May 14, 1765, Walter Russell and Isaac Mallet were elected to the board, the former for the Alewife Brook school, the latter for the one at Gardner Row. Mr. Mallet served three years, and was succeeded, May, 1768, by John Lamson, who continued in office for five years. In 1773 Mr. Fosdick was serving in his place, but that year it was decided to do away with a local committee, and it was voted ‘that the selectmen manage the school without the Neck, and proportion the money among the inhabitants as they shall judge equitable.’
Lamson is another good old Charlestown name. Joseph Lamson (1728-1789) and John Lamson (1732-1759), according to Wyman, were cousins. The same authority makes the erroneous statement that the former was schoolmaster outside the Neck in 1769 and 1772. All the gentlemen thus far named in this paper served with Samuel Kent during his long and faithful term of nineteen years in the Milk Row district.
Walter Russell's name occurs on the town books in connection with school matters, excepting the years 1771 and 1772, for thirteen years from the time of his first election. In 1778 he was succeeded by his brother, Philemon Russell.
Lieutenant Samuel Cutter was serving in 1771 and 1772, and again in 1781 and 1782. This gentleman (see Cutter Genealogy, p. 54), a man of prominence in the Menotomy district, was the grandfather of Edward and Fitch Cutter, whose names figure on the early records of Somerville. The name of Mallet is precious to Somerville for its associations with the old Mill, or Powder House.
Miss Carr, in her excellent monograph on the family (Historic Leaves, Vol. II., p. 10), has been led into an error concerning the above-mentioned Isaac Mallet by her authorities, Frothingham and Wyman. In saying that he taught school at the Neck in 1767, they make two, mistakes. In the first place, there was no school at the Neck in those days, and, secondly, the record distinctly says, under date of April 6, 1767, that Isaac Mallet received £ 8 10s 4d as his proportion of the school money
