‘ [38] neighbors, belonging to several adjacent towns, who are desirous of being joined to us) may with their lands and estates be incorporated with us into a separate district.’ Capt. Samuel Whittemore, Mr. Joseph Adams, Mr. Francis Locke, Capt. Carteret and Capt. Thomas Adams were chosen a committee to manage the affair. This petition was granted by the General Court to the petitioners who were inhabitants of Cambridge and Charlestown in 1762, and was accepted by the Precinct, though an unsuccessful attempt to secure further privileges under the act was made.1
From the State Records we find that the petition of ‘Samuel Whittemore and others, a committee of the Second Precinct in Cambridge,’ set forth, that they were more than twenty years since made a precinct; that they labored under great inconveniences by being obliged to attend on training-days and at town-meetings some at Cambridge and some at Charlestown, to which towns they belong; and by being taxed towards the support of the Grammar Schools in the said towns. That there were a number of others who usually congregated with them, and were desirous of being incorporated with them; and praying that they may together be incorporated into a town or district by certain bounds in the said petition mentioned. The towns interested were Cambridge, Charlestown, Watertown, Woburn, Lexington and Medford, all of which were ordered to be duly notified. The legislative report was in substance as follows: The following report was made to the two Houses, viz.,—The committee to whom was referred the petition of the Inhabitants of the Second Precinct in Cambridge, together with Edward Winship and Edward Winship, Jr., of Lexington, William Symmes and Josiah Symmes of Medford, Henry Putnam, Henry Gardner, Thomas Hutchinson and Benjamin Teel and Benjamin Teel, Jr., of Charlestown, Samuel Carter and Samuel Carter, Jr., of Woburn; praying they may be incorporated into a Town, or District, by the bounds therein mentioned, have considered the same, with the answers from the several towns they now respectively belong to; have likewise heard all the parties concerned, and beg leave to report as their opinion, that the prayer of the petition be so far granted as that the inhabitants of the said Second Parish
