“ [123] other towns, as to prudentials.” If it had rights “as other towns,” and was treated by the Legislature “as other towns,” in what did its peculiarity consist? This question is easily answered. Its peculiarity consisted in having the major part of its territory owned by one gentleman, and he a resident in London. Mr. Cradock, the strongest and wealthiest friend of the Colony, had this grant of land in partial remuneration for his great outlays for the Company. He was sometimes excused from taxes. Here was another peculiarity, but no withdrawal or relinquishment of vested rights. This fact rendered town-laws more important. It required very strong and peculiar laws to regulate the fishermen, coopers, ship-carpenters, and farmers, whom Mr. Cradock had established here. Such laws could not be enforced except by a proper civil authority; and such authority every thing proves to have existed. Mr. Cradock's grants were not made till 1634-5; but Medford was taxed, “as other towns,” in 1630. Here, therefore, were four or five years in which it acted as an incorporated town before Mr. Cradock came into possession of his grant. During those four or five years, it could not have been a “manor;” but, at that time, it became a town; which character it has possessed to this day unbroken, and which character was stamped upon it, “by a general act” of the government in 1630, and now remains in force.
This text is part of:
“ [123] other towns, as to prudentials.” If it had rights “as other towns,” and was treated by the Legislature “as other towns,” in what did its peculiarity consist? This question is easily answered. Its peculiarity consisted in having the major part of its territory owned by one gentleman, and he a resident in London. Mr. Cradock, the strongest and wealthiest friend of the Colony, had this grant of land in partial remuneration for his great outlays for the Company. He was sometimes excused from taxes. Here was another peculiarity, but no withdrawal or relinquishment of vested rights. This fact rendered town-laws more important. It required very strong and peculiar laws to regulate the fishermen, coopers, ship-carpenters, and farmers, whom Mr. Cradock had established here. Such laws could not be enforced except by a proper civil authority; and such authority every thing proves to have existed. Mr. Cradock's grants were not made till 1634-5; but Medford was taxed, “as other towns,” in 1630. Here, therefore, were four or five years in which it acted as an incorporated town before Mr. Cradock came into possession of his grant. During those four or five years, it could not have been a “manor;” but, at that time, it became a town; which character it has possessed to this day unbroken, and which character was stamped upon it, “by a general act” of the government in 1630, and now remains in force.
John Wilson and son. 22 School Street. Boston. 1855.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.