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Roads.
In the absence of town-records, we are obliged to resort to notices incidentally made in deeds, wills, and legislative enactments.
They dignified a cow-path with the name of road.
In the earliest years of the
Medford plantation, there were but few people, and they had small occasion to travel.
The laying-out of roads, therefore, was a secondary consideration, and the order of their location oftentimes conjectural in history.
The
Ford, ten rods west of the bridge, meant the place where travellers crossed the
Mystic River.
At first it was little used, but afterwards became a popular way, not only for the inhabitants of
Medford, but for those of the northern towns who took loads on horseback to
Boston.
If the earliest records of the town had been preserved, we should doubtless have found in them some notices of the
Ford, and some regulations concerning it.
May 3, 1642: The General Court say: “It is declared by this Court, that the selected town's men have power to lay out particular and private ways concerning their own town only.”
The road from the landing, called “No man's friend” (now
Mr. Lapham's ship-yard), was made by
Charlestown, 1641, to their land north of
Medford.
The road is now called Cross and Fulton Streets.
To have free access to the river, the great highway, they opened private roads for the use of owners of lands, and what were called “range-ways” for the free use of the public.
Many of these are found in
Charlestown.
One of these was Cross Street; the next, west of it, was at the
Ford, and the “
Governor Lane” was a part of it; the next was by the easterly side of
Mr. T. Magoun's house; the next was east of
Mr. Turell's house, the lane is yet open; the next was at the
Rock Hill, and the old “Woburn road” was part of it; the next was above the Lowell Railroad Depot, in High Street, and connected with Grove Street, formerly called “the road round the woods.”
These roads to the river, in
Medford, were opened soon after the main thoroughfare.
The first public road laid out in
Medford was Main Street, leading from the
Ford to
Boston; the second was Salem Street, leading to
Malden; the third was High Street, leading to
West Cambridge; the fourth was the road leading to
Stoneham.
