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“Agreed with Mr. Symon Bradstreet, to make a sufficient cartway along by his pales, and keep it in repair seven years; and he is to have ten shillings for the same.”
March 2, 1633-4. “Granted John Benjamin all the ground between John Masters his ground and Antho.
Couldbyes, provided that the windmill-hill shall be preserved for the town's use, and a cartway of two rods wide unto the same.”
1
April 7, 1634. “Granted John Pratt two acres by the old burying place, without the common pales.”
2
Aug. 4, 1634. “It is ordered, that whosoever shall fall [any] tree for boards, clapboards, or frames of houses, [and] sell them out of the town, shall forfeit for every [tree] so sold twenty shillings.”
Nov. 3, 1634. “James Olmsted is chosen Constable for the year following, and till a new be chosen in his room, and presently sworn.3”
“John White is chosen Surveyor, to see the highways and streets kept clean, and in repair for the year following.”
“It is ordered, that every inhabitant in the town shall keep the street clear from wood and all other things against his own ground; and whosoever shall have anything lie in the street above one day after the next meeting-day, shall forfeit five shillings for every such default.”
Jan. 5, 1634-5. “It is ordered, that whosoever hath any lot granted by the town, and shall not improve the same, then it is to return to the town; or, if he shall improve the same, he shall first offer it to the town; if they refuse to give him what charges he hath been at, then to have liberty to sell it to whom he can.”
Next follows an agreement, accompanied by several orders.
whereby the system of municipal government was radically
1 Windmill-hill was at the south end of Ash Street, near the former site of the Cambridge Gas Works. A windmill was there erected for the grinding of corn, as no mill moved by water-power was nearer than Watertown. This mill was removed to Boston in August, 1632, because “it would not grind but with a westerly wind.” —Savage's Winthrop, i. 87. The hill was afterwards enclosed by Richard Eccles, who owned the adjoining lands, and it so remained until 1684, when the town asserted its rights; and a tract measuring ten rods on the river, six rods and seven feet across the west end, ten rods and four feet on the north line, and seven and a half rods across the cast end, was acknowledged by Eccles to be public property, together with a highway to it, two rods wide, through his land; and his acknowledgment was entered on the Proprietors' Records.
2 See chapter XV.
3 Edmund Lockwood had been appointed Constable by the Court, May 9, 1632, and John Benjamin, May 29,1 633; but James Olmstead was the first person elected by the inhabitants to fill that office, which was then of great honor and importance.
Boston. Houghton and Mifflin. 1877.
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