History, News and Stories of Bedford, Massachusetts, USA

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• 1640 - Bedford is settled
  
  Massachusetts City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates
  
• 1729 - Bedford is incorporated
  
  Massachusetts City and Town Incorporation and Settlement Dates
  
• The Bedford Historical Society Presents: A Collector's Guide to Bedford Stories with Lee Yates
  
  
  The Bedford Historical Society Presents: A Collector's Guide to Bedford Stories with Lee Yates (www.youtube.com)
•   1826 - Two barns, a shoemaker's shop, &c. were destroyed by fire in Bedford, Mass. on Wednesday 31st ult. - the fire was occasioned by boys firing at swallows on the barns.
  
  genealogybank.com
  Bangor Weekly Register
  Bangor, Maine
  June 15, 1826
  
• 1845 - BEDFORD. [Pop. 925. Inc. 1729.]
  This town belonged in part to Concord.
  
  The Shawshine has one of its sources in Bedford, and the Concord bounds it on the west.... Read MORE...
  
  
• 1848 - Bedford
  BEDFORD originally belonged in part to the town of Concord. It was incorporated as a town in 1729. It is not very well situated for an agricultural... Read MORE...
  
  
• 1854 - Bedford
  Bedford, a post-township of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, 15 miles N. W. from Boston, bordering on Concord river. Population, 976.
  A New and Complete Gazetteer of the United States: Giving a Full and Comprehensive Review of the Present Condition, Industry, and Resources of the American Confederacy ... Thomas Baldwin (of Philadelphia.) Joseph Thomas January 1, 1854 Philadelphia : Lippincott, Grambo & Company 1854.
  
•   1868 - Walking Match at Bedford, Mass.
  Boston, Wednesday, June 17.
  A walking match of 100 miles, for a purse of $1,000 and the championship of New-England, between a young man named... Read MORE...
  
  
• August 4, 1873 - The Middlesex Central Railroad opens its new extension to Bedford and Concord Center amid local celebrations.
  
  www.bedforddepot.org/ history/ RRHistory.html
  
• August 31, 1877 - The Billerica & Bedford Railroad, the first two-foot common-carrier narrow gauge railway in America, begins shuttling passengers and freight between these two towns.
  
  www.bedforddepot.org/ history/ RRHistory.html
  
• Bedford Massachusetts, 1890
  Bedford is a beautiful agricultural town in the central part of Middlesex County, fourteen miles northwest of Boston; having Billerica on the north,... Read MORE...
  
  
• 1895 - Bedford
  Bedford, a post-village of Middlesex co., Mass., in Bedford township, on the Middlesex Central Railroad, 18 miles N.W. of Boston, also on the Bedford ... Read MORE...
  
  
• 1916
  Bedford, a post-village of Middlesex co., Mass., in Bedford township (town), on the Boston and Maine R., 18 miles NW. of Boston. It has various... Read MORE...
  
  
• December 31, 1931 - The B&M ends passenger service on the Lexington Branch between North Billerica and Bedford. This 8.63-mile section is kept open for freight, however.
  
  www.bedforddepot.org/ history/ RRHistory.html
  
• 1962 - The Boston & Maine Railroad abandons the remainder of the Reformatory Branch between Bedford and Concord Center and the section of the Lexington Branch between Bedford Depot and Concord Road in Billerica.
  The Town of Bedford buys the two right-of-ways (the portions within town limits) a year later.
  www.bedforddepot.org/ history/ RRHistory.html