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

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[56] allow us to ride at ease among tangled shrubbery and ancient oaks, where, as children, we were forbidden to venture, for fear of being lost. Some hundred years hence, when this lovely spot shall have been occupied with country villas and beautiful gardens, the fathers may sit in a pavilion on Pine Hill, and tell their children how the rich fields below them were an impenetrable forest.

A similar show of diagrams is presented by Mr. Bishop on his lands east of the “Fountain house;” and, we trust, corresponding good results will hereafter be experienced. This was done July 13, 1853; and, in honor of the Indian chief, he has called it “Sagamore Vale.” In former times, they built houses, and then laid out roads; now, they lay out roads, and then build houses.

The large farm of one hundred and sixty-five acres, belonging to Messrs. James and Isaac Wellington, situated on the eastern border of Medford, was divided into lots and parallel streets, Nov. 1, 1854. Its nearness to Boston, and the facilities of travel by railroad, offer tempting situations for suburban residences.

In 1854, twenty small houses were built on one street in East Medford; ten on one side, and ten on the other. They are all of the same size and form, equally distant, very near together; and each house is opposite a space left open on the other side of the street. The settlement is called Williamsburg, after the builder and owner of the houses.

The “Edgeworth Company,” in Malden, on the eastern border of Medford, has commenced a promising settlement.

From earliest times, the town chose annually a “Surveyor of highways,” whose duty it was to superintend the repairs of the public roads. He had full power to decide where and to what extent repairs should be made. As population and streets increased, several surveyors became necessary; and they received compensation for their time and labor. After the brick Alms House was built in West Medford, near the Lowell Railroad Depot (1812), Isaac Brooks, Esq., who had taken the deepest interest in the matter, proposed to employ the male paupers in repairing the highways. This plan was adopted; and, under the guidance of a general surveyor, the keeper of the Alms House went forth every day with his picked men and horse-cart. As this procedure converted the Alms House from a place of ease to a place of labor, it had the magical effect of thinning the number of male occupants.