In 1885 a petition was presented to the General Court from inhabitants of West Medford, asking that a division of the town be made, and that the western portion be incorporated as a new town under the name of Brooks. Medford had then a population of 9,041. The petitioners at this hearing set forth ‘that they were opposed to a city form of government and desired separation in order to retain the management of their prudential affairs in the hands of the many, and not delegate all their rights and privileges to the control of a few.’ The hearings before the legislative committee, to whom it was referred, together with arguments of counsel, form interesting reading, published as it was in separate volumes, that of the petitioners 171 pages, that of the remonstrants 203. Five successive efforts were made toward this end in as many years without success. The fourth effort, that of 1888, came nearest success. Though a majority of the Committee on Towns reported leave to withdraw, a substitute report ‘to incorporate the town of Brooks’ was lost by a yea and nay vote of 89 yea to 93 nay, with 10 votes paired on each.
The final effort of the petitioners in 1889 proved more ineffectual, the vote being 48 in favor, 109 against. This was the death knell of town government in Medford.
In those years the population of the whole town had increased almost to the minimum number requisite for a city charter, the census of 1890 enumerating 11,770. The ‘March meeting’ of 1891 appointed a committee to consider the advisability of petitioning for such, which committee in November reported that its census taken showed the population to be 12,100, and recommended that a city charter be obtained.
Such petition to the General Court being granted at its session of 1892, its action was accepted at a special town meeting. It is somewhat significant of the good sense of those earlier petitioners, who foresaw danger in ‘delegating their rights and privileges to the few,’ that the charter was accepted October 6, 1892, by a
