Morning journal and courier., 1891-10-06
OLD POWDER HOUSE.
\ Structure That Was Built When Queen Anne Ruled over America.

queen Anne huled over America.
 From the Boston Daily Advertiser.l
 Probably few Bostonians are aware that within four miles of the city is A struc- ture that historians say is the only really antique ruin of which Massachusetts can boast, and one that for picturesqueness and solitary grandeur has no superior in all New England. Indeed, it has but one equal in this respect, and that is the old mill at Newport. We refer to the old Powder House in Somerville. Among all the historic objects in this vicinity none is so unique and interesting, so well worthy of note, and at the same time probably so little known as this old building.
 The structure stands on little eminenee in North Somerville, to the southwest and near Broadway, which was two centuries fares from Boston to the country towns on the north. It can be plainly seen from the trains on the B. and L. railroad, just be- low College Hill station. It overlooks a large portion of the city of Somerville and the valley of the winding Mystic riv- CT, while away to the south, perhaps four miles distant in an air line, shines the gilded dome of the State House
 Seventy years before the first blow for American independence was struck, in the peaceful reign of good Queen Anne and probably ill the year 1903, its walls were raised. It was then that John Mallet pur- chased land in the vicinity and conceived the idea of erecting a stone-built wind mill for grinding the grain raised by the farmers of the vicinity. The material Mallet selected was bluestone, qusrried on the hillside near by, and with this he built mill that was the pride eof Middle sex for generations The walls are two feet in thickness and there is an inner stucture of brick. It is about thirty feet in height, fifteen feet in diameter at the base, taparing little toward the top. Its comical-shaped roof gives it an odd, old time appearance, the like of which is sel- dom seen outside of the land of dikes and ditches.
 During John Mallet's day, and perhaps for one or two generations afterward, the structure was used as a mill, but before the war of the revolution commenced its gigantic arms had ceased to reyolve and the building was mill no more, though destined to become a memorial for one of the first hostile acts of the British sol | diery. Just previous to and during the | war the structure was used by the colo | nists as a place for the storage of ammu- | milton, and hence the name of ''the old Powder House." which has since chung to | it. In the gray drawn of a September morning in 1774 a company of General | Cages soldiers embarked from Long | Wharf, in Boston, and proceeded silently | up the Mystic river to Ten Hills Farm in | Somerville. From that point they has. l tened overland about mile to the maga- zine, oveIcame the guard and destroyed | two hundred and fifty hslf-barrels of pow | der-nearly all the colonlsts possessed at | the time.
 The one thing that impresses the obser- | yer more than anything else in gazing upon | the old mill is its utter lack of harmony | with all its surroundings. It is the one | un changed relic of a distant past in the
 midst of scene of every-varying, change ful, progressive life. Within a few rodf thunders the locomotive and on all sidet
 are rising the modern buildings of rapid | ly growing city.
 The building gires little evidence that il | has defied the clements for almost two
 centuries, though its sides bulge out lit | tie with a portly roundness. It ought tc
 stand for another hundred years at least
 The heirs of Nathan Tufts, into who's:
 hands the old mill and surrounding land
 passed few years ago, have generously
 given it to the city of Somerville, on tn, | condition that care shall be taken to pre-
 serve the building and that streets aDC
 walks shall be laid out near it, making
 small public park. The city has voted ta
 accept it, and will doubtless make Hbera appropriations for carrying out the proyi
 sions of the gift.