Browsing named entities in HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855. (ed. Charles Brooks). You can also browse the collection for Londonderry, N. H. (New Hampshire, United States) or search for Londonderry, N. H. (New Hampshire, United States) in all documents.

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hn 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 sig
ing fact, saddened only by one circumstance, which is, that we have lost our first records. We must therefore rely on our early records which are not written with ink. From Pine Hill, south-westerly, to Purchase Street, there are scattered remains of houses, now almost lost in the forest, which prove that there were living in this region many families. The cellars are, in some places, so near together as to show quite a social neighborhood. When some of the Scotch Irish, who settled Londonderry, N. H., in 1719, became dissatisfied with that place, they came into this quarter; and many of them settled in Medford. They built some of the houses, whose cellars yet remain among us, and introduced the foot spinning-wheel and the culture of potatoes. They were as scrupulous about bounds and limits in these wilds as they had been in Scotland; hence the remarkable stone walls which still stand to testify to their industry. They were Scotch Presbyterians in religion; and the Rev. Mr. Moreh