Governor Brooks' birthplace.
The Medford Governor was born at upper Medford, or Symmes' Corner, set off from Medford by the incorporation of Winchester as a town in 1850. Originally a part of Charlestown, it was joined to Medford in 1754 for the convenience of its residents who had to journey through Medford to reach their meeting-house.Here was the farm of Zachariah Symmes (first minister of Charlestown) of which portions remain in possession of his descendants today. Through the farm lay the ‘publique country road’ from Medford to Woburn, and at the ‘corner’ diverged southward the road to Cambridge, the present Grove street. In more recent years there was laid out another to the west, the present Bacon street. On all the angles formed by these dwelt a Symmes, a descendant of Reverend Zachariah.
Substantial were the houses they built and that sheltered the generations that have come and gone. One has ends of brick enclosing the chimneys. Another, the residence of Luther Symmes, is of wood (doubtless brick filled) with hipped or pyramidal roof. Before it, at the sidewalk's curb, is a drinking fountain surmounted by a sundial. Mr. Symmes was, from its inception and for many years, the superintendent of the Charlestown Water Works, and the inscription cut in the granite of the fountain beneath the sundial is especially pertinent: ‘Let every man's work be made manifest.’
On the opposite side of the street stood the home of Caleb Brooks, the subject of this sketch. This was of a different type from those already mentioned, at least in outward appearance. It stood facing the noonday sun, its end near the angle formed by the bend of the road and shaded somewhat by a venerable elm. It is said to have been built in 175, and if so, in the year that Caleb Brooks, the future governor's father, attained his majority. For nearly one hundred and seventy years it stood there in the turn of the road, with an entrance door near the
