USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Medford > History of the town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from its first settlement, in 1630, to the present time, 1855 > Part 2
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Soon after Fulton had propelled vessels by steam, a vessel so propelled came up our river to Medford, and was here repaired.
The number of adult persons who have been drowned in Mystic River is not small. In the early records, deaths in this way are often noticed. About fifty years ago, there seemed something like fatality in this matter. One death by drowning occurred each year, through so many years in suc- cession, that the inhabitants got to think that there was a river-god, who would have his annual sacrifice.
On the borders of this stream, there have always existed 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 un- loading of sloops and schooners. Later still, they were used by our fishermen for emptying their nets. Some have recently 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 now occu- pied by Mr. J. T. Foster.
Feb. 21, 1698. - At this time the river was frozen, as it is 1
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BROOKS.
in our day. Judge Sewall, under this date, says: " 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."
The absence of epidemics in Medford is to be attributed in part to the presence of our river. At high tide the water is brackish ; and, at the spring tides, quite salt. As the banks are wet anew by the rising tide every twelve hours, and are left to dry when the waters run out, the exhalations from this operation are great every day, though invisible ; and they salt the atmosphere, and cleanse it, and make it healthy. The exact reverse of this would be the case, if there could be a fresh-water tide, which should leave fresh-water vege- tables 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 Medford how welcome are its waters through the warm season ! So vivid are our recollections of our daily bath in this beloved river, that we think it worth while for parents to send their children from the country here to school, if only to strengthen and delight them with a salt bath in the Mystic.
BROOKS.
That which runs a short distance east of the West Med- ford Depôt, 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 spring, smelts resort to it in great numbers.
The brook or creek over which Gravelly Bridge is built was called "Gravelly Creek," but more lately " 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 quar- ter of a mile south of the " Royal House," was named " Winter Brook." It has its source near the foot of Walnut Hill.
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
HILLS.
The hill commanding the widest prospect, and most visited by pleasure parties, is " Pine Hill," in the north-east part of the town, near Spot Pond. As part of the low range of hills, called the " Rocks," which runs east and west, and nearly marks the northern boundary of the town, it is the highest. It was covered with as dense a forest as its thin soil on the rock could sustain. In early time the wood was burned. When the army was stationed near us, in 1775-6, the wood was cut off, in part, for its supply. After then it grew, and within twenty years has been a thick wood again. Recently the whole hill has been denuded, and much of its poetry lost. The earth looks best with its beard. This eminence - which commands a view of Chelsea and Boston Harbor on the east ; Boston, Roxbury, and Cambridge, on the south ; Brighton, Watertown, and West Cambridge, on the west; and a vast track of woodland 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 pleasure, and the mind with thought.
" Pasture Hill," on which Dr. Swan's summer-house, in his garden, now stands, is high, and commands much of the eastern and southern scenery above noticed. The hill is mostly rock, and will afford, in coming years, a most magni- ficent site for costly houses.
The next highest and most interesting spot, on the north side of the river, is "Mystic Mount," in West Medford, near the Brooks Schoolhouse. It is owned by the town, and commands much the same view as Pine Hill, only at a lower angle. To some of us who have kept it for more than half a century, as our favorite look-out, it has charms inde- scribably dear, and we regard it somewhat as we do an ancient member of a family. 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 delight- ful view of West Cambridge.
" Walnut Tree Hill," on the south side of the river, was once covered with walnut-trees. The Tufts College on its top enjoys perhaps an unparalleled site. From the roof of
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A . FAWSON. DEL
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CLIMATE.
that building the eye has a panorama not surpassed for what might be called a home-view. The spires of twenty-eight churches are in sight ; also the State House, Cambridge Colleges, Bunker Hill Monument, the old Powder House, and the most captivating view of Medford. The beauties of upland and valley, of meadows and marshes, of river and creeks, of ocean and islands, of cities and towns, all lie im- mediately beneath, in that domestic nearness and manageable form which seems to doubly make them the property of the eye.
There are many smaller hills within Medford, making parts of the "Rocks" at the north, which have not yet received names. One fact is worthy notice, that among these hills there are copious springs of the sweetest water ; and, in imagination, we can see them falling in beautiful cascades in the future gardens of opulent citizens.
CLIMATE.
A short record only of this is necessary. Governor Win- throp writes, 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." An experience of only six weeks in June and July was not enough to warrant a safe judgment concerning the climate. 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 favorable circumstance. Lightnings do not strike here so often as between ranges of high hills ; and
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
the thermometer does not report Medford as famous for extremes of heat or cold. The time, we think, is not far distant, when the great law, regulating the changes of the weather, will be discovered. God hasten the momentous development !
SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS.
The soil in New England, like that of all primitive forma- tions, is rocky, thin, and hard to till. A visitor from the western prairies, when he first looks on our fields, involun- tarily 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 granite men, and can do almost any thing !
That the virgin soil, first opened by our European ploughs, should give a prophetic yield, is not surprising. The richest spots only had been chosen by the Indians. Capt. Smith, in his voyage here (1614), calls the territory 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 following 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 earthern 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 sel- dom 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 ordinary to be found in Eng- land. Here are stores of pumpions, cowcumbers, and other things of that nature. Also, divers excellent pot herbs, strawberries, pennyroyal, wintersaverie, sorrell, brookelime, liverwort, and watercresses ; also, leekes and onions are ordinarie, and divers
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SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS.
physical herbs. Here are plenty of single damask roses, very sweet ; also, mulberries, plums, raspberries, currants, chessnuts, filberds, walnuts, smallnuts, hurtleberries, and hawes of white- thorne, 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 his fate, kindled a fire, put phi- losophy 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 hard, 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 destruction of our forests within twenty miles of Boston, and our inex- plicable 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 yonder 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."
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
Governor Winthrop, writing to his son, runs a parallel between the soil of Mistick 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 Governor Winthrop, Mr. Cradock, Rev. Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Nowell, show conclusively what the best judges thought of the soil and capabilities of Medford.
Deputy-Governor Dudley, in 1631, writes: "That honest men, out of a desire to draw others over to them, wrote somewhat hyperbolically of many things here."
Our first farmers here were taught by the Indians how to raise corn ; and, in return for that kind service, they gave the redmen European seeds, and called the American grain "Indian corn." Their crop in 1631 was most abundant ; and they began the strange experiment of eating Indian corn, yet with singular misgivings. The crop of the next year was small, owing to the shortness and humidity of the sum- mer. Their fields were not generally fenced, and boundary lines were often unsettled. After a few years, fences became more necessary ; and Sagamore John was made to fence his field, and promised to indemnify the whites for any damages his men or cattle should do to their cornfields. There were many lands held in common by companies of farmers, as lands are now held in Nantucket. These large tracts were enclosed by fences, planted by the whole company ; and, at the harvest, each received according to his proportion in the investment. This complicated plan brought its perplexities ; and the General Court, to settle them, passed the following law, May 26, 1647: Ordered, "That they who own the largest part of any lands common shall have power to order and appoint the improvement of the whole field."
The farmers here experienced great inconvenience and alarm from the burning of woods. Such was the Indian system of clearing a forest; but it would not do where European settlements obtained. Our fathers therefore applied legislation to the matter in the following form: " Nov. 5, 1639. - Ordered, That whosoever shall kindle a fire in other men's grounds, or in any common grounds, shall be fined
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SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS.
forty shillings. No fires to be kindled before the first of March."
They offered a small bounty on every acre of planted field. We presume that the Colony of Massachusetts was quite as far advanced in agricultural skill and productive harvests as that of Connecticut ; therefore, we can judge from Mr. Wolcott's farm in Connecticut what and how much our Medford farmers raised. That distinguished magistrate says (1638) : "I made five hundred hogsheads of cider out of my own orchard in one year!" We apprehend these hogs- heads were not of the modern size, but were a larger kind of barrel. He says : "Cider is 10s. a hogshead." He gives an enumeration of products thus : "English wheat, rye, flax, hemp, clover, oats, corn, cherries, quince, apple, pear, plum, barberry-trees." A very tasteful catalogue ! It sounds very little like scarcity or self-denial.
It seems that the land hereabouts was as rich and produc- tive as in any of the neighboring states : nevertheless, it needed help from manure ; and Johnson tells us, that in this region " there was a great store of fish in the spring time, and especially alewives, about the largeness of a herring. Many thousand of these they use to put under their Indian corn." They are sometimes so used at this day.
May 22, 1639. - " It is forbidden to all men, after the 20th of next month, to employ any cod or bass fish for manuring of ground."
May 26, 1647. - Ordered, " That all cattle that feed on public commons shall be marked with pitch."
Hiring land was not unusual. There were many adventu- rers who did not belong to the company, and they settled where they could buy or hire at the best advantage. Oct. 7, 1640, we find the following record : "John Greenland is granted his petition, which is, to plant upon a five-acre lot in Charlestown, bounds on Mistick River."
The rule for planting was: Plant when the white-oak leaves are the size of a mouse's ear. Hence the lines : -
" When the white-oak leaves look goslin grey, Plant then, be it April, June, or May."
The first settlers very soon found clay in different parts of their plantation, where cellars and wells were dug ; and they concluded that drought could not extensively injure a soil which had a deep substratum of this water-proof material.
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
It may be interesting to see the progress of vegetation in this locality. It is as follows : -
" 1646, Aug. 1. The great pears ripe.
3. The long apples ripe.
12. Blackstone's apples gathered.
15. Tankerd apples gathered.
18. Kreton pippins and long red apples gathered.
1647, July 5. We began to cut the peas in the field.
" 14. We began to shear rye.
Aug. 2. We mowed barley. Same week we shear summer wheat.
7. The great pears gathered.
Sept. 15. The russetins gathered; and pearmaines.
Observe
1648, May 26. Sown one peck of peas, the moon in the full. how they prove.
July 28. Summer apples gathered.
1649, July 20. Apricoks ripe."
Oct. 2, 1689. - A tax was to be paid ; and the valuations were as follow: "Each ox, £2. 10s .; each cow, £1. 10s .; each horse, £2; each swine, 6s .; each acre of tillage land, 5s. ; each acre of meadow and English pasture, 5s." The tax on land bounded out in propriety was " 2s. on each hun- dred acres."
Our fathers were farmers after the English modes, and therefore had to learn many new ways from the sky and the climate. The times of ploughing and planting here, in spring and autumn, varied somewhat from those of their native land. Some plants, which in cold and misty England wooed the sun, could best thrive here if they wooed the shade. While land there, with a south-eastern exposure, was worth much more for culture than that which faced the north-west, the difference here was comparatively small. They were happily disappointed in the slight labor and certainty in making hay under our sun and clear skies. They had soon to learn that their stock of all kinds must be sheltered from the destroying cold and storms of an American winter. In the preservation of vegetables and fruits, also, our fathers had to receive new instruction from the climate. These they preserved by burying them. It took them several years to adjust themselves to the novel activity of common laws and familiar agents.
As the soil and climate must determine what grains, fruits, and vegetables can be raised with profit, it soon became evident to our Medford farmers that Indian corn was to be a staple. Rye, barley, wheat, and oats were found productive
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SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS.
as grains ; peas and beans yielded abundantly ; while turnips, beets, onions, and parsnips gradually grew into favor. Potatoes were not known to our first settlers ; although among the articles, "to send for New England," from Lon- don, March 16, 1628, " potatoes " are named. The potato is a native of Chili and Peru. We think there is no satisfac- tory record of potatoes being in England before they were carried from Santa Fé, in America, by Sir John Hawkins, in 1653. They are often mentioned as late as 1692. Their first culture in Ireland is referred to Sir Walter Raleigh, who had large estates there. A very valuable kind of potato was first carried from America by " that patriot of every clime," Mr. Howard, who cultivated it at Cardington, near Bedford, 1765. Its culture then had become general. Its first introduction to this neighborhood is said to have been by those emigrants, called the " Scotch Irish," who first entered Londonderry, New Hampshire, April 11, 1719. As they passed through Andover, Mass., they left some potatoes as seed to be planted that spring. They were planted according to the directions ; and their balls, when ripened, were supposed to be the edible fruit. The balls, therefore, were carefully cooked and eaten ; but the conclusion was that the Andover people did not like potatoes ! An early snow-storm covered the potato-field, and kept the tubers safely till the plough of the next spring hove them into sight. Some of the largest were then boiled; whereupon the Andover critics changed their opinion, and have patronized them from that day. When the potato was first known in Scotland, it suffered a religious persecution, like some other innocent things. The Scots thought it to be a most unholy esculent, blasphemous to raise, and sacrilegious to eat. They therefore made its cultivation an illegal act ; and why ? "Because," as they say, "it is not mentioned in the Bible "! The prejudice against this unof- fending vegetable was so great at Naples, in Italy, that the people refused to eat it during a famine ! We do not find that any epidemic has attacked this healthy plant until the potato cholera, which, of late, has nearly ruined it. The soil in Medford has been found particularly fitted for this plant, owing to a substratum of clay which keeps it moist. The early mode of preserving potatoes through the winter was to bury them below the reach of the frost, and shelter them from rain.
The barns of our pilgrim fathers were very small, because
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HISTORY OF MEDFORD.
they stacked their hay out-doors, according to the usage of their native land. When sheep and swine could be trusted in the woods, they were left there till deep snows made it impossible to find food. The fatting of cattle was an easy and cheap process ; for they had hundreds of acres over which to range, unlooked to by their owners, till the close'of the summer, when they were taken to the stall, and fed with corn. Each quadruped was marked with its owner's name, and was immediately restored when it had wandered into a neighbor- ing town.
When lands were not fenced, the following law, passed March 9, 1637, was necessary. " All swine shall be kept up in yards, islands, or committed to keepers, under penalty of 10s. for every swine so disposed of; and whatsoever swine shall be taken in corn or meadow-ground shall forfeit 5s. a piece to those that shall empound them, and the owners shall be liable to pay double damages." When mowing grounds and tillage fields became fenced, and that was early, then it became a common habit with our ancestors to let " hogs run at large," as they do now in the city of New York; of which license more may be said of its economy than of its neatness. March 10, 1721, the town of Medford voted to let the hogs go at large, as they formerly have done. This vote was repealed in 1727. There gradually grew up a strong dislike of this custom, and some altercations occurred in town-meetings concerning it; when, in March 12, 1770, the inhabitants vote that the hogs should not go at large any longer. After this there must have been a vast improvement in the appearance of the public roads, and of the grounds about private dwellings.
The raising of all kinds of stock was deemed of para- mount importance, and served more towards enriching our farmers than any other part of labor; since proximity to Boston furnished an easy and sure market. Ship-building at first, and then brick-making, opened quite a market within their own territory ; and we must think that our early farm- ers were favorably situated for making a comfortable living.
Spinning and weaving were almost as much a part of farm- labor as the making of butter and cheese ; and the farmer's wife and daughters were not a whit behind him in patient toil or productive results. Hemp and flax were used for clothing ; and the labor of making these into garments for workmen was not small.
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SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS.
For the first hundred years of our settlement, the attention of agriculturists must have been directed to clear up lands, erect stone walls, ditch marshes, and open roads, while they also studied the rotation of crops, and procured new seeds from other localities. When Boston became a large town, our farmers were prompt in supplying it with milk ; and this new business gradually extended till it became one of the most lucrative. This led to raising cows on an extensive scale ; while this, in its turn, led to raising grass and hay in preference to corn. The amount of butter and cheese made in Medford has been therefore comparatively small ; the milk farms being found more profitable. At the beginning of this century, the quantity of milk sold in Boston by our Medford farmers was very great; its price varying from three to five cents a quart. The cows were milked by earliest daylight, and the vender was in Boston by sunrise. Within the last thirty years, the milk has found its market more in Medford ; and several large farms have been used to raise hay for the horses of Boston. The cultivation of fruits has been a cherished object in our town, and many of our farms have doubled their value by this means. It is not unusual with them to produce one and two hundred barrels of apples, besides great varieties of pears, peaches, plums, quinces, and the common lesser fruits.
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