More about the powder house.
The following was one page of manuscript inadvertently omitted in our last issue. It should have begun at fourth line from bottom of page 11:—Old Charlestown was thus, like ancient Gaul, divided into three parts. The Menotomy river cut off the point of a wedge-shaped part lying between Mystic river and lakes and West Cambridge and extending westward up to old Woburn line. The residents in that section soon asked for annexation to West Cambridge, which was soon done.
The new town thus made, beginning near Sullivan Square, lay westward between Mystic river and Medford on the east and north and Cambridge on the south, extending to the Menotomy river (alias Alewife brook) and to Mystic river again. It had numerous hills of considerable elevation and historic interest. One of the lesser is the Quarry hill already mentioned. Old Charlestown early made a remarkable survey and record of its territory and belongings. In a book of two hundred and sixty pages it is given in third report of Record Commissioners, from 1638 to 1802. In this book is much about present Medford territory. This is now presented to complete the story, and especially to answer a query we received relative to the name Broadway. [p. 36]
The level land between Walnut and Quarry hills was in olden time called ‘Sorrelly plain.’ At the foot of Quarry hill was the Medford ‘road to Cambridge,’ now known as Harvard street in Medford (named Cambridge street in 1829), and as Warner street in Somerville, and after crossing Broadway, as College avenue. We have been recently asked if Broadway was always known thus. We reply ‘No.’ The earliest name we know of is ‘Menotomie's rode,’ or road to Menotomy, in varieties of spelling.
In the record referred to the location of this stone mill was in 1684, ‘seven acres of John Foskett, northwest on a two-pole way, and southwest by Sergeant Thomas Welch.’
Welch had twenty-one acres northeast of John Foskett and southwest by the highway. A note follows which is pertinent: ‘Minde there is within these bounds of Welch a quarter of A acre left for A Common Quarry.’ So the name, Quarry hill, is reasonable.
