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adjoining towns refused to pay their shares, and Medford voted to carry the question before the General Sessions of the Peace, sitting at Charlestown. The object of this appeal was to show from records that there was no valid reason for the refusal of the neighboring towns in bearing their share of the expense of rebuilding. The Committee chosen to prosecute the whole matter to its final settlement were Deacon Thomas Willis, Ensign John Bradshaw, and Mr. Ebenezer Brooks. The appeal of Medford was just, and it was met by the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, sitting at Charlestown, Feb. 16, 1715, thus : The Court apportion the charges of rebuilding Mistick Bridge as follows: Charlestown, £ 64. 14s.; Woburn, Malden, Reading, and Medford, each £ 17. 12s. 3d.; total, £ 135. 3s. To this award Woburn, Malden, and Reading objected, and therefore appealed. The consequence was a legal trial of the case; and Medford, July 11, 1715, passed the following: Voted to empower Deacon Tho
own, petitions the General Court as a town, and makes its laws like other towns; and never is there the slightest hint that Medford is not a town, but rather a manor. In the early and tedious controversy about the Mystic Bridge, its neighbors treated with it as a town; its inhabitants took the oath of fidelity, and its municipal organization conformed, to the laws of the Colony. The author of the History of Charlestown says of Medford, that the town, in 1638, commenced a suit, &c. Here Medford is called a town, in 1638, by Mr. F. himself, and is represented by him as acting in its corporate capacity in a legal process before the Quarter Court. If it had been only a manor, its lord or owner would have been its sovereign; and all its town-action, above described, could never have taken place. The same inference follows if we turn to the acts of the General Court. From 1630, the Court considered Medford a town, and treated it accordingly; and, when the inhabitants petitioned fo
e planting. April 2, 1781: The first in the series of the annual elections took place on this day; and the votes, in Medford, stood thus:-- For Governor. John Hancock24 For Lieutenant-Governor. Thomas Cushing20 For Senators. Seth Gorham22 James Prescott22 John Tyng22 Abraham Fuller22 Josiah Stone22 The State government took up the cause of independence with wisdom and power. At this time, a levy of clothing and beef for the army was made by it, and our records show that Medford raised its share with promptitude. The second annual election of State officers was like the third, which, in Medford, stood thus :-- For Governor. John Hancock45 For Lieutenant-Governor. Thomas Cushing44 For Senators. Ebenezer Bridge37 Josiah Stone36 Abraham Fuller37 Eleazer Brooks37 Jonas Dix35 Joseph Hosmer3 At the fourth annual election, April 7, 1783, Governor Hancock had, in Medford, 36 votes; Lieutenant-Governor Gushing, 30. Each Senator had 24. These facts sho
, Zachariah Shed, Edmund Gates, Amos Hadley, Thomas Cutter, Jacob Waite, Samuel F. Jordan, Jonathan Tufts, jun., Randolph Richardson, Rehoboam Richardson, Miles Wilson, Joseph Peirce, John Lee, John Weatherspoon, John McClough, Stephen D. Bugsby, Robert Hall, Benjamin Symmes. The first on the list still lives; the others are dead. Edmund Gates was killed in the battle of Chippewa; and Abiel R. Shed was killed in the sortie of Fort Erie, 1813. One of the most signal sacrifices made by Medford to the cause of the country, in that war, was the death of Lieutenant John Brooks, son of General Brooks, who graduated at Harvard College in 1805, studied medicine with his father, and afterwards joined the army as an officer of marines. The personal beauty of young Brooks was a matter of remark in every company where he appeared. His courage was great; and, by exposing himself in the hottest struggle of the fight, he was instantly killed by a cannon-ball, which struck him near the hip,
taxation; and, as some of them laid within the limits of Medford, it made this town an exception. In the records of the General Court, April 4, 1641, we find the following:-- It is ordered, that all farms that are within the bounds of any town shall be of the town in which they lye, except Meadford. Meadford declared a peculiar town, Oct. 15, 1684. While it was right in the General Court to make gifts of land, tax-free, to such distinguished benefactors of the Province, it deprived Medford of so much annual income as said districts would have paid. No complaint was made on this account; and our fathers struggled through nobly, notwithstanding their small means, and yet smaller numbers. The above record of taxes tells a tale of deep interest. We can see how a handful of first settlers, in a wilderness district, who could only pay three pounds towards a provincial tax, must live from year to year. Fed by what they could raise from their own lands, and clothed by what they c
Whether any thing of this sort happened to John Man, we do not know; but we do know that Cambridge and Medford did contend stoutly that the living man did not belong to them. When the question of habitancy arose, the justice of the King's Court would cite the towns interested in the case, and require from them the fullest proofs in every particular; and, when a town got rid of a pauper, it seemed to call forth a general thanksgiving. The final decision gave the pauper in this case to Medford; and, in 1709, the town passed a vote to put him to board at Samuel Polly's, at three shillings a week. But their beneficiary must have something more than board; therefore we soon find the town furnishing one coat for John Man, £ 1.13s.; one pair of stockings, 4s. That his clothes wore out, we have record-proof in the following item: Oct. 27, 1713: Voted a pair of leather breeches, a pair of shoes and stockings, to John Man. 1718: Voted to defend the town against vagrants, and to preven
16—Old Somerville and Charlestown End. George Y. Wellington, President Arlington Historical Society. December 5—Business Meeting. Light refreshments will be served.December 7—Incidents in a Long Life in the Public Service. Jairus Mann. December 21—The Beginnings of the Boston and Lowell Railroad. Frank E. Merrill. Light refreshments will be served.January 4—An Evening with Edwin day Sibley. January 18—Concerning Some Neighboring Historical Societies. David H. Brown, President Medford Historical Society. Eugene Tappan, Secretary Sharon Historical Society. Light refreshments will be served.February 1—Neighborhood Sketch.—In and About Union Square, No. 2. Charles D. Elliot. February 6—Business Meeting. February 15—Boston in the Civil War—Chiefly from a Naval View Point. Light refreshments will be served.March 1—The Flora of Somerville. Louise A. Vinal. March 15—Some Peculiarities of Our Ancestors. D. P. Corey, President Malden H
borhood Sketches, furnished the Society by old residents; December 19, History of Ten Hills Farm, with Anecdotes and Reminiscences, Mrs. Alida G. Sellers (born Jaques); January 2, With Grant at the Battle of the Wilderness, Colonel Elijah Walker; January 16, An Incident of Anti-Slavery Times in Syracuse, N. Y., by Charles Carroll Dawson, of Toledo, O., (corresponding member of Somerville Historical Society), read by Howard Dawson; January 30, The Old Royal House and Farm, J. H. Hooper, President Medford Historical Society; February 4, stated meeting of the Society; February 13, William Pierce, Captain of Ships Ann Mayflower and Lion George E. Littlefield; February 27, Peter Faneuil and His Gift, Abram English Brown, President Bedford Historical Society; March 13, The Old Medford Turnpike, with Glimpses of the Brickmakers, John F. Ayer; March 27, The Ursuline Convent, Mt. Benedict, President Charles D. Elliot. 1901-1902: November 11, Five Years in New Mexico, Colonel E. C. Bennett;
eading and Malden appear and say that they have nothing to do with the repairing of Mistick bridge, nor should concern themselves therewith. The above orders of the Court appear to have caused great excitement in the three towns above-named. In Woburn a meeting of the inhabitants was called Jan. 10, 1693-4, to take the subject into consideration, and the said inhabitants declare, that what they had formerly done towards the repairing of Mistick bridge, was only an Act of Charity to help Medford when they were low and poor, and to help those men that had formerly engaged themselves to help repair the same, and now Medford was much increased both in numbers and in estate, and those gentlemen that had formerly engaged themselves as aforesaid, being all dead, now therefore the said inhabitants once more voted, that as by law they were not engaged to help repair Mistick bridge, so that they would do nothing to the same. The town of Woburn also voted to employ counsel for its defence,
Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 2., A business man of long ago. (search)
. The warehouses on the Mystic river were a depot of supplies throughout the war. Powder in large quantities was collected there and boated to the Castle or to Boston when needed. In 1779 and 1780 sixteen tons of cannon balls were stored by Mr. Hall for eighteen months. Large quantities of beef were packed by him in barrels made on the premises, and shipped in his lighters, for the use of the army. In those days the soldiers considered rum as necessary as meat, and we infer that Medford contributed her share in supplying their demands. In 1780 General Heath wrote, Last night an alarming account from West Point of the scantiness of provisions and rum at that post. It seems to be with a feeling of relief that he continues, A quantity of the latter is on the road to Springfield. In the third Provincial Congress Mr. Hall was chosen one of a committee to encourage the manufacture of saltpetre, and the next month was one of those appointed to countersign and number a new