History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

One of the earliest prominent men of ^Y;1ltllam,
who achieved a reputation not purely local, was
Uriah Getting (Cutting), born in Waltham in
1766. At the age of fifteen he went to work in
Marlborough, and four years later he went to
Boston. When he arrived at the Jatter town his
possessions consisted of his bundle of clothes and
twenty-five cents in money, and his experience was
begun as an errand-boy in a West India goods
store at the South End. He developed in later
years much talent as a civil engineer, obtained
charters for and was mainly instrumental iu open-
ing Broad, Cornhill, Brattle, and other streets, and
building Central and India wharves. He projected
the jMill-Dam, whicii he did not live to see finisiied,
and also planned a canal from Boston Harbor to
the Back Bay basin, wiiicii should accommodate
vessels of several hundred tons. He died in 1819.
The most prominent native of Waltham of our
time is IS'athaniel Prentiss Banks, who was born
liere in 1816. His boyiiood was passed in the
employment of tiie Boston Manufacturing Com-
ATERTOWN, one of the old-
est towns in Massachusetts, is
])leasantly situated on the left
l)ank of the Ciiarles River, in
tlie southeastern part of Mid-
dlesex County, seven miles
from Boston, and is three
miles in length, with an aver-
age width of about one mile.
It has Belmont on the north,
Cambridge on the east, Boston and Newton (from
both of which it is separated by Charles River) on
the south, and Waltham on the west. One hun-
dred and fifty acres of its territory lying opposite
the bridge, on the south side of the river, adjoin
the town of Newton. It is traversed by a branch
of the Fitchburg Railroad opened in 1846, while
a horse- railroad unites it with Cambridge and
Boston.
Before Belmont was taken from it, this town,
WATERTOWN. 433
WATERTOWN.
I pany.
He was elected to represent Waltiiam in
the General Court for tiie years 1848, 1849, 1850,
and 1851. In 1852 lie was elected to represent
Massachusetts in the National Congress, in 185-3
was president of tlie State Constitutional Conven-
tion, and in 1854 and 1856 was re-elected to the
national House of Representatives, in the latter
year of which he was chosen Speaker, after a pro-
tracted contest of over two months' duration. In
1857, 1858, and 1859 lie was chosen governor of
Massaciiusetts ; in 1860 he was elected president
of the Illinois Central Railroad; in 1861 he re-
signed his position on the railroad corporation, and
was appointed a major-general of volunteers. He
served as major-general in the army until 1864,
when he was relieved of his command. Returning
;Y FRANCIS S. DRAKE.
to Massachusetts, he was elected to Congress in
1864, 1866, 1868, and 1870; was chosen state
senator in 1872 ; and in 1874 and 1876 again re-
turned to the national House. In 1879 he was
appointed United States Marshal for Massachu-
setts, which position he at present holds.
whose manufacturing interests now predominate,
was essentially agricultural, and was second, in
productiveness and fertility among tlie towns of
the county, to West Cambridge alone. These two
towns were the market-gardens of Boston. The
soil, with the exception of a ])ortion at its south-
eastern extremity, is remarkably good. It consists
principally of black loam, having a substratum of
hard earth, so that it suff'ers little from summer
droughts. Few New England towns have so large
a proportion of land well adapted to tillage, or so
little broken or waste land. In consequence of the
scarcity of woodland, strict orders were very early
passed for the preservation of trees, one or more of
which were sometimes taken as compensation for
debt or service. The Indian name of the town was
long perpetuated in deeds describing Pequusset
connnon or meadow, a tract of land on the north
border of the town, a little east of Lexington Street,
for manv vears used as a cow common.