History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

February, 1854. For the first five years worsliip
was held in a chapel on Tufts vStreet. In 1859
a wooden church was erected on the present site.
This was destroyed by fire, January 21, 1868.
The present house of worsliip was built the ensuing
year. The following are the names of the pastors
and the time of succession : Rev. G. H. Emerson,
1854-1859; Rev. D. H. Clark, 1859-1862;
Rev. Benjamhi K. Russ, 1862-1871; Rev.
G. H. Vibbert, 1871-1876; Rev. W. S. Ralph,
1877 to the present time.
The Somerville Light Infantry was organized
October, 1853. In May, 1851, the constitution
was ajjproved, and the company was enrolled as
Company B, 4th Regiment, 3d Brigade, 2d Division;
but the regiment was afterwards numbered
the 5th. George 0. Brastow was elected the first
captain. He was succeeded by Francis Tufts,
June 29, 1854, wlio served, with an intermission,
till April, 1859. Captain Brastow was then re-
elected, and continued in office until the close of
the company's three months' service, at the begin-
ning of the war, when lie was succeeded by Captain
B. F. Parker, who commanded the company
during its nine months' service in North Carolina
in 1862-63. Later, under command of W. E.
Robinson, the company started for the seat of the
war, under a hundred days' enlistment, but was
recalled. Afterward, under tlie captaincy of J. N.
Coffin, they completed a service of a similar length.
In the spring of 1865 G. W. Daniels was elected
captain, retaining the position till ^lay 3, 1871,
when he was succeeded by Charles F. King. In
the former year the company was reorganized.
Captain R. Kramer followed Captain King, August,
1874, and resigned June, 1876. The company
was then under command of Lieutenant R. T.
Blackwell, until it was disbanded, July 6, 1876.
At present no military organization exists in Som-
erville.
February 23, 1853, by an act of the legislature,
the Cliarlestown Gas Company was authorized to
lay pipes in town, and, April 11, a similar authority
was granted to the Cambridge Gas Company.
So generally did the new means of illumination
come into use, that, April 13, 1854, the Somer-
ville Gaslight Company was incorporated ; but be-
fore preparations could be made, the necessity for
a further supply of gas had ceased, and the com-
pany has never gone into operation.
The establishment of horse-railroads in Somer-
ville dates from 1855. The Middlesex Railroad
SUMER VILLE. 319
Company had been incorporated the previous year,
and sliortly afterwards constructed a line to Boston
from the eastern boundary of the town on Washington
Street. In May, 1855, a charter was
granted to the ^ledford and Charleston)! Railroad
Company, and one to the Somerville Horse Rail-
road Company, May 29, 1857 ; and in July, 1858,
the roads were finished and put into operation, •
the one occupying Main Street and Broadway, the
other Washington, Milk, and Elm Streets. By
legislative enactment, April 4, 1863, the Somer-
ville Horse Railroad Comiiany was allowed to extend
its tracks from Union Square through to Somer-
ville Avenue to the East Cambridge line. Travel
was established to Boston over this extension during
the following year. That part of the Somer-
ville Horse Railroad Company upon Elm Street,
Somerville Avenue, is under lease to the Union
Railroad Company, and the Middlesex Railroad
Company rents the line on Washington Street, and
also the line on Broadway to Winter Hill.
In 1856, the First Methodist Episcopal Soci-
ety was formed, through the labors of the Rev. R.
Gerrish of East Cambridge. The first service was
held in Franklin Hall, on the site of Holmes'
store. The society was organized June 24, 1857,
and a house of worship, the corner-stone of wliich
was laid October 5, dedicated March 31 of the
following year. Rev. Charles Baker became the
first settled pastor in 1859. The needs of the soci-
ety having outgrown the first building, the cor-
ner-stone of the present costly and spacious edifice
was laid July 27, 1874, and another church dedicated
May 29, 1875. The Rev. W. S. Chad-
bourne, the present pastor, is the eleventh since
the establishment of the church.
In 1859 the town undertook to readjust her own
boundaries and those of private estates, not so
much with the hope of restoring the original limits,
as to prevent further encroachments. The ancient
lines had become obliterated or uncertain, and
fences had been erected to suit the convenience
of abuttors. No elucidation could be expected
from the Charlestown records, whose meaning had
become obscure from a constant reference to
bounds of a perishable nature. Consequently a
survey was ordered, and upon its completion, in
1862, a valuable map was prepared, and an accu-
rate record of all lines and hmits, and sectional
plans of all the streets, were recorded in durable
form.
During the second decade of the town's existence
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