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Isaac Hall (search for this): chapter 4
es, with fruit trees, flowers, etc., on the terraces. Steps led up to more land on the crest and northward. Built 17—. Mr. Hall was married 17—. Here had been extensive excavations. The Register says (17 Register, p. 27), it had been called the Pit (gravel pit). As Mr. Hall owned more to the east than Dr. Swan did, no doubt this expression Pit applied to Lot J, and in some degree to Lots K and L. J—house of Benjamin Hall, Jr. (Dudley Hall). Built A. D. 1786. Excavation here also, but tms. The three other houses enumerated by Mr. Stetson still remain in excellent condition, the last being that of Captain Isaac Hall in 1775. On that historic morning, glorious for America, there was a clatter of hoofs in the village street, and here Paul Revere made a brief stop and aroused Captain Hall. Just inside the fence is a weather-worn block of Medford granite, on which is a bronze tablet stating the fact, placed there by the Sons of the Revolution in June, 1905. Since (and includi<
Charles Brooks (search for this): chapter 4
eral way, it ought to be definite in order to condemn land for a public easement. Besides, it does not say how wide the easement was to be. We must conclude that High street owed its existence to our potato cart and its successors, and not to the County of Middlesex. I am satisfied that the gravel excavations on the east side of Pasture hill (about Terrace road) were later affairs than those about and in the High street region. Query: What was the name of Governor's lane prior to Governor Brooks? By the foregoing it will be seen that Mr. Stetson was an interested and careful reader of the Register. His quaint remarks about the spectacle town and the bulky red nose show that in the olden time the division between east and west in Medford was a prominent and physical one. Never before has anyone pointed out so clearly the barrier the cliffs of old Pasture hill placed in the way of travel as has Mr. Stetson, or called attention to the absence of buildings between the old hous
Benjamin (search for this): chapter 4
s. Later this was about the best part of Medford, but neither streets nor lots yet fit for homesteads. The colonists wanted practical convenience—not hill top villas and bungalows. The Halls owned the whole of Pasture hill, but never dreamed of living up there; they left it to the kite-flying boys and preferred to dig their homes down to the level of common folks. The opulent Benjamin Hall, Senior, married first in 1752, and built his house (the Dr. Swan house) after that. His son Benjamin, Jr., built the Dudley Hall house in 1786. Probably High street was in a transition state for a long time, part quarry, part stones and part cart track, and the side lots impossible even longer. A man had to get rich before he could excavate his homestead out of Pasture hill. So all the Halls—Isaac, Ebenezer, Richard, etc., came late to this locality, and not until High street had become a tolerable street. The dates of the house building will help us here. We may assume that the stre
Edward Gaffey (search for this): chapter 4
lorious for America, there was a clatter of hoofs in the village street, and here Paul Revere made a brief stop and aroused Captain Hall. Just inside the fence is a weather-worn block of Medford granite, on which is a bronze tablet stating the fact, placed there by the Sons of the Revolution in June, 1905. Since (and including) 1916, as a part of Patriots' Day celebration, a rider personating Paul Revere, with cavalry escort, stops at this house, which the present owner and occupant, Mr. Edward Gaffey, kindly opens for the occasion. Old High street is thronged while waiting his arrival and during the memorial exercises, which are always patriotic and interesting. Then the rider, amid the cheers of the multitude, sets off for old Menotomy. Mr. Stetson had (probably) not been in Medford since 1875, the centennial of Patriots' Day (at which time he was chairman of the day at Lexington), but the remembrance of his boyhood home was vivid. His queries open to us a new field of thoug
K. Samuel Buell (search for this): chapter 4
. Excavation here also, but the north steep nicely terraced; steps leading up to large garden above on the north, and to cow barn northeast opening to Governor's lane. K—Eben Hall house (Mrs. Thomas S. Harlow) was a large three-story city house with, I think, brick ends. Built A. D.——. An absurd little back yard, mostly perpendicular; steps up to a part. Title too shoal to permit excavation very much northward. L—Isaac Hall house, built A. D.——. Three-story, back premises like K. Samuel Buell lived here about——. I knew his daughter Charlotte. She married and went to live in Schaghticoke, N. Y., near Troy. Dark granite and red gravel. These always came together. When red gravel appeared it was certain that dark granite was or had been in the same quarry. In fact the former was not a gravel at all, but disintegrated granite. This granite had so much iron in it that its oxidation colored everything. It was handsomer than Quincy stone. It would appear in gre
Polly Blanchard (search for this): chapter 4
ouse—no back yard. Steep went right up from the lean-to. Coarse grass on it; no red gravel visible. D—John Johnson's Cobbler shop stood high upon a steep, say a dozen or fifteen feet above the sidewalk; no path from it down to the sidewalk. He went west from it to the lean — to and thence along the house to the sidewalk. Steep behind the shop; coarse bunch grass. E—the Jacob Brooks house was a good-sized, ill-painted, whitish house, two stories, and looked rather neglected. Aunt Polly Blanchard lived in the west part and sold candy—red and white peppermint hearts for a cent apiece, also peppermint cones at the same price. You got more stuff if you bought a cone than a heart. Jacob had sons, John, Charles, Augustus; daughters, Alice and Lucy. He was an industrious man, not very prosperous; went out for day's work, gardening, etc. I think the Register speaks of him as sexton for the old graveyard. About and behind this house red gravel was everywhere; an ample back ya
Johnson (search for this): chapter 4
ainted, white house, close to Mr. Magoun's east line. This and all the other eastern houses were crowded to the sidewalk. It had no back yard. Very steep right up behind the house; coarse grass on the steep; no gravel visible. An English laboring man named Hebden lived here about 1845 to 1850. Built——. Query: Get the construction dates of every house. C—the John Johnson house was old, black, gambrel roof; may be very old; built A. D.——. He had two sons, Theophilus and Cleopas. Mrs. Johnson, a brisk, little, clear-starching dame, had no particular clothes-yard, and dried her clothes anywhere. She had a very narrow lean — to back of the house—no back yard. Steep went right up from the lean-to. Coarse grass on it; no red gravel visible. D—John Johnson's Cobbler shop stood high upon a steep, say a dozen or fifteen feet above the sidewalk; no path from it down to the sidewalk. He went west from it to the lean — to and thence along the house to the sidewalk. St
Jonathan Wade (search for this): chapter 4
By the foregoing it will be seen that Mr. Stetson was an interested and careful reader of the Register. His quaint remarks about the spectacle town and the bulky red nose show that in the olden time the division between east and west in Medford was a prominent and physical one. Never before has anyone pointed out so clearly the barrier the cliffs of old Pasture hill placed in the way of travel as has Mr. Stetson, or called attention to the absence of buildings between the old house of Jonathan Wade and Parson Turell's (at our Winthrop square) for a century after Medford's settlement. We can but wish that Miles Standish had left us some account of fording the river and walking along that narrow shelving beach, the verge just above high-water mark and following the trail up the steep in front of the library lot on the occasion of his visit in September, 1621. Those of us who remember the vicinity of Rock hill ere the river was moved southward and the parkway built can readily get
Peter Chardon Brooks (search for this): chapter 4
verything. It was handsomer than Quincy stone. It would appear in great masses, some unchanged by rust, others hard as ever but colored like the gravel. The final form was the so-called red gravel. This stone was in demand. Mr. Joseph Grinnell built a house of it in New Bedford in 1830, and told me it came round Cape Cod in a schooner. Many gravestones, too, were made of it. Perhaps a search in Boston might find it in some house fronts. There are some puzzles, however. Why did Mr. Peter C. Brooks, in 1820, build his arch over the canal of stone from Concord, N. H.? （15 Register, p. 31.) He covered that arch and all the promenade from his mansion to the lake with Medford red gravel. Why did the Halls, who owned both quarries, build (1786) those steps behind the Dudley Hall house of granite from Tyngsboro? (15 Register, p. 65.) Mr. Magoun built his street wall in front of the Library (A. D. 18—) of Medford dark granite. (15 Register, p. 14, says Mr. Brooks built street walls o
Jonathan Porter (search for this): chapter 4
as open to public view but later enclosed by a board fence. The folding gates were of flat palings loosely bolted to the rails; a counter balancing weight to each lifted them against the tall posts. The Magoun battery organization was dissolved by an order of the adjutant general, sent to the selectmen. The building was then used by the highway department as a stable and so continued until the erection of the new buildings on Swan street. The building shown in the background is that on Porter road, numbered 16. The board fence is seen ending at the high bank in the rear of the next house to the right. The house partly seen at the left is the Richard Hall, later known as the Perry-Delano house, and on the site of this is the present telephone exchange. The rear end of this house lot was blunt-wedge-shaped (tapering to fourteen feet at its end) which corresponded to the depth of the school lot, but much elevated. Against this wedge was the battery building placed, and a little
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