Episode CIV: Medford, Massachusetts

When I talk to people about where I live, I usually say Boston, or sometimes I say Cambridge. Technically, I am lying. I actually live in Medford, Massachusetts, about 3 miles away from Cambridge, and 5 miles from Boston. Today I will tell you a little bit about this city.

First settled in 1630 by the Puritan folk of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it was originally called "Meadford," probably a conjunction of meadow-by-the-ford, referring to an area on the Mystic river (at that time spelled 'Mistick River.') As a side note, perhaps you remember a 2003 Clint Eastwood-directed film called Mystic River? Same river.

Anyhow, Yours Truly lives a couple blocks from the Mystic River, which is still quite a lovely river hundreds of years later. We often walk to the river, and are occasionally treated to the sight of swans floating by.

One of the earliest specialties in Medford was boat-building. Situated along the aforementioned river leading directly to Boston Harbor, Medford became an ideal place for the building of Clipper Ships, which upon completion would float down the river and be cast out into the Atlantic Ocean, where they would begin their globe-trotting careers. Many of these ships were designed for the grueling trade routes between New York and California, going around Cape Horn in South America to get there.

[Clipper Ship built in Medford in the 1850s]

Today Medford is mostly a suburb of Boston/Cambridge. It's a little quieter, has a little more space, more room for parking, and- most importantly- more affordable housing options (which is exactly why we landed in Medford.)

Here are some random interesting facts about Medford:

-Medford was the birthplace of the songs "Jingle Bells" and "Over the River and Through the Woods." How's that for Holiday Spirit!

-Medford was the residence of Amelia Earhart for some of her adult life. In fact, I have been to the church building where she attended church. I know this because it is commemorated on a plaque in the back of the building.

- Medford was one of the main cities through which Paul Revere traveled on his Midnight Ride.

-Medford is home of Tufts University, a campus which seems to be a sort of wannabe Ivy League school. In fact, the campus is so beautiful (and so much more accessible) that it often is used as a filming location for movies supposedly taking place at Harvard.

-Medford was home to James Walker Tufts, who was one of the pioneer inventors of the soda fountain (an invention which I am pretty grateful for.) He also established The Village of Pinehurst, North Carolina, home of a world famous golf resort. The original plan was to call it Tuftstown.

 

[1800s-style soda fountain, as designed by James Walker Tufts- a little fancier than soda fountains these days, no?]

-Finally, has anyone heard of The Gypsy Moth Invasion? It started in the 1860s, ended up devastating forests throughout the whole nation, and is still a destructive pest in New England woodlands. Well? It all started right here in Medford Massachusetts, when Leopold Trouvelot brought some gypsy moths over from Japan for some science experiments aimed at creating better silk-spinning caterpillars. Needless to say, the moths escaped from his barn, and he failed to convince the local authorities that they needed to burn that local swath of forest to prevent the spread of the moths. Well, the rest is history, and gypsy moths continue to cause hundreds of millions of dollars of annual devastation to this day.

[Doggone New England scientists!!!]