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

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“ [421] being half what the males were assessed a head, in the tax of this date.”

In our town-records we find the following notices side by side: “May 5, 1750: Voted to abate Thomas Brooks, jun.‘s rates (£ 4. 13s. 4d., old tenor), he being not of age.” “Voted to abate Lieutenant Stephen Hall's rates for his head (£ 3. 5s., old tenor), he being very old.” In our earliest history, when the inhabitants had raised a certain sum in advance, two men, Nathan Lyon and Roger Scott, who had contributed their share, soon after moved out of town. At the next town-meeting, it was unanimously voted to refund to these men what they had paid.

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Map.

Oct. 13, 1853: The town voted to authorize the selectmen to treat with Mr. Henry F. Walling, of Boston, concerning a complete map of Medford. This skilful engineer engaged to furnish one for $750. It is now just finished; and must give entire satisfaction, both as to its accuracy and beauty. Its size is thirty by thirty-seven inches, and its scale eight inches to a mile. It shows the entire town at one glance; while it gives correctly the topography, the hills, woods, streams, ponds, streets, mills, stores, dwellings, churches, &c.; it gives the names of each householder in the place of his residence; it represents all the real estate of the town, and shows the number of square feet in each lot. This last fact will enable the assessors to apportion the tax more justly than they otherwise could, and will guide commissioners in laying out roads. The map is accompanied by eleven other maps or sections, on a scale of two hundred feet to an inch, on sheets of twenty-six to thirty-nine inches, and are bound together in an atlas. Should a copy of this map be preserved through two hundred years, it would then probably show that not even one lot of land would be possessed by any descendants of its present owner.

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Post-office.

By examination of the books rescued from the fire of 1836 at Washington, it appears that the first office established