History of the Town of Medford: Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from Its First Settlement in 1630 to 1833 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from History of the Town of Medford: Middlesex County, Massachusetts, From Its First Settlement in 1630 to 1833

The announcement on the titlepage of this volume is a suffi cient statement of the fact that it is based on the earlier work of Mr. Brooks; and, indeed, no complete history of Medford can be written which does not largely embody the material collected by him. Medford had no early annalist. The sources from which the account of its settlement must be made up are scanty and oh scure; and such imperfect information as exists must be collected from widely scattered records. Mr. Brooks had devoted many years of his life to the task of compiling his materials. He was, moreover, an enthusiastic and painstaking antiquarian, who had inherited from his ancestors, among the first settlers of the town, a fund of traditional lore. If, then, the present volume throws little new light upon the early history of the town, it is because his research was so thorough and exhaustive that he left but a barren field of labor to his successors.

But the labors of Mr. Brooks as an historian ended with the publication of his volume, thirty-one years ago. Much has hap pened since that date, which deserves a permanent record; and much of the detail of our later municipal life will be lost, if those who have lived through it die, and make no sign.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.