The Historian's home coming
The illustration in our last issue (The Historian's Home) has been subject of some favorable comment, and was especially welcome to a non-resident member, who in her childhood days lived near by and remembers it and its occupants well. But there arises a question of accuracy of statement that there the history of Medford (published in 1855) was written, as witness the reply of Mr. John Albree to our later inquiry.You asked me when Mr. Brooks moved to Medford for good. As I was looking this up with other things, I found the exact date, March 3, 1856. He, with his wife, had been living for some time at the Larkin's, 21 Somerset street, Boston, and had become tired of that kind of existence. His sister Elizabeth had died the preceding November, and Miss Lucy Ann was at the old house almost alone. Mr. Brooks' daughter apparently spent much time there, however. So the arrangement was made that Mr.Brooks and Mrs. Brooks move into the old home, ‘to go no more out.’ Mr. Alfred Brooks, his brother, made this his headquarters, though he was somewhat of a traveller.
Mr. Usher in his brief memoir is silent regarding Mr. Brooks' return to his native home on retiring from active life. For six years prior to 1853 Mr. Brooks' name appears in the Boston Director as of 12 Bedford street, in '53 at 111 Washington street; in '54 and '55 at 21 Bromfield street, (in the three latter years) ‘house at Medford.’ After '55 his name does not appear therein, and it seems probable that the addresses of '53–'54–'55 were those of his office there. But whether resident or not, he was certainly present (by his own testimony) at the old home on that fateful day of the tornado of August, 1851. He was requested by the citizens to gather facts relating thereto, which he did, and published a little later. He was in his sixty-first year when he came back to the old home ‘to go no more out.’ His had been an eventful and busy life. He had just completed his history of his native town, a work of considerable magnitude. Prior to 1840, local or town histories in New England were but few (only [p. 48] about thirty-five) and these were rarely more than sixty pages. Mr. Brooks' work was of nearly six hundred pages, and doubtless was an incentive to others in the years soon following. He labored under the disadvantage of an utter absence of any local public records whatever prior to 1674, and supposed such to have been made but lost. We of today are strongly inclined to the belief that nothing can be lost which was not possessed. He was an enthusiast in what pertained to his native town, and though such quality sometimes led him in his historical work to claim more for Medford than could be proved, it is still a good quality to have. Medford of today would be better if there was more of the same optimistic spirit in evidence.
