1 Windmill-hill was at the south end of Ash Street, near the former site of the Cambridge Gas Works. A windmill was there erected for the grinding of corn, as no mill moved by water-power was nearer than Watertown. This mill was removed to Boston in August, 1632, because “it would not grind but with a westerly wind.” —Savage's Winthrop, i. 87. The hill was afterwards enclosed by Richard Eccles, who owned the adjoining lands, and it so remained until 1684, when the town asserted its rights; and a tract measuring ten rods on the river, six rods and seven feet across the west end, ten rods and four feet on the north line, and seven and a half rods across the cast end, was acknowledged by Eccles to be public property, together with a highway to it, two rods wide, through his land; and his acknowledgment was entered on the Proprietors' Records.
2 See chapter XV.
3 Edmund Lockwood had been appointed Constable by the Court, May 9, 1632, and John Benjamin, May 29,1 633; but James Olmstead was the first person elected by the inhabitants to fill that office, which was then of great honor and importance.
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