Finally the legislature responded and passed an act creating a 1st Regiment by a process of consolidation. There were four companies left of the 3d Regiment, then forming the 3d Battalion. And four companies represented what had originally been the old 1st Infantry of ante-bellum days, now organized as the 4th Battalion. So the legislature transferred the Fusiliers and the Claflin Guards to the 5th, the Chelsea Rifles to the 8th, and consolidated the 1st Battalion, the 3d Battalion and the 4th Battalion, as the “1st Regiment,” Col. Nathaniel Wales commanding. The date of this important legislation was Dec. 3, 1878. By a stroke of genius the law-makers had created a twelve-company regiment, organized in three battalions each under command of a Major; and had devised a new plan of organization which was destined to work so well that, twenty years later, Congress would adopt it for use all over the United States. As the companies from the 3d Regiment were located in Plymouth and Bristol counties, they introduced a new geographical element into the 1st. Thereafter “The Cape” was to stand side by side with Boston, and right nobly were the Cape companies to uphold the regimental traditions. CHAPTER VII THE OLD “TIGER” FIRST It now becomes necessary to go back and trace out the origins of the organizations which were consolidated with the 1st Regiment in 1878. Let us first give attention to the companies which bore the title of 4th Battalion. We shall discover a battalion or regimental history stretching back to 1834, and company records commencing as early as 1787. Three “independent companies” of infantry were listed in the roster of 1788 as connected with the 1st Division, Suffolk. One of these disappeared from the records the following year, and another in 1792. The lone survivor yet survives--in fact is the 3d Company, M. C. A., otherwise known as the Independent Boston Fusiliers.