Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 1.

[p. 70] We have no information that the governor ever got his 160 pounds. I sincerely hope he did. Our excellent historian, whom I thoroughly love, is a little apt to lapse into rhapsody when he comes in sight of anything which redounds to the glory of Medford, and he can come to conclusions very satisfactory to himself on very slight data. Yet something can be pardoned to the spirit of local pride. By the by, there is a plaster bust of Rev. Charles Brooks in the Brooks School-house in this city. I don't know whether any copy of it exists. I wish we could procure one, for the bust of the first historian of the town would form a most appropriate feature in the decoration of these rooms.

To return to the ‘Blessing of the Bay’—it must not be assumed that this vessel was the first ever built in New England. In 1607 a vessel of 30 tons, called the ‘Virginia,’ was built at the mouth of the Kennebec river, by the Popham colonists, who started a settlement which ultimately collapsed. This vessel made several voyages across the Atlantic.

An account of the colony, written by William Wood, who resided in the colony several years, published in 1634, gives us a glimpse of Medford in the earliest days of its settlement, and it incidentally refers to the next piece of ship-building which was done on the Mystic, or, as he calls it, Mistick:

‘The next town is Mystick, which is three miles from Charlestown by land, and a league and one half by water. It is seated on the waterside very pleasantly; there are not many houses as yet. At the head of this river are great and spacious ponds, whither the alewives press to spawn. This being a noted place for that kind of fish, the English resort hither to take them. On the west side of the river the Governor has a farm, where he keeps most of his cattle. On the east side is Mr. Cradock's plantation, where he has impaled a park, where he keeps his cattle till he can store it with deer. Here likewise he is at charges of building ships. The ’