborhood has its effect on our climate. We have neither of the extremes which belong to deep, long valleys, and high mountains. We have very little fog during the year. In Medford there are few, if any, places where water can stagnate. It readily finds its way to the river ; and the good influence of this fact on climate and health is considerable. The presence of salt water and salt marshes is another favora- ble circumstance. Lightnings do not strike here so often as between ranges of high hills; and the thermometer does not report Medford as famous for extremes of heat or cold.
SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. - The soil of New England, like that of all primitive formations, is rocky, thin, and
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
hard to till. A visitor from the Western prairies, when he first looks on our fields, involuntarily asks, "How can you get your living out of these lands?" We reply, that the little soil we have is very strong, and, by good manure and hard labor, we get the best of crops. We generally add, that we New-Englanders are an industrious people, and by our earnest and well-directed toil can make even the desert wastes to " bud and blossom as the rose." But what did the soil promise when our forefathers landed here? Capt. Smith, in his journal (1614), calls the terri- tory about us "the paradise of all those parts."
Rev. Mr. Higginson, writing to his friends in England, in 1629, on "New England's Plantation," gives the follow- ing description of the soil, climate, and productions : -
" I have been careful to report nothing but what I have seen with my own eyes. The land at Charles River is as fat black earth as can be seen anywhere. Though all the country be, as it were, a thick wood for the general, yet in divers places there is much ground cleared by the Indians. It is thought here is good clay to make bricks, and tyles, and earthen pots, as need be. ` At this instant we are sitting a brick kiln on work.
"The fertility of the soil is to be admired at, as appeareth in the abundance of grass that groweth everywhere, both very thick, very long, and very high, in divers places. But it groweth very wildly, with a great stalk, and a broad and ranker blade ; because it never had been eaten by cattle, nor mowed by a sythe, and seldom trampled on by foot. It is scarce to be believed how our kine and goats, horses and hoggs, do thrive and prosper here, and like well of this country. Our turnips, parsnips, and carrots, are here both bigger and sweeter than is ordi- nary to be found in England. Here are stores of pumpions, cowcum- bers, and other things of that nature. Also, divers excellent pot-herbs, strawberries, pennyroyal, wintersaverie, sorrel, brookelime, liverwort, and watercresses; also, leekes and onions are ordinarie, and divers physical herbs. Here are plenty of single damask roses, very sweet ; also, mulberries, plums, raspberries, currants, chessnuts, filberds, wal- nuts, smallnuts, hurtleberries, and hawes of whitethorne, near as good as cherries in England. They grow in plenty here."
The fullest credit may be given to these statements of Mr. Higginson. They show, among other things, that the region we now occupy was a dense forest in 1629. This confirms the story told of Gov. Winthrop; that when he took up his residence on his farm at Ten Hills, on the bank of Mystic River, he one day penetrated the forest near Winter Hill. He so lost his latitude and longitude as to become entirely bewildered. Night came on, and he knew not which way to steer. After many ineffectual trials to descry any familiar place, he resigned himself to
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
his fate, kindled a fire, put philosophy in his pocket, and bivouacked, feeling much as St. Paul did in his shipwreck- voyage, when they "cast anchor, and wished for day." What the Governor learned or dreamed of during that rural night, we are not specifically told ; but his absence created a sharp alarm among his family, and a hunting party started in quest of him. They "shot off pieces and hallooed in the night ; but he heard them not." He found his way home in the morning, and discovered that he had been near his house most of the time.
It would be impossible, in our day, to find a forest within sight of the Ten-Hill Farm in which a boy of ten years old could be lost for a moment. The almost entire de- struction of our forests within twenty miles of Boston, and our inexplicable neglect in planting new ones, argues ill, not only for our providence and economy, but for our patriotism and taste. Plant a hogshead of acorns in yon- der rockland, and your money will return you generous dividends from nature's savings-bank.
In 1629 Mr. Graves of Charlestown said, in a letter sent to England, -
"Thus much I can affirm in general, that I never came in a more goodly country in all my life. If it hath not at any time been manured and husbanded, yet it is very beautiful in open lands, mixed with goodly woods, and again open plains, in some places five hundred acres, some places more, some less, not much troublesome for to clear for the plough to go in; no place barren but on the tops of hills."
Gov. Winthrop, writing to his son, runs a parallel be- tween the soil of Mystic and its neighborhood, and the soil of England, and says, -
" Here is as good land as I have seen there, though none so bad as there. Here can be no want of any thing to those who bring means to raise out of the earth and sea."
Nov. 29, 1630, he writes to his wife, and says, " My dear wife, we are here in a paradise." Such testimony from a Mystic man, and he the governor, reads agreeably to our ears. The grants of land made by the General Court to Gov. Winthrop, Mr. Cradock, Rev. Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Nowell, show conclusively what the best judges thought of the soil and capabilities of Medford.
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