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High street about 1820. Mr. Elijah B. Smith, who was born in Medford, April 4, 1813, and died in that city, August 16, 1903, wrote, just before his death, a few recollections of the old homesteads in West Medford which were standing in his boyhood, and his notes form the basis of this article. H. T.W. ABOUT a hundred rods from Weir bridge, on the north side of High street was a small house owned by Spencer Bucknam, occupied by a Mr. Peirce, afterward by Isaac Greenleaf for a few years, and then torn down. Mr. Greenleaf lived afterward on Fulton street. On the south side of the street was the Payson farm of some fifty acres. The house and other buildings were a few rods from the Middlesex Canal. Elijah Smith and family occupied this place from 1800 to 1830. Mr. Smith was born in Lexington, Massachusetts. He was six years old when the battle of Lexington occurred, and he had a distinct remembrance of the event. The Payson farm being so near to the canal bridge, Mr.
rested some of us who have been looking up residents of Medford in years past to search for elderly people, natives of this city. As we have examined the records, tender thoughts have filled our minds as we read the names of those whose faces were familiar to us, and found it hard to realize that they have passed on. Mr. and Mrs. Dudley C. Hall, Mrs. Thomas S. Harlow and her sister, Mrs. Fitch, Miss Helen Porter, Miss Almira Stetson, Mrs. Matilda T. Haskins, Mrs. George F. Lane, Messrs. Elijah B. Smith, Cleopas Johnson, David Osgood Kidder and eighteen others, resident in Medford, have died within the last seven years, all of them born here more than three quarters of a century ago. We recognized the names of Mr. John K. Fuller of Dorchester, Mrs. Caroline R. (Brooks) Hayes of Woburn, Mrs. Hepsa (Hall) Bradlee of Boston, Mr. Oliver Wellington of Winchester, Mr. Andrew D. Blanchard of Melrose, and Mr. Andrew Waitt of Cambridge, who although no longer residents, claim Medford as
ld to the Mystic Mansion, erstwhile the Medford almshouse. Westward from the seminary was the three-story residence of Mr. Smith, with its tower with windows of colored glass, and the hundred-foot barn beyond. These were destroyed in various inceno smaller houses of Gilbert Lincoln, and the newly built house of Florist Duane completed the number not included in the Smith estate. This comprised the territory lying between High street, the railroad and the river, with a small portion across the eighteen houses I have named. A few days later (May 26), as the result of an interview with all the proprietors, the Smith estate came under my superintendence, and soon after, taking up my abode in one of their houses, I became a resident and nts. In 1870, water was introduced into Medford from Spot Pond, and building operations commenced upon the long vacant Smith estate, which for some years was called by some of the hill dwellers the Flats. Possibly they had forgotten, or, perhaps
Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 15., Old Medford Schoolboys' letters. (search)
Old Medford Schoolboys' letters. AMONG the residents of Medford who lived to a good old age was Elijah B. Smith. In his boyhood he had a chum, who in 1894 resided in Dorchester, and replied under date of February 9 to a letter from his old friend Lige. In it he said: It is recorded in the good book that J. K. F. was b. If the old friends met on that occasion it was probably their last meeting, and what an exchange of old-time reminiscences they must have had! We reproduce Mr. Smith's letter in the Register, with the remark that a portion of it may also be found in an Historical Souvenir of Medford, issued in 1903 by the Sarah Bradlee Fultonnd when you shall visit our old town again I surely will meet you, if not dead or lame. With a multitude of good wishes from your old schoolmate and friend, E. B. Smith. Mr. Fuller began his reply with the words Dear young friend, and named several of his schoolmates who struggled to master the three Rs, Reading, Riting an
; the Misses Kimball; Rev. James Reed, and J. M. Rodocanachi, the Greek consul. Poems written for the occasion by Rev. E. A. Horton, Rev. M. J. Savage, and Elijah B. Smith of West Medford were read. These, and others not read for want of time, were printed in a beautiful souvenir volume containing an account of the occasion, were and a more remarkable fact was that the bridesmaid and groomsman of 1837 were present; the former, Mrs. Sarah W. Hart, a sister of Mr. Warren; the latter, Elijah B. Smith. A valued keepsake in a Medford family is one of these little books, inscribed on a fly-leaf, The Bride and Groom, 1837, To Mr. Elijah B. Smith, Xmas, 1887Mr. Elijah B. Smith, Xmas, 1887. Mr. Warren died in Boston, January 23, 1890. A pamphlet published after his death testified to the esteem in which he was held. Words written by officers of churches, savings banks, the Washingtonian Home, Bostonian Society, directors of the public library of Billerica, corporation of the South End Industrial School, and oth
Poem. by Elijah B. Smith. Fifty years have rolled on, as the records will say, This month of October, this seventeenth day; And well is remembered a long morning ride In the ‘Old One Horse Shay,’ with no one beside, Well wrapped in a cloak, then the garment in vogue, That covered the faults of the saint or the rogue. A wish or a summons had come from a friend, That duty and pleasure induced to attend; As once was the custom in old Galilee, A wedding that day we were destined to see. The bride and the bridegroom, both youthful and fair, Were pledged to each other life's duties to share. The guests were assembled, the service was done, And two were pronounced to be merged into one. The bride cake was broken; the marriage feast o'er, The pair left their home for a tropical shore. Successful and crowned with the blessings of health, Time brought to their coffers the comfort of wealth. No longer required were the labors for gain; They thought of New England and homeward they came. What
street to become a residential section. Let us now look at old High street, beginning at its terminal, Charlestown line. An old resident of Medford did this for us, and his story may be found in the Regis-ter, Vol. VIII, p. 44. This was Elijah B. Smith, who passed away August 16, 1903. His father, Elijah, was born in Lexington, a few years before the battle, and came to Medford in 1810, living in a house close by the Middlesex canal on High street, where Elijah, Jr., was born in 1813. Mr. Smith speaks of the territory between the canal and river as the fifty-acre Payson farm, but mentioned no other buildings on its High street frontage. This farm, in the fifties, became known as the Smith estate from its then owner, Thomas P. Smith. He mentions a small house, opposite his father's, of Spencer Bucknam (in other occupancy), which was torn down. Also another at corner of Grove street that was later moved, and in which Mr. Brooks' gardener lived. As his recollection begin