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[79]
of the Boston & Lowell Railroad.
Its history from this time Mr. Sargent has given.
I do not recollect that any land was conveyed to Mr. Jackson by the ‘Ireland family,’ except a parcel of land called the ‘stone-pit,’ where Granite Street now is; which contained the only granite in Somerville, I am told, and from which probably was obtained material for the granite sleepers on which the rails of the Lowell railroad were originally laid.
The land which we have so far been considering extended halfway from School Street to Walnut Street. That part of the Central Hill Park from Walnut Street half-way to School Street at one time, as will hereafter appear, did belong to Abraham Ireland, the great-grandfather of George W. Ireland, but that is as near as the ownership of it ever got to the latter.
Of this land a parcel bounding westerly on the church lot above described eighteen rods, southerly on Barberry Lane, and easterly on Walnut Street eighteen rods, containing four and one-half acres, was set in the 1681 division already mentioned, to ‘Isack’ Johnson, he having drawn lot No. 29.
In 1714, his widow, Mary, for £ 25 conveyed the same to their son, William, and the land had now increased in area to five acres. In 1715, William Johnson conveyed these five acres for £ 45 ‘in good and lawful bills of publick credit’ to John Frizzell, who in 1717 conveyed the same to Abraham Ireland.
Just northerly of these four and one-half acres a small lot of only one and one-half acres, one cow common, was made.
Sarah Allen, the widow of John Allen, drew lot 28, and this lot was set off to her. It had a frontage of six rods on Walnut Street. Mrs. Allen for £ 7 conveyed the lot to Samuel Dowse, by deed dated January 26, 1683.
Dowse conveyed it for £ 6 by deed dated February 10, 1691, to Rev. Charles Morton, who came over with Penhallow, and was in 1656 pastor of the First church (see Budington's history of the First church).
These two parcels, extending up Walnut Street, from Barberry Lane (Highland Avenue) twenty-four rods, I think would cover all the city's present land.
But as the subsequent title to
Somerville. Historical Society. , 1909.
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