Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 11.

[p. 15] same in Boston. The modern generation supposes that mattresses are as old as the Christian era. In reality they came into use within the memory of many members of this society. And sewing-machines and carpet sweepers! I doubt if there were either of them known in Medford in 1853. The first sewing-machine I ever saw was at the Mechanic's Fair in Faneuil Hall, in Boston, in the fall of 1854, and that would work only imperfectly. At that time there was no communication with Boston except by the trains on the Medford Branch, which came and went four times a day, or by private teams, or on foot. Nearly all travel was by the first. The cars were small and dirty, and a single one sufficed on most trips. Horse-cars and electrics were yet undreamed of.

West Medford existed in little more than name. I used frequently to walk out there. The houses were few along High street after leaving Thatcher Magoun's. In the summer of 1853 the number of dwellings within the borders of West Medford could not have been over thirty. The streets that had been laid out were mere country roads and were unpaved and unsidewalked, and what is now one of the most attractive of suburban places was then a rough and undeveloped section of country, hardly calculated to favorably impress the seeker for a home.

These reminiscences of a by-gone period in the town's history may seem to your younger members overdrawn, but I have tried hard to keep within exact limits, and to describe things just as I saw and remember them. And it must not be forgotten that the same conditions that prevailed in Medford prevailed also in a greater or lesser degree in every other village in the Commonwealth. They all stood upon the same footing, and Medford was behind none of them. Her progress, like that of all other towns, has been that of gradual evolution. All the lacks that have been considered were not lacks nor necessities at the time. When the demand came for advancement