Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 12.

5 August, 1811, they voted ‘To pass Samuel Townsend's acct. for a pump in the well opposite the Hotel.’

Without doubt these two orders refer to the same well, it probably being situated as near Blanchard's Tavern as it was to Timothy Symmes' house.

Beyond South street on Main street there was a well on the premises of Nathan Wait, where now stands the Police Station; one on the estate of Capt. John Sparrell, whose house is still standing, numbered 101, and another across the street in the yard of the Medford House.

Sixty years ago this was a region of homes of industrious, well-to-do citizens with pretty gardens and good orchards. Beyond Swan street the house lots extended from Main to Back street, and on the latter the lots on the east side extended back to the Branch canal. Over this region we may write as we do today over the once aristocratic North End of Boston,—Ichabod. ‘The glory has departed.’

The younger people of today, accustomed to a lavish and even prodigal use of water at home and in the gymnasium, can scarcely appreciate the limited supply of their earlier ancestors; neither can they appreciate the value of the simple wooden pump, nor realize the laborious way of getting water from a well by means of a bucket and rope, or by working a wheezy pump handle, when today by a simple touch of the fingers and a turn of the wrist a stream of water is at their service in copious measure.

A dear writer of fairy tales has said ‘Life is the most beautiful fairy tale,’ and does not the telling of the wonderful things science and invention have placed at our disposal today, brought into our modern life for use at home, at our places of business, in sickness and health, for pleasure and work, for use on the land, in the water and in the air, seem like a fairy tale in very deed, and