[
3]
in
Cambridge, together with certain petitioners then.
inhabitants of the town of
Charlestown, were incorporated into a District, generally called
Menotomy, since it included all the territory in the two towns on the westerly side of
Menotomy River, now
Alewife Brook, the stream flowing from the
Spy-Pond Brook into the
Mystic River.
1
On Feb. 27, 1807, an act was passed to divide the town of
Cambridge, and to incorporate the Westerly Parish therein as a separate town, by the name of
West Cambridge.
All that part of the town of Cambridge, heretofore known as the Second Parish, and as described within the following bounds:
Beginning at Charlestown line where the little river intersects the same, and running on a line in the middle of said little river until it strikes Fresh Pond; thence west ten degrees south until it intersects the line of the town of Watertown; thence on Watertown and Waltham line, till it strikes Lexington line; thence on Lexington line till it strikes Woburn line; thence on Woburn and Charlestown line to the little river first mentioned.
This act contains the proviso that nothing therein shall be so construed as to impair the right or privilege of the
Congregational minister of the town of
West Cambridge, which he now holds in Harvard College.
2
The inhabitants were vested with all the powers and privileges, and subject to all the duties other corporate towns were subject to in this commonwealth.
They were to hold a proportion of property owned in common—to pay arrears of taxes, to support their proportion of poor, to support their proportion of the old bridge over Charles River between the First and Third Parishes of Cambridge,3 to pay state and county taxes.
