Amoung the first inter-city roads built in
Massachusetts was the County Road instituted by the General Court of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony in October of 1641. It ran from the
ferry landing near what is now Admiral’s Hill to Salem, wigglling
like a snake over Broadway, Park and Hawthorne Streets, up Washington
Avenue to the Garfield Avenue car tracks. From Garfield Avenue, the
road proceeded up Fenno Street straight over the hill into Revere,
down the east side of Woodlawn Cemetary, and then following the
boundary line between Everett and Revere.
The County Road continued in a northeasterly
direction toward Lynn, making a loop eastward through Saugus, Lynn
and terminating in Salem.
In the days in which this road was in heavy
use, anyone wishing to go to Boston from the North Shore would use
this road, taking the ferry at Chelsea for Boston.
Another County Road and one which was more
popular, wound its way to Medford, where it divided with one section
going to Boston and the other going to Reading. The road started from
the present County Road in Chelsea, continued along Ferry Street,
Everett, to Belmont Street in Malden and from there to Medford. The
road followed a trail made by Lt. Francis Smith in travelling between
the ferry and his inn in Reading.
In May of 1647 He and Lt. Sprague were
appointed by the General Court to lay out the highway from
Winnisimmet to Reading.