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

[163] amid the most copious effusions of enthusiasm and panegyric; and when a Caesar would have assumed the purple, or a Cromwell usurped the protectorship, he resigned with eagerness the proud insignia of command, and converted the splendid weapons of war into the humble implements of the arts of peace. . . . The name of Washington is pronounced with pleasure and with pride by the people of every civilized nation on earth. . . . Thus was our much-loved friend, the father of his country, great in war, great in peace, great in life, and great in the moment of his dissolution. . . . What though his once manly, graceful form be now mingling with its native dust; yet Washington still lives immortal. Yes: he lives in his matchless example; he lives in those lessons of wisdom that flowed from his pen; he lives in our hearts, and in the hearts of a grateful country; he lives, transporting thought! resplendent in glory, in the realms of ceaseless day.

The Rev. Dr. Osgood preached an appropriate sermon to his people on the great subject; the town voted to print it, and to append to it Washington's “Farewell Address,” and then to give a copy to each family in town. When February 22 arrived, the meeting-house in Medford was open for religious exercises, and the day was kept as sacred.

During the presidential canvass, in 1800, party lines began to assume definiteness, and that great contest of parties arose which has vexed and steadied the nation ever since. Medford took strongly the side of opposition to the policy of Mr. Jefferson and his immediate successor, and sustained the State government in a similar course. When the embargo of 1807 was laid, the people of Medford felt indignant. So near the sea, and so dependent on commerce, they became great sufferers. The sloop and schooner craft of our river became liable to irritating detentions on their shortest coast-wise trips, and could not undertake any profitable trade. Commerce, for the time, was struck dead. Fishermen could not sell their fish, or carry them where a market could be had; men unaccustomed to manufactures could not engage in them with profit; agriculture could be rendered available only in small degrees; merchants, who would have had cargoes in every clime, were anchored in idleness per force; mechanics, whom commerce fed, were reduced to want; and, in short, a general paralysis struck down the labor and enter prise of the North. By recurring to the votes for Governor and members of Congress, during these two or three years, it will be seen how almost unanimously the inhabitants of