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

That the Company in London had fixed firmly one point, the following extract from their second letter, May 28, 1629, will sufficiently prove: “The course we have prescribed of keeping a daily register in each family will be a great help and remembrance to you and to future posterity, for the upholding and continuance of this good act, if once well begun and settled, which we heartily wish and desire as aforesaid.” This referred to a spiritual espionage which they had resolved should be held over every family.

It will be interesting here to see how the heirs of Mr. Cradock disposed of his large estate, and to trace how it came into the hands of Medford settlers.

Mr. Cradock's widow, Rebecca, married Richard Glover, who, March 1, 1644, rented to Edward Collins one-half of his land “in Medford in New England;” viz., “houses, edifices, buildings, barns, stables, out-houses, lands, tenements, meadows, pastures, findings, woods, highways, profits, commodities, and appurtenances.”

Mr. Cradock's widow married her third husband, Rev. Benj. Whitchcot, D. D., in 1652. Damaris, Mr. Cradock's daughter, married Thomas Andrews, leather-seller, of London. Samuel, his brother, was clerk of Chapleton, and had three sons. By instruments, dated June 2 and Sept. 6, 1652, they quit-claim to Mr. Collins “all that messuage, farm, or plantation, called Meadford in New England” by them owned.

Aug. 20, 1656: Mr. Collins, after residing twelve years on his farm in Medford, sells to Richard Russell of Charlestown, sixteen hundred acres of it, with his mansion-house and other buildings. This track was bounded by Mystic River on the south, by Charlestown line on the north, by trees standing near a brook on the west, and by the farms of Nowell and others on the east. “Collins covenants to save Russell harmless from all claims from the heirs of Cradock, unto whom the said plantation was first granted” by the Court. No specification is given of the number of “cattle” or of “tenements.” At this time, Mr. Collins deeds other portions of his farm to other persons.

May 25, 1661: Richard Russell, who had occupied the “mansion-house” five years, sold it, with twelve hundred acres of his land, to Jonathan Wade, who lived near the