[p. 67]
When we were a good old town.
We have before us a copy of ‘Warrant for
Town Meeting, Mar. 11, 1867,’ which some interested person brought to our collection in 1917.
The ‘March meeting’ was the town's annual meeting.
There were fourteen articles, the first half of them being the usual routine of town business, the eighth ‘To see if the town will have a bell rung daily, and at what hours.’
Water (surface) was too plenty at
South and Summer streets, and
George Hervey and others petitioned for culverts there, and
James Tufts and others, for enlargement of
Gravel bridge on Salem street, also the one at Ship street.
J. Sears and others wanted ‘a Reservoir at the head of Myrtle street’ to save what water came there.
The twelfth was ‘to see if the town will lay a gravel or plank sidewalk on the easterly side of Winthrop street from
South to High street, a petition of
Charles Munroe and others.’
The thirteenth was ‘to establish a permanent grade on High street near the residence of
Deacon Train, on request of Dudley Hall and others.’
We have not consulted the town records relative to these, but as Grace church had just been erected opposite the residence of
Deacon Train, also the neighboring residence of
J. W. Tufts, a permanent grade was a desirable one to have fixed.
But we see little of sidewalk on Winthrop street
now sixty years later, and no houses on either side save one built seven years ago next the ‘
Puffer's corner’ of that day, but note that at last the old wooden bridge is succeeded by the new one just opened, and that the
Winthrop street of today extends from
Winchester to
Somerville lines, crossing the
Mystic Valley parkway, unthought of in that old day.
The old Watson house, where
President Washington came to visit
Colonel Brooks in 1790, the
Deacon Train and the
Roach houses are gone, and the cellar hole and the vacant land along the ‘permanent grade,’ under the modern name of ‘Traincroft,’ await new residents.
