USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Somerville > Report of the city of Somerville 1902 > Part 3
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It was my proud privilege, as Chief Executive of my native City, and a graduate of the school whose semi-centennial was then celebrated, to greet the hundreds whose high school learn- ing had been attained here. In this connection, I may say that it is a source of what seems to me pardonable pride that to-day I am permitted to occupy as official quarters in City Hall the same room in which, more than thirty years ago, I sat as a pupil.
Public Library.
Beginning with the year, the public was granted free access to all the books of the Library intended for general circulation. Measured by the approval of the people, this has been one of the most successful movements in the whole history of the Library. It has added greatly to its efficiency as an educational institution, and has immensely increased the sane and wholesome pleasure of the community.
The Library now supplies all the Sunday Schools that desire the service with books up to the number of one hundred. Of course, no books of a sectarian bias or a theological partisanship are supplied to the Sunday Schools, as it is believed that all works of this nature should be furnished by the respective Sunday Schools themselves. But all the wholesome, inspiring, and high- motived books in the Library are placed at the disposal of the Sunday Schools, and it is expected that they will be powerful agencies for disseminating such literature.
There has been a greater circulation the past year than ever before, and a circulation of a higher class of reading matter.
The co-operation between the schools and the Library has been closer than ever, as a special school librarian has been ap- pointed, whose exclusive time is given to school work.
The system of home delivery of books has been continued with good results.
The Library's aim for the future is to so duplicate its books of real value that no book of this nature may ever be called for and no copy be found upon the shelves. It will require time and money to accomplish this result; but it is a result that should be accomplished.
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MAYOR'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
Police.
Unfortunately, the favorable reputation which the Police De- partment has borne for more than thirty years,-a record un- paralleled in the history of Massachusetts,-was sadly and shock- ingly disturbed by the discovery that one of the trusted members of the force, who had served for nearly fourteen years, and whose duty it was to protect and preserve the peace and honor of the City, was caught in the very act of stealing from the money drawer of the Public Library. The discovery of this petty thiev- ing led to an investigation, by which Officer Knight was proved to have been in the habit of robbing the stores along his route of all kinds of merchandise. The story is too long and too harrow- ing to be mentioned at length here. Suffice it to say that, after a thorough examination of the culprit by the Mayor himself, the officer was arrested and bound over by the Grand Jury for trial. A thorough and careful investigation, which is not yet completed, has resulted so far in attaching no suspicion upon any other mem- ber of the force, and it is hoped that further inquiry will cast no shadow upon any of them.
The one case of the recent numerous murderous assaults in the Metropolitan District in which Somerville has been particu- larly concerned,-the murder of Miss Agnes McPhee,-has been handled in a highly creditable way by the Chief of Police and his detectives, whose successful efforts have contributed much toward allaying the fear and anxiety which was abroad in the community, and whose evidence will doubtless be of very mate- rial value in the conviction of the assailant.
Sensational newspaper articles to the contrary notwithstand- ing, the Police Department in general, and the Chief of Police in particular, have the cordial endorsement of the Mayor and the ap- proval of the people.
No department is perfect, however, and there is some room for improvement here.
This year one officer, who had received injuries and become worn out in the service, was retired upon a pension, under the law governing such cases. The pensioning or discharging of still more of the old officers should be given careful attention. The efficiency of the Department could be enhanced by such action and filling the places with young men.
I recommend the appointment of one or more sergeants, so that one may be in command of each division of the night patrol.
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ANNUAL REPORTS.
Fire Department.
Once more we are privileged to congratulate the City upon the efficiency of its Fire Department. Every alarm has been re- sponded to so promptly, and every fire handled so skillfully, there has been no serious loss during the year. The force has been . steadily improved in its personnel. There are now none but citi- zens of Somerville in the Department.
I regret that there is a disposition to undervalue the services of the call force. If people would consider the importance of the work done by these men, they would hesitate before doing or say- ing anything to belittle their services.
The disbandment of the call force would mean an increase of permanent men, and necessarily an increase of expense.
The Mayor felt called upon to veto a bill that provided that fines should go to a pension fund. There is no occasion to argue the merits of the case here, but it was a departure so radical that it did not seem wise to enter upon a pension scheme by so in- direct a method.
A new fire station is required near Union square. In the immediate vicinity of the present station, at the corner of Wash- ington and Prospect streets, there are two available lots of land owned by the City, in addition to the one upon which the old building stands.
Water Department.
In many regards the Water Department is the most satisfac- tory feature of the City's life. The supply is abundant, the quality good, and the Department is maintained upon a basis that virtu- ally yields an income. The waste of water is so great that it is - possible that meters will ultimately be put in. There is water for all uses, but there is none for abuses. There is also need for equalization of rates. Absolute equality and justice are impos- sible, however, until meters are used. Our share of the Metro- politan water system has cost, or will have cost when present plans have matured, $1,600,000, which is more than our entire City debt. Water is free, but the storing and delivery of it makes it an expensive luxury.
The Metropolitan water works system, to the cost of which we are next to the largest contributor, is progressing rapidly in its construction, and will be practically completed in about two years more.
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MAYOR'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
The Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board, in August, 1901, acting under the provisions of the Metropolitan Water Act of 1895, adopted regulations for the use of hand hose for lawn sprinkling, and in March last voted to establish $4 as the mini- mum rate for the use of hand hose. Efforts have since been made to have the State Board permit an indefinite continuance of the $3 rate for this City, but they have proved unavailing. On November 28, 1902, the Board voted and served notice on the Water Commissioner, "That, until otherwise provided, the mini- mum rate which shall be approved for the use of hand hose for lawn sprinkling shall be fixed at $4 per annum, such use to be in conformity with the regulations of the Board which were made August 2, 1901." It becomes necessary, therefore, to increase our hose rate to $4, in compliance with the requirements of said Board.
Perhaps the most important work was the completion of the connecting link, in Holland street, of the Clarendon Hill and Central Hill high-service districts. The entire high service of the City is now in one system, and is benefited by two connec- tions with the Metropolitan high-service main.
Approximately one mile of the old pipe still remains in use in various streets, and I recommend the removal of the balance of the cement-lined mains and the substitution therefor of iron pipe, thus making our water distribution system unexcelled by any.
Poor Department.
Somerville will always do well by her poor, whatever the financial exigencies. Whatever may be the cause of their mis- fortune, whenever our citizens are in need of public care they re- ceive it. This season the demands upon our sympathy and ap- propriations have been greater than ever before. The coal strike and its attendant horrors have affected us in common with all the eastern section of the United States. Never before has there been such a public calamity in America caused by an in- dustrial disagreement. Aside from the local conditions in the strike district, our own City has felt the strain, until in nearly every home there has been anxiety as to the possibility of securing fuel at any price. This has meant great hardship for the poor, and where individuals could not get half a ton of coal, it was no
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ANNUAL REPORTS.
easy matter for the City to provide for her poor, as well as for all of her public buildings.
The wisdom of the original purchase of the City Home and farm, together with the extension of the acreage for tillage, is continually apparent, both from the excellent accommodations for our poor and from the increasing revenue derived from farm produce.
Somerville Hospital.
The appropriation which the City annually makes for the Somerville Hospital provides for the double service of assisting in the support of this most worthy institution and of giving medical and surgical aid to the poor who require it.
I recommend that the sum of $5,000 be appropriated, to be applied as heretofore.
The Brown=Tail Moth Pest.
The brown-tail moth pest, which one year ago was of such magnitude as to cause me to designate it as "the annoyance of the year," was by a systematic campaign well-nigh exterminated. The efforts now being made will, we trust, result in our complete riddance from the pest, and the force of men employed and the consequent expense will be much smaller than last season.
History of Somerville.
In pursuance of an order adopted by the Board of Aldermen in the month of November, a committee of twenty-four citizens was appointed to compile a history of Somerville.
The committee is composed of well-known and public- spirited citizens, thoroughly conversant with Somerville's affairs, and amply qualified to undertake the work of compiling and edit- ing such a history.
Various lines of work are being prosecuted in the City Clerk's office for the purpose of improving the condition of the earlier records and the indexes thereto. Those portions of the records of the Town and the Selectmen which relate to the Civil War are also being copied, and a large amount of information on the same subject has been obtained in the office of the Adjutant General of
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MAYOR'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
the Commonwealth, to serve as a part of the history of Somerville during that period.
There is no sufficiently accurate and comprehensive history extant, and the wealth of material, both of historic interest and modern progress, should be carefully collected and preserved in tangible form.
Miscellaneous Department Work.
It will be noticed that I have refrained from going into the details of the work of the various departments in this address to so great an extent as in the past two years, inasmuch as detailed statements of the work will be found in the annual reports of the departments and officers.
Suffice it to say that the work of the several departments of which no specific mention has been made, is more or less of a routine nature, and is marked by a continued high degree of excellence.
In Memoriam.
During the year the City has been called upon to mourn the deaths of several men who have been prominent in her coun- cils :-
Honorable Austin Belknap, a leader in both town and city affairs, and a former Chief Executive of the City ;
Martin W. Carr, a successful Somerville manufacturer, a former member of both branches of the City Government, and an earnest and long-time worker for the advancement of the schools ; and
William H. Brine, a leading Boston merchant, identified for many years with the management of the Public Library.
The community has suffered distinct loss by the deaths of Elbridge Streeter Brooks, litterateur, whose name is most favora- bly known by the youth throughout the land, and Mrs. Martha Perry Lowe, also prominent in literature, and in philanthropy and woman's advancement.
Four times since the beginning of the new year has the shadow of death been cast upon us. It becomes my sorrowful duty to advise you of the death of former City Treasurer John F. Cole, which occurred on New Year's day. In addition to the
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ANNUAL REPORTS.
great debt which the City owes to his memory as Treasurer, it also owes him a debt of gratitude for his services as a member of the Board of Aldermen and the Water Board.
With great natural abilities, broadened by exceptional finan- cial training in the commercial world in early life, he came to the City Treasurership rarely equipped for the management of large municipal interests. A man of sterling integrity, steadfastness of purpose, and great personal worth, he will ever hold an hon- ored place in our hearts.
On Friday last we were called upon to mourn the death of one of our oldest citizens, Rev. Silas S. Cummings. During the War of the Rebellion he served as chaplain and with the Christian Commission, and he was one of the most highly es- teemed members of the Grand Army. His many years' service in the interest of orphaned children endeared him to countless thousands of people.
Again, on yesterday morning, the citizens were saddened by the death of Dr. John F. Couch, a man of very charitable dispo- sition, whose kind acts to the poor of both Somerville and Cam- bridge were unnumbered. For two years he was City Physician, and a member of our Board of Health, being recognized as one of the most valued men who has served us in such a capacity.
And still again has death been in our midst, bearing away another of our distinguished citizens. Elijah C. Clark, the news of whose death has reached me since the beginning of these cere- monies, has passed away after a most painful illness. He was one of my closest friends. His service in the Civil War in the First Maine Heavy Artillery was conspicuous. But it was as an asso- ciate in the City Government and in the State Legislature that I realized so fully his true worth. His loss to Somerville is indeed great.
Gentlemen of the Board of Aldermen :-
I would exhort extreme deliberation in regard to the legis- lation of important matters. "Haste makes waste," and "Eternal vigilance" are two watchwords by which we may profitably be guided, especially when considering matters involving large ex- penditures of money. We must be confident at the outset of any new enterprise, that we are to receive in value, dollar for dollar, a full return for all money appropriated and expended.
Therefore, when orders are introduced in your Board, and there is the slightest misunderstanding regarding the true mean-
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MAYOR'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
ing and tenor of the same, any member of the Board will be justi- fied, in fact it will be his imperative duty, to ask that further con- sideration of the subject matter in hand be postponed, as provided by the Charter, until a full and clear understanding may be ob- tained. There is nothing gained by hasty legislation. Be sure you are right, then go ahead.
Our City.
The source of Somerville's fair fame needs not to be long sought for. It rests, in general, upon the high tone of her citi- zenship. In particular, it is traceable to the integrity, the ability, and the strength of purpose of those who have been chosen to serve her in elective and appointive capacities. The men who have preceded the present Executive have been, without excep- tion, chosen from the foremost ranks of our citizens, and have proved themselves altogether worthy of the confidence reposed in their high qualities of character and ability. The City Council has generally been a school for these men, and they have had as colleagues many men of equal ability and fitness with themselves. The various executive boards of the City have always been con- stituted of men of especial fitness and talent. Many of them have devoted themselves for years, out of mere love for their work, to its advancement. Nor would I overlook the officials and clerks of the City-the men and women who perform the work that keeps the municipal wheels of progress in motion, for I do not believe that any city of the Commonwealth has a more conscien- tious and able corps of workers than has Somerville.
"Comparisons are odious," and so I forbear to mention by name any of those who have served us in the past, or are doing so in the present, but I wish simply, in a collective way, to pay this tribute of "honor to whom honor is due."
We have here a city whose every rod of soil literally teems with historic interest. Hardly a Massachusetts town, save Ply- mouth and Boston, and, therefore, hardly a town in the country, is more worthy of notice for its Colonial interest than is Somer- ville, as the latter years have known these four square miles of old Charlestown. Here was the magnificent residence and extensive "Ten Hills Farm" of Colonial Governor Winthrop.
Here is Prospect Hill, near the very brow of which we are at this moment assembled, whose summit is now crowned by a park
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of rare beauty, which is a fitting mark for this justly famous site -the scene of the raising of the first American flag, and also, later in the Revolution, the camping ground of Burgoyne's Brit- ish soldiery. We are now, at this late day, fulfilling a prediction, made some fifty years after the Revolution by a visitor, who ob- served that "the extensive view from this hill, the walk on the ancient ramparts, and the site of the various stations occupied by the American army, will render this hill at a future period a favor- ite resort." Here on our Central Hill was the French redoubt of our allies. On Winter Hill the Hessians once were encamped.
No mention of historic Somerville is complete, if the Old Powder House be not included, to which no less an authority than Samuel Adams Drake pays this tribute :-
"By far the most remarkable object to be seen in the vicinity of Boston is the Old Powder House, which stands on a little emi- nence hard by the road leading from Winter Hill to Arlington- formerly the old stage road to Keene, N. H. ... It is the only really antique ruin we can boast of in Massachusetts; and for solitary picturesqueness, in all New England, only its fellow, the Old Mill at Newport, can rival it." . "There is not the smallest doubt," says he, "that Washington has often dis- mounted" here ; "or that Knox came here"; or that "Sullivan, in whose command it was, watched over it with anxious care."
Coming down to a later period, Somerville possesses, in her little Somerville-avenue cemetery, what is said to be the first stone ever erected to the memory of Union soldiers-the little marble shaft reared during the War of the Rebellion in remem- brance of the boys of the Somerville Light Infantry." Proud, indeed, am I to bear the same family name as that of one which is here chiseled, sad though it is to recall this brother's death in a rebel prison pen. The sons of Somerville were true in this crisis to the traditions of the fathers.
Somerville is a city of convenient and beautiful location.
"A city set upon the hills, For all to see, like ancient Rome ; The one our classic memory thrills, The other speaks to us of home.
"The one is old, and sad, and gray, The other is so bright and young,
It seems as if 'twas in a day Our city into being sprung.
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MAYOR'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
"It stretches north, and east, and west,- The world is lying at our feet ; Each one believes his view the best, And makes the harmony complete."
Its parks-Broadway, which superseded a most unsightly locality of cheap tenements and huts; Nathan Tufts, or Powder House, so historic, and so beautiful in both the natural and the artificial that City Forester Doogue, of Boston, has awarded it special praise ; Central Hill, historic, also, and completing, with the public buildings, a picture that pleases every eye; Lincoln, which affords a restful breathing ground for a somewhat con- gested district ; and Prospect Hill, which, as do some of the others, will attract by its beauty and history alike ; all these acres of "necessary luxuries," if I may be pardoned the ambiguity, to- gether with that winding way, eighty feet in width, which is des- tined to become the most beautiful of streets-Powder House Boulevard -- and which, when connected with the Mystic Valley Parkway at West Medford, will furnish a "sandpapered" drive from West Somerville to Winchester-all these beauty spots, I say, place Somerville in almost an enviable position among the suburban cities, and prove that she is contributing her full share toward supplementing the truly magnificent work of the Metro- politan Park Commission.
In the matter of growth, Somerville's career has been re- markable, if not phenomenal. In the whole sixty years of its existence, the gain in population has averaged 1,000 per year. In 1842, the year of the Town's incorporation, there were not many more than 1,000 souls within its borders; the census of 1900 shows that we were then over 61,000 in number. From a farming town, whose fertile acres were dotted here and there with houses, and whose rangeways were traversed as much by cattle and sheep as by people, we have grown to be a compact com- munity of 65,000 people, 11,000 dwellings, and ninety miles of streets. With an annual increase of 300 dwellings, it is safe to say our population is gaining at the rate of about 2,000 per year. Our expansion in the last decade has more resembled that of a "boom" town of the Western frontier than that of staid New England.
While Somerville, like other suburbs, is often regarded as a "bedroom for Boston," there are many who both labor and sleep
.
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ANNUAL REPORTS.
within her confines. They are the thousands who are witnesses that Somerville is not to be lightly regarded as a manufacturing city.
Those higher attributes, morality and religion, certainly have here been sown in good ground. The comparatively small police force necessary to keep order testifies to this; the thirty and more churches tell of it; our "banner" no-license record is alike a cause and a result of this fact; and our numerous and altogether worthy charitable enterprises are silent, yet moving, undercurrents of it.
I always somehow feel a thrill of pride and satisfaction in re- hearsing upon every proper occasion the praises of Somerville. Not that our City needs, for a moment, anyone to stand sponsor for her, for, viewed from any point, Somerville will bear com- parison with almost any city, and when considered from all sides, she, in my judgment, fairly towers above nearly all others.
Altogether, I know that, upon reflection, you will agree with me that Somerville stands "second to none," and that we may, in simple justice, devoid alike of false pride and false modesty, pro- claim her virtues.
"Surely in toil or fray, * * * * *
Comfort it is to say, 'Of no mean city am I.'"
REPORT OF THE CITY TREASURER AND COLLECTOR OF TAXES.
Treasurer's Office, January 15, 1903. To the Honorable, the Mayor, and the Board of Aldermen of the City of Somerville :-
Gentlemen,-The undersigned presents herewith the thirty- first annual report of the financial condition of the city, and a statement showing, in detail, the receipts and disbursements for the year ending December 31, 1902.
Public Property.
The value of the public property of the city December 31, 1901, was $3,509,116.82. The property acquired during the year was as follows :--
City Hall Annex Improvement
$655 02
City Hall Portico
1,332 32
Morse School, Sanitary Improvement
1,859 00
Schoolhouse in Ward 1 (Clark Bennett School)
35,604 59
Schoolhouse in Ward 7 (Morrison Avenue School)
7,801 45
Land on Prospect Hill
17,288 70
Prospect Hill Park
18,587 16
Listed 1901 . 6,000 00
10,139 92
Total amount of property acquired during the year $93,268 16 Making the value of the public property December 31, 1902, as per Table A, $3,602,384.98.
Funded Debt.
The funded debt December 31, 1901, as per Table B of the last annual report, was $1,461,000.
The debt was increased during the year by appropriations as follows :-
Public Buildings Construction :-
Schoolhouse in Ward One
$8,000 00
Schoolhouse in Ward Seven
34,000 00
Sewers Construction
25,000 00
Public Grounds :-
Glen Street Addition
800 00
Athletic Field in Ward Seven .
1,000 00
Amount carried forward
$68,800.00
Water Works Extension
$16,139 92
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ANNUAL REPORTS.
Amount brought forward
$68,800 00
Land on Prospect Hill for Park Purposes
13,500 00
Prospect Hill Park .
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