Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 29.

‘[p. 16] that edifice created to sustain life should become the receptacle of such a death dealing substance as powder.’ There came another turn in the cycle of events. In the seventies, a big shed over a hundred feet long, from beside the railroad at Willow bridge, was cut into three parts and moved near to the old powder house and made into the canning and pickle establishment of George R. Emerson, who lived in the little dwelling beside it. His farm was on the ground and his ‘finished products’ bore the label, Old Powder House Brand, and with good reason, as before shipment they were stored within the sturdy walls of the old stone tower.

The city of Somerville is its present owner and has well preserved it and created a beautiful forest park about it, developing a beautiful residential section of the city close to its borders, even now finding the pressure of business at its busy corners. But the central dominant figure is the old wayside mill, the circular stone tower erected for John Mallet two centuries and more ago.