Circa 1950's Saugus High School Shop.

Taken from the Saugus Herald August 29, 1930
                                        Original Speed Law?

The first speed law passed in America was drawn by the board of Selectmen of Boston in 1757. The ordinance follows: “Owing to great danger arising oftentimes from coaches, sleighs, chairs and other carriages on the Lord’s days as people are going to or coming from the several churches in this town, being driven with great rapidity, and the public worship being oftentimes much disturbed by such carriages, it is therefore voted, and ordered that no coach, sleigh, chair, chaise or other carriage at such times be driven at a greater rate that a foot pace, on penalty to the master of the slave or servant so driving the sum of 10 shillings.”

                       Engineers Laying Out New State Road
Development toward starting the construction work on the new State Road to extend from Saugus Center along Hesper Street to East Saugus are slow according to the latest reports from many who are interested in the project.
However, residents were slightly encouraged when State surveyors appeared this week to take further measurements of the course on which the road will be built. It is said that State authorities would like to build the highway on the straightest course possible and many mentioned it would start on Woodbury Avenue to cut through a field to Hesper Street but other say the road will follow the presently built road. Everyone is all at sea to the plans because no definite statements have been given out.
The $2,400 appropriated for the highway will be used to build a 24-foot road of permanent construction with a 60-foot taking. Just how far the road will be built with this sum of money is not known but it is said it will not extend over half the distance of the entire length. It was stated that all bids for the proposed construction job must be in by November 1st.
 
                              Personal Mention
Miss Margie Connor of 8 Foss Avenue, the clerk at Surabian’s Market, has gone on her vacation in Maine.
Mrs. William Beckford of Evergreen Street has recovered from a two-week illness.
Mr. And Mrs. F. J. Wheeler and daughters, Blanch and Gladys Killick, of 355 Lincoln Avenue will motor to New York over the holiday.
Albert MacVicar, son of Dr. and Mrs. Archibald MacVicar, of 23 Jackson Street, will leave in the near future with his classmates for DePauw University, Green Castle, Indiana, where is entering his sophomore year at that institution.


     Widely Used Quotations Too Frequently Garbled

Usually when we think we are quoting some thoughtful expression of the past, we are only misquoting. And the chances are we don’t know when we are misquoting?
The Golden Book Magazine supports the truth of this statement with a list of frequently misused quotations, all part of our everyday speech, some of which have been changed only by a word, but others of which have lost their original meaning entirely.
Today, for instance, we say: “All the world loves a lover.” But Emerson said: “All mankind loves a lover.” We say: “Accidents happen in the best regulated families.” What Dickens said was: “Accidents will occur in the best regulated families.”
Cervantes in the sixteenth century gave birth to the modern phrase, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” But what he said was “I find my familiarity with thee has bred contempt.”
        

      How Cliftondale Got its Name

“There have been changes enough to interest me in the growth of Cliftondale during the past 40 years, so many that I had not dreamed of when I used to see but a half-dozen house. In sight of my own house, “remarked one of the cheeriest and happiest of the aged resident, Mrs. Mary Roache at her home on Central Street to a report from the Item, as she welcomed him the other day.
“I was born but a half mile from here, East Saugus way, when the Sweetser’s and the Raddins were the leading ones in this part of town. If I live until June 12, 1910, I shall have reached the age of 80 and my outlook upon life is very bright and still for the peace that I possess, and that has always been mine. New neighbors and new friends have come through all these years, and the little town has grown up about me. I welcome the changes and the newcomers, but I miss the former associations of Cliftondale of some years ago. As I look from my window, I recollect how the old Danforth house, old even then, looked as it stood alone but a few rods away on this side of the road. Across the way stood an old pottery, one of the first to be erected in Saugus, and just beyond stood the Downing house and the old Methodist Church. This side stood the little old schoolhouse, where the men and women for generations went to school.
“Sweetser’s Corner, this place, was called when I was young and the business of the place was that of snuff and tobacco manufacture. Charles Sweetser was the proprietor of the snuff and tobacco factory, and he was assisted by his sons, George, Henry and Augustus, the former being the well-known representative of the town.
“I believe it used to be told that just as the first railroad was about to be run through the town, there was a sort of controversy as to the name it should be called. It was somehow left to the decision of two sisters, the Misses Kidder, manufacturers of Kidders’ Cordial, very well-known in those times. The tradition runs that one of the sisters said, “Let’s call the town Cliff, as it stand beneath a cliff.” But the other said: “Why might it not be named Dale, as it surely is in a sort of dale or valley, beneath the hills?” They united their opinions, finally, and agreed that Cliftondale would be the best.
The first schoolhouse still stands on the A.F. Kent estate. Here the children went to school and here they were after meetings for the townsfolk.
The first minister who preached in the Methodist chapel farther up Lincoln Avenue was Rev. James Poole of Lynn. But as I recall it, the first preacher who came here in the early days and held forth every Sunday and almost every week-day was Parson Blodgett, as he was called. He was a farmer and just as soon as his work was done for the day, he would almost run to Sweetser’s Corner to hold the service. At that time the Bond house was the Methodist headquarters.”
Mrs. Roache is often called the mother of the Methodist Church in Cliftondale and she is the friend of the people of all denominations. Her father was Thomas Newhall and her mother, Mary Parker, was the daughter of the brave Major Parker, who was the leader of the Saugus Company at the battle of Lexington. He lived at East Saugus and was a blacksmith by trade.
Mrs. Roache’s grandfather, Joseph Stocker Newhall, lived in the old house on the East Saugus road, which still stands and whose early history is but little known.
Across from the house stood four old elms and beneath these Washington and his suite rested, while on their way to Salem, Mrs. Roache’s grandmother bringing them refreshments of glasses of milk. Lafayette also stopped under these same old elms as he passed through the town.
                          (Article taken from the Lynn Item August 21, 1909)
 

Cliftondale School First Grade Class 1933-1934