About 1844 the railroad commenced to bring milk from distant country towns to Boston. The railroad men cut prices, and personally solicited patronage directly in the dwellings and elsewhere. This made trouble between the two parties.
The writer has seen his uncle (a Medford milkman), when he was sure he had been stung by a railroad man, drive abreast of his wagon, locking wheels, and then there was war.
I do not know whether the Medford men were frozen out of the business, or their routes were bought up. I think, with the exception of two, their farms were not paying property after giving up their routes in Boston.
Of the men now living who had any active part in the business in the forties are Everett Wellington, H. A. Smith, Jr., and the writer (who was taken out of school for three months as substitute for Octavius Smith, an uncle, who died in February, 1845). These three were about fifteen years old.
Up in the morning at 3 A. M., the cows milked and got ready to move, I carried the morning's and the previous night's milk, collecting some on the road at E. T. Hastings' and Joseph Swan's, delivered some in Medford and Charlestown and the North and West Ends, also in the vicinity of Fort Hill (about fifty gallons). In the afternoon I drove to Woburn to collect more milk. In Boston Peter C. Brooks was a customer, and numbers of other Medford families, including Robert Bacon's, and Miss Lucy Osgood's brother David. Considerable truck went over the road both ways for them; for instance, swill for Miss Lucy's pig. A Mr. Lovering, cattle drover and dealer, used to drive a herd of cows into the country at certain times and return them later. I recollect seeing Everett Wellington driving some of his father's stock through Lexington at one time, probably to pasture.
There were many working oxen, and one large slaughter-house and tannery where the Armory now stands.
