HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

1744.--A long-tailed comet, of unusual brightness, frightened some of our people more than Mr. Whitefield had; but a wag here said, “that he thought it the most profitable itinerant preacher and friendly new-light that had yet appeared.”

1745.--Medford voted thus: Any person who allows his dog to go into the meeting-house on Sunday shall pay ten shillings (old tenor) for each offence.

1749.--Some idea of travelling expenses may be obtained from the acts of the town relative to their farm on the Piscataqua River. They wished to sell the farm for two thousand pounds (old tenor); and therefore chose Lieutenant Stephen Hall, jun., and Captain Samuel Brooks, to go to Portsmouth, N. H., and settle some claims pertaining to the land; and they voted forty pounds (old tenor) to be given them, to bear the expenses of the journey.

Robert Burns is a name that frequently occurs in the Medford records about the middle of the eighteenth century.

1750.--The various spelling of proper names by the different town-clerks of Medford sometimes makes it difficult to determine how families spelled their own names.

1750.--A gallows and a whipping-post stood near Porter's tavern, in Cambridge; and this gave rise to the schoolboy strophe:--

Cambridge is a famous town,
     Both for wit and knowledge:
Some they whip, and some they hang,
     And some they send to college.

Sept. 3, 1752.--The Protestants in England adopted the 1st of January as the beginning of the year, instead of the 25th of March; and Sept. 3 was changed to Sept. 14.

Jan. 29, 1753.--“Dr. Simon Tufts, and Lucy Tufts, his wife, of Medford, gave a quitclaim deed to Thomas Dudley of all their right to the property of their honored father, William Dudley, Esq., of Roxbury.”

In 1755, Massachusetts raised a large part of the two thousand troops who were to dislodge the French Neutrals in Nova Scotia. Medford furnished its share. These Acadians were conquered, and they and their effects scattered through the colonies. One thousand of the wretched and proscribed sufferers were distributed in Massachusetts. Eight of them were cared for in Medford. They staid a long time; and the kindness of our people reconciled them to their lot. The family of Le Bosquet was one that remained here.

May 10, 1756.--“Voted that the money gathered on Thanksgiving-days be given to the poor by the deacons.” This was the beginning of that excellent custom.

1757.--Stephen Hall gave one hundred pounds (old tenor) for the purchase of a funeral-pall which should belong to the town. Whereupon, voted that it should be free for the town; but that “half a dollar shall be paid for its use whenever it goes out of town.”