History of Somerville, Massachusetts, USA

This new town, lately set off from Charlestown, was the agricultural part of the township.

Somerville lies on the western bank of Mystic River; and Prospect Hill, and part of Winter Hill, to which the Americans retreated after the noble struggle at Bunker Hill, are in Somerville.

The McLean Asylum for the Insane, a noble monument of philanthropy and munificence, is in this town.

Distance from Concord, 14 miles; from Boston, 2.

Somerville, a post-township of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, intersected by three important railroads, about 3 miles N. N. W. from Boston. It is the seat of the McClean Asylum for the Insane, (see Boston,) and of various manufactories, among which may be mentioned an extensive establishment for bleaching. Tuft's college, an institution chartered in 1852, is located on grounds lying partly in this township and partly in Medford. The village of Somerville is situated on the Boston and Maine and on the Boston and Fitchburg railroads, 2 miles from Boston. The township was incorporated in 1842. Population, 3640.

BOSTON, Oct. 11. - In Somerville, last evening, H. C. LINCOLN, of the firm of LINCOLN & CHAMBERLAIN, lard manufacturers, fell into a large kettle of boiling fat. He was immediately taken out and lived one hour.

SOMERVILLE is a beautiful, prosperous and growing city in the southeast section of Middlesex County, three miles northwest of Boston. Through it run the Boston and Maine Railroad and its divisions, the Eastern and the Boston and Lowell; the Fitchburg Railroad; and the Grand Junction Branch of the Boston and Albany Railroad. Street railroads through the Charlestown district, and through Cambridge, also connect it with the metropolis. Sloops approach it by the Mystic on the northeast, and by Miller's River on the southeast. The boundaries are Medford on the northeast, Charlestown on the east, Cambridge on the south and southwest, and Arlington on the northwest. The length of the territory is about four miles northwest and southeast; and its width varies from about 500 feet near Charlestown to two miles for the most part of the eastern section. The assessed area is 1,900 acres. About seven eighths of this has a soil of clay or of clayey gravel, and the remainder is sand.

The surface...