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

[30] being dead the winter before, and many of those alive weak and sick: all the corn and bread among them all hardly sufficient to feed them a fortnight. But, bearing these things as we might, we began to consult of our place of sitting down; for Salem, where we landed, pleased us not. And, to that purpose, some were sent to the Bay to search up the rivers for a convenient place; who, upon their return, reported to have found a good place upon Mistick; but some other of us, seconding these, to approve or dislike of their judgment; we found a place liked us better, three leagues up Charles River, and thereupon unshipped our goods into other vessels, and, with much cost and labor, brought them in July to Charlestown. But, there receiving advertisements (by some of the late arrived ships) from London and Amsterdam of some French preparations against us (many of our people brought with us being sick of fevers and the scurvy, and we thereby unable to carry up our ordnance and baggage so far), we were forced to change counsel, and for our present shelter to plant dispersedly; some at Charlestown, which standeth on the north side of the mouth of Charles River; some on the south side thereof, which place we named Boston (as we intended to have done the place we first resolved on); some of us upon Mistick, which we named Meadford; some of us westward on Charles River, four miles from Charlestown, which place we named Watertown; others of us two miles from Boston, in a place we called Roxbury; others upon the river Sangus between Salem and Charlestown; and the Western-men four miles south from Boston, in a place we named Dorchester. They who had health to labor fell to building, wherein many were interrupted with sickness, and many died weekly, yea, almost daily.

After my brief manner I say this: that if any come hither to plant for worldly ends, that can live well at home, he commits an error, of which he will soon repent him; but, if for spiritual, and that no particular obstacle hinder his removal, he may find here what may well content him, viz., materials to build, fuel to burn, ground to plant, seas and rivers to fish in, a pure air to breath in, good water to drink till wine or beer can be made; which, together with the cows, hogs, and goats brought hither already, may suffice for food: as for fowl and venison, they are dainties here as well as in England. For clothes and bedding, they must bring them with them, till time and industry produce them here. In a word, we yet enjoy little to be envied, but endure much to be pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people. If any godly men, out of religious ends, will come over to help us in the good work we are about, I think they cannot dispose of themselves nor of their estates more to God's glory, and the furtherance of their own reckoning; but they must not be of the poorer sort yet, for divers years. I am now, this 28th March, 1631, sealing my letters.

Your Honor's old thankful servant,

Thomas Dudley.