History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

Hill, having passed over the Cambridge Road be-
tween nine and ten o'clock on the previous night,
the Americans retreated to these heights, and soon
afterwards began the erection of a line of defences
in and about them, which finally made the former
almost impregnable, and the latter even more
strongly protected. The forces occupying the hills
of Somerville constituted the left wing of the army
besieging Boston. The first of the line of fortifi-
cations were earthworks in the vicinity of Everett
Street. Patterson was at that time at the fort in-
dicated as No. 3. There were other defences on the
opposite side of the Cambridge Road connected
with the citadel on Prospect Hill. This hill,
" ilount Pisgah," as it was sometimes styled,
embraced two eminences, the eastern being what
is now called Prospect Hill, the western being the
present Central Hill. Both were fortified, — the
former with a strong citadel, and the latter with
a redoubt near the present High-School building.
The two heights were connected by a rampart and
fosse. Greene's command of three or four thousand
Rhode Island troops was stationed at these de-
fences. Here Putnam, July 18, 177.5, raised the
flag bearing on one side " An Appeal to Heaven,"
and on the other, three vines and the motto, " Qui
transtulit sustinet," now upon the Connecticut state
seal. The new union flag of the colonies, with its
thirteen stripes, was first flung to the breeze from
this height, January 1, 1776. There were works
in the valley between Central and Winter hills, but
all traces of them have long since disappeared.
The principal defence on the latter eminence was
in the form of an irregular pentagon, situated just
at the junction of the Medford and Arlington roads.
It was provided with bastions and a deep fosse,
and was further protected with earthworks a hun-
dred yards to the front.
A breastwork, nearly on the line of Central
Street, joined the main work at the northwest an-
gle. The intrenchments on Winter Hill, begun by
Stark on the 18th of June were more extensive than
those of any other position of the American army.
Sullivan was stationed here with his New Hampshire
troops. A smaller work was placed beyond
the main fort, a short distance down the northerly
slope of the hill ; and another, on a rocky eminence
northwest of the bend of Temple Street, in a posi-
tion to command the Mystic River as it narrows
and bends toward the west of Ploughed Hill, was
occupied on the night of August 26. The fort on
SOMEEVILLE. 313
so perfectly built as to be known as " Putnam's
impregnable fortress." It was armed with eigh-
teen and twenty-four pounders, and commanded the
ferry between Charlestown and Boston. It was
not occupied till November 22. History records
very little damage done to the fortifications by the
enemy's cannon. One thirteen-inch shell burst
within the citadel on Prospect Hill, but without
damage to life or property. The works on
Ploughed Hill received the hottest fire, three
hundred bombs having been thrown into them
previous to Christmas.
Upon the historical remains of the siege of Bos-
ton and of earlier scenes time and the necessities
of man have worked their usual irreverent changes ;
a few dwellings, the old Powder-House, and iso-
lated pieces of intrenchment between Walnut and
Pleasant streets and Vinal and Highland avenues,
being nearly all that now remain, and Prospect Hill
has given to Miller's River, for sanitary require-
ments, a part of her historic crest.
After the evacuation of Boston, March 17, 1776,
and the removal of the seat of war to New York,
the residents of the territory of Somerville, exempted
from draft as an indemnification for the
losses they had sustained, enjoyed a season of quiet
undisturbed by the distracting scenes of war.
From November 7, 1777, for nearly a year, the
greater part of Burgoyne's army were quartered as
prisoners of war on Winter, Prospect, and Cobble
hills. Germans to the number of nineteen hun-
dred occupied the first-named height, and twenty-
three hundred British were held on Prospect Hill.
From the Revolutionary era till the time of its
incorporation as a town, the present city of Somer-
ville was merely a farming suburb of Charlestown.
For the first twenty-five years no changes occurred,
except a slight growth in population. The
next quarter of a century was marked by greater
advances.
The Middlesex Canal, chartered in 1793, and
made navigable from the Charles River to the
Merrimack in 1803, pursued its sinuous course
through Somerville. First making its appearance
and crossing the extreme northern limits of the
town, it reappeared where the Mystic River, after
flowing south, bends towards the east. Following
the course of the river and the ]\Iedford turnpike for
a short distance, it crossed the Ten Hills Farm, and
skirting the base of Mount Benedict to avoid the
marshes, it passed under the turnpike and entered
Cobble Hill, where the McLean Asylum stands, was Charlestown Neck, cuttincc nearly in halves the little