In 1865 Mr. Nathan Brown of West Medford sketched a view of the river, looking up-stream from the railroad embankment, and painted in oil two copies. The central feature is the picturesque ruin of the second aqueduct of the Middlesex Canal, which, after thirteen years of disuse, still spanned the river and seven years later took on the superstructure of the first Boston avenue or ‘Canal bridge.’ One of these paintings is in the Historical Society's collection, framed in wood from the aqueduct built in 1827, and shows the edges of Somerville and Medford, the ancient ‘Linefielde’ of Charlestown, now Arlington, with the towering hills beyond. It is a valuable contribution to our historical knowledge. Photographed by E. B. Conant, it was reproduced in Vol. VII, No. I, Register. It is one of eleven views in the same locality, covering a period of a hundred years, framed in the same old pine wood which had been buried in the salt mud for twenty-eight years. Two of these views were secured by the city engineer of Somerville, and are of historic value. We have them by interchange of courtesy, and in the Somerville office are framed enlargements of three of them.
During the thirty years that elapsed between the history's publications, great improvements had been made in illustrative art by the lithograph and heliotype process. But one of the latter, Grace Church, is to be found in the Usher work. His illustrations are mainly wood cuts of varying styles and merit. But there are some, found perhaps nowhere else,—the Stearns mansion, the railroad stations and the second Brooks schoolhouse. The birthplace of John Brooks and his last residence when governor of Massachusetts are well shown, and some of these later views we do well to compare with the earlier for the facts they reveal.
In 1881 or ‘82 Mr. Henry Brooks secured photographic views, numbering twenty-eight, in various parts
