Excerpts from the Historical Society archives.

On March 1, 1724/5, that first Monday in March, the first of which would begin a long history of Town Meetings and elections for the Town of Holliston, two constables were elected to serve for one year. Their names were John Twitchell and Isaac Adams. Their principal duties were to post the dates for the town meetings, and to keep tabs on payment of late taxes and abatements owed.  

This signified the beginning of the history of law and order for the new town, a history where all the best intentions for protection and service were sought to carry out the law of the land for the betterment of the community. 

(How times have changed. From about 600 residents to over 15,000, from a few miles of dirt roads to over 90 paved miles and from 2 constables to a force of 26 officers, Holliston remains “ A Good Town” )

WARRANT, 1755.

Given by the Town Clerk to Town constable, ordering the departure of Samuel Pike (see page 214) and family:

These are to require you the above named officer forthwith to warn Samuel Pike and Abigail Pike and their children, forthwith to depart out of the town of Holliston, so that neither of them become an Inhabitant in said town.  

BURIED TREASURE, 1820.

Mike Martin, a highwayman of Irish descent, was apparently a well-known character in Holliston and surrounding towns. He was thought to have maintained a hideout near Lake Winthrop sometime around the year 1820, and from there he would venture forth to ply his trade of holding up taverns, stagecoaches or solitary, unfortunate wayfarers. Part common thief,  part legend, he made several Holliston citizens his victims on the narrow winding country roads leading to neighboring villages. 

A popular tradition relates the time during one holdup where he asked the group gathered for the occasion whether an Irishman was among them. If so, may he step forward and he would whisper in his ear the location of his hidden hoard of gold. No one stepped forward. His secret died with him when he was eventually caught up with in Medford and hanged at Cambridge for his crimes.

Talk of his treasure lived on. Tradition said Mike Martin maintained a lakeside hideout on land now known as Lake Grove Cemetery, and that he buried his hoard somewhere on the west shore of Lake Winthrop on a line between Fisher’s Point a the southeast corner of Lake Winthrop and Phipps Hill to the northwest. The tales of the clever highwayman and his buried gold were passed down by an oral tradition through several generations, while reports of the treasure’s discovery have never been reported.

WOMEN’S RIGHTS,  1854:

Mary Shorton, an Irish widow, with a turned-up nose and a small baby, was before the Police Court, yesterday afternoon, on complaint of Patrick Collins, charged with being “a common railer and brawler,” having been heard to rail, brawl and scold in the presence of diverse persons, and at diverse times. Mary stoutly denied the charge, and with some of the witnesses not being in attendance, she was allowed to go on her own recognizance at an examination on Friday night.  

This is an important case, and one in which women are particularly interested, and they are determined to frown down any attempt to interfere with their acknowledged rights.  The strong-willed women are particularly indignant, for the enforcement of a law against this offense would speedily put an end to their vocation and drive them from the rostrum to the nursery, and leave them with nobody to berate but their own children — and their husbands on  the sly.