HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF MEDFORD, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT, IN 1630, TO THE PRESENT TIME, 1855.
Charles Brooks, Ed.

With the Governor and Mr. Cradock's men, many, doubtless, were glad to associate themselves; because something like a definite organization already existed among them. The elements of power and prosperity seemed to be with them; and we can imagine our first settlers beginning their eventful experiment with lion hearts and giant hands. We may therefore reasonably fix upon June 17, 1630, as the time when our Anglo-Saxon ancestors first came to Medford, and determined upon the settlement of the town, and thus took possession. Gov. Dudley says: “They who had health to labor fell to building.” This must have been so with all the first comers here; and we can see, in our mind's eye, the lofty forest falling by the woodman's axe, and anon taking its place in the tents or log-huts, which were the only shelter from the fast approaching cold. Here let it be remarked, that there is not connected with the first steps of our Medford plantation the slightest trace of injustice, violence, or crime. In the minute accounts of the best historians, there is no mention of treachery, idleness, or dissipation. If any violation of good neighborhood, or civil law, or gospel morality, had existed, we should certainly have heard of it; for every man was emphatically his brother's keeper, and was Argos-eyed to detect the offender, and Briarian-handed to clutch him. We therefore confidently infer, that they who had concluded to make this place their home, were noble adventurers, conscientious patriots, and uncompromising Puritans; men whose courage dared to meet the panther and the tomahawk, whose benevolence would share with the red man its last loaf, and whose piety adored the hand that sent sickness and death. We should expect from no one but Archbishop Laud the following remark: “These men do but begin with the Church, that they might after have the freer access to the State.” Their hired men and servants were of excellent character, with one or two exceptions. Our fathers brought with them the Company's directions, dated April 17, 1629; and they complied with the following: “Our earnest desire is, that you take special care, in settling these families, that the chief in the family (at least some of them) be grounded in religion; whereby, morning and evening family ”