Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.

[p. 11] a bloody onslaught upon the Protestants. There was a contingent of rough characters in the ship-yard who were eager for any chance for trouble, and they were quick to seize upon any excuse. There was to be a special Catholic service in one of the churches in Chelsea the following day, Sunday, and forty or fifty of them preceded by the Angel Gabriel, started in wagons for Chelsea. Here they attacked the people taking part in the service, smashed the church windows, tore down the cross from the tower and committed other deeds of vandalism, which, but for the excited state of public opinion at the time, would have sent the perpetrators straight to jail. There are probably some within this room who will remember the circumstance better, perhaps, than I.

As has been seen, the Medford of fifty-three or four years ago was by no means the Medford of today. It was then like a big country village, with between three and four thousand inhabitants, where you would see the farmers walking about in their shirt-sleeves, where ox-teams were as common as horses, and where you heard a good deal of the old New England dialect spoken. It was a quiet, restful place, withal, excepting in the ship-yards. All the life and energy of the waking day seemed to be concentrated there, and the steady beat of the hammers of the calkers was the beat of the pulse of the great industry which made the prosperity of the town. In all the time I was a resident there was not a murder nor a burglary nor a scandal, business, political, or domestic, aside from what I have mentioned, and I cannot even remember that there was a dog-fight.

The town then was not as much of a bedroom for Boston business men as now. True, there were many who did business in the city and went in daily, but the great majority found work enough to do at home. There was much sociability in the old time and everybody knew everybody else. Doubtless there was a good deal of visiting among the people, else there would not have been that degree of familiarity that was so apparent.