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[9] in our day. Judge Sewall, under this date, says: “I rode over to Charlestown on the ice, then over to Stower's (Chelsea), so to Mr. Wigglesworth. The snow was so deep that I had a hard journey; could go but a foot-pace on Mystic River, the snow was so deep.”

The absence of epidemics in Medford is to be attributed in part to the presence of our river. At high tide the water is brackish; and, at the spring tides, quite salt. As the banks are wet anew by the rising tide every twelve hours, and are left to dry when the waters run out, the exhalations from this operation are great every day, though invisible; and they salt the atmosphere, and cleanse it, and make it healthy. The exact reverse of this would be the case, if there could be a fresh-water tide, which should leave fresh-water vegetables exposed every day to the action of the sun. This beautiful and breathing stream, which seems to have studied the laws of grace, as it winds and wreathes itself through the intervale, has one more claim to notice, if not to gratitude. To the boys of Medford how welcome are its waters through the warm season! So vivid are our recollections of our daily bath in this beloved river, that we think it worth while for parents to send their children from the country here to school, if only to strengthen and delight them with a salt bath in the Mystic.


Brooks.

That which runs a short distance east of the West Medford Depot, on the Lowell Railroad, was called Whitmore's Brook after the pious deacon, whose house was on the north side of High Street, about two rods west of the brook. It rises in “Bear Meadow.”

Marble Brook, now called “Meeting-house Brook,” crosses High Street about forty rods north-east of “Rock Hill.” In spring, smelts resort to it in great numbers.

The brook or creek over which Gravelly Bridge is built was called “Gravelly Creek,” but more lately “Pine Hill Brook.” The stream is small, but much swelled by winter rains. It has its source in Turkey Swamp.

The brook which crosses the road, at a distance of a quarter of a mile south of the “Royal house,” was named “Winter Brook.” It has its source near the foot of Walnut Hill.


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