[p. 35] the number of rooms therein spoken of. This house was built between 1683 and 1689.
Built by his father, after the model of an English nobleman's house in Antigua. . . [P. 50.]For a description of the Royall house see Register, Vol. 3, p. 133.
To have free access to the river, the great highway, they opened private roads for the use of owners of lands, and what were called ‘rangeways’ for the free use of the public. . . . .[P. 51.]All the roads to the river were laid out by private parties for their own use, and for such other persons as might be granted the right to use them. There is not a landing place on the north side of the river in which the public has, or ever had, any rights, except it may have been the landing at the ford, while the ford was in use. This situation is owing to the fact that all of early Medford territory was under one ownership; and also to the neglect of the officials to lay out these ways for the benefit of the public when the time arrived that they could legally do so. Some years ago the town of Medford claimed rights in the way and landing at Rock hill. A suit was brought to test the ownership thereof. The case was decided in favor of the owner of the land through which the way passed, upon the general ground that the public right (if it ever existed) had been lost by longcontinued disuse. There were no rangeways in Medford while it retained its original area. Cross and Fulton streets, as far as the ‘Rock gate’ (and from thence two ways to the wood-lots), were laid out by the town of Charlestown, by an agreement with Mr. Nathaniel Wade, the owner of the land through which these ways passed. This agreement was made May 13, 1698. Pasture hill and Ram Head lanes were laid out by the proprietors of the land through which they passed. Whatever rights the public had (if any) therein, were acquired by longcontinued use. [Register, Vol. 2, p. 53.] There were rangeways on the south side of the river laid out by the town of Charlestown while that town owned the land
