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[p. 80] swinging through the market-place over the bridge, stopping at the Royal Oak, Blanchard's or the Admiral Vernon Tavern.

Travel was interrupted by the Revolution, and when resumed at its close, gradually increased. The building of Malden and Chelsea bridges over the Mystic, and the joining of Charlestown and Boston by a bridge, gave an added impetus to travel, but turned some away from Medford.

Schedules of the roads leading from Boston, giving the distances from town to town, and later the names and distances from each other of inns of established reputation, were printed in early almanacs and similar publications.

After 1805 we find the stage-coach lines inserted in Thomas' Almanac, the times of arrival and departure, the place of headquarters noted, together with the days and number of times a week the coach started out.

The Medford innkeepers' names given in these road lists were as follows: 1771, Jones; 1773, Billings; 1780, Billings; 1782, Porter; 1792, Blanchard, and also Bradshaw; 1794, Blanchard; 1800, Hezekiah Blanchard, located at Union Hall. These are taken at random from the various almanacs above mentioned.

As the Blanchards were tavern-keepers for fifty years, and their house was the house par excellence, that name appears for many years. Strangely enough, sometimes the distance of this tavern from Boston is given as four miles and sometimes five.

A gentleman eighty-five years of age, living in Medford, describes most interestingly the journeys he made with his father and others to Boston from near Montpelier, Vt. They came in pungs loaded with beef, pork, poultry, eggs and cheese and took back dry goods and groceries. The round trip took two weeks, fare at the taverns was good, charges reasonable, and one of the towns where they staid over night was Medford.

Medford was given as being on the road to Montreal and Quebec and numerous other places.

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