Benjamin Cutter, William R. Cutter, History of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts, ormerly the second precinct in Cambridge, or District of Menotomy, afterward the town of West Cambridge. 1635-1879 with a genealogical register of the inhabitants of the precinct.

In 1805 Abner Stearns, of Billerica, bought land here of Ephraim Cooke, victualler, which Stearns, in 1808, sold to John Tufts, with a wool-factory thereon and machinery, and established himself on the site since Schouler's. Tufts sold these premises to Ezra Trull, of Boston, in 1817, with a mill thereon, and a raceway through land of heirs of Edward Blackington. He also conveyed to Trull, at same time, land occupied as a millpond on Baptist meeting-house lane, being part of the land bounded south on Concord road, and south and west on Baptist meeting-house property and lane, which John Tufts bought of Ephraim Cooke in 1809. A lane or road led to the mills formerly known as the ‘Tufts mills.’ The mills were destroyed by fire about 1831. Ezra Trull sold the premises to Cyrus Cutter, in 1831, with a mill-site thereon, ‘where the mills formerly known by the name of the Tufts mills stood, previous to the fire which destroyed said mills.’ Cyrus Cutter granted the above as a lease-hold estate for mill purposes, to William Welch and Charles Griffiths, both of Boston, sawmakers, and Charles Reeves, of West Cambridge, filecutter, in 1832, with buildings thereon standing, raceway through Blackington's land, &c. The lane by the ‘saw-factory’ was laid out as a town way in 1840.

Abner Stearns's first business was that of wool-carding, to which he added a gristmill, afterward used for grinding yellow ochre for paint. In 1810 or 1811, he erected a large building on the site since Schouler's, in which he had a fulling-mill and a spinning machine of 72 spindles, in 1812. The yarn spun was taken elsewhere and made into broadcloth. The peace of 1815 broke up the business, owing to the excessive importation of British cloths. Stearns left West Cambridge in 1816, and was of Bedford in 1817. Abner Stearns, of Billerica, gentleman, sold to James Schouler, of Lynn, calico-printer,¹ land in West Cambridge, with dwelling-house, factory and other buildings, with a mill-site and mill-privileges, known by the name of the ‘Stearns Factory,’ on March 6, 1832.

A mill about to be erected by Ichabod Fessenden in 1816 was that at the privilege now the property of J. C. Hobbs. Samuel Lewis, of Dedham, bought of Stephen Robbins land with water-mill and dwelling-house in West Cambridge, 1839.²