Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.

‘[p. 64] been and is a peculiar.’ Doubtful of their right, or perhaps too modest, no deputy had been sent till four years before the enterprise of building the meeting-house was inaugurated. With it as a central rallying point, the sixty year old town was waking to new life, for in the autumn of that year, it adopted ‘Town orders and bylaws.’ Of the houses that were standing in the Medford of 1696, we can be positively certain of but two that remain today—the Major Jonathan Wade house, and the Capt. Peter Tufts house, commonly called the Cradock House,—‘if this be treason’ (or heresy)‘make the most of it.’ There is a possibility that the old house recently removed a little from the corner of High Street and Hastings Lane (and now many times repaired and twice enlarged, and so taking a new lease of life), may have been the home of Dea. and Ensign John Bradshaw. All others that were contemporary with the old meetinghouse in its early years have yielded to the tooth of time, and possibly none that were built during its thirty-two years now remain. A few monarchs of the forest there are, and yet very few whose roots had then taken a firm grasp in Medford soil. The primeval forest has gone and danger threatens the newer growth. If we take the map of Medford, and trace a series of circles in quarter miles, from the site of the meeting-house, we shall find that the first passes through the site of the First Parish Church, where the third meeting-house was built, the Brooks and the Cummings Schools; the second, or halfmile, through the city farm, Hall road, Medford square, Cradock school, and West Medford R. R. station.

The three-quarter mile radius reaches the Brooks Farm building, the site of the Wheeler mill just above Menotomy river, the end of Woburn street at Playstead road, the old mill site on Whitmore brook and also the one on Meeting-house brook, Gravelly brook at Forest street, the Everett school and the Royall House.

One mile is just beyond Wear bridge, the farther corner of Oak Grove, Bear meadow, Earl avenue and Fulton