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

The Anglo-Saxon blood of our Puritan Fathers could not brook this; and they dared to more than think of relief. The great revolution of 1688, in the mother country, ending in the abdication of James, and the accession of William and Mary, afforded an encouraging example on this side the water. That example was promptly followed; and on the morning of the 18th of April, 1689, the people rose in righteous revolt, seized their oppressor, secured him in prison, and destroyed his government. This was decisive New Englandism. He was soon sent back to London to be tried. Of this odious ruler, one of the Medford people said, “If Andross comes to Medford, we will treat him, not with shad or alewives, but a sword-fish.”

The loyalty of our fathers was seen in their holding days of public fasting and prayer when sorrow or defeat visited the mother country, and of holding days of thanksgiving when prosperity and triumph blessed the king. As an example, we would mention a day of rejoicing set apart in Medford, October 14, 1743, on account of victory gained by the English troops in Germany.

1753: Medford was fined £ 10 for omitting to send a representative to the General Court; but, January 10, 1754, this fine was remitted.

Our town, though small, did its share in Philip's War, and raised money and men to put down that intelligent and brave Indian enemy. The same spirit of liberty breathed in their souls at a later day; and, when the odious Stamp Act was proclaimed, the inhabitants of Medford came together, as with a rush, on the 21st of October, 1765, to express their sober convictions of its unconstitutionality and injustice. With entire unanimity, they addressed a letter to their representative, protesting against some former acts of Parliament, but most emphatically against “this most grievous of all acts, wherein a complication of those burdens and restraints are unhappily imposed, which will undeniably deprive us of those invaluable liberties and privileges which we, as free-born Britons, have hitherto enjoyed.” Professing loyalty to their king and parliament, they nevertheless say, that, “whenever they require such an obedience from us as is incompatible with the enjoyment of our just liberties and properties, we cannot but arise and openly remonstrate against it. And this, we esteem, is so far from a spirit of rebellion and disloyalty in us, that to act the contrary would argue in us a ”