A history of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913

Preface

"Of the making of books there is no end," and, while histories are issued less frequently than books of fiction, travel or science, still the publication of a work of this nature requires little in the way of an introductory notice. Cambridge is rich in historical material— not only the history of the dim, distant past, but the histor>' of the present, for it must be borne in mind that the future of tomorrow quickly becomes the present of today, even more swiftly to fade into the past of yesterday. Indeed, we are constantly making history, and who knows with what interest the readers of the next century will peruse the record of this very day and hour? It has been so long since a history of Cambridge was published— neariy forty years, in fact— that it seems proper at this time to bring out a work which shall present to strangers and information-seekers a true record of the Cambridge of the past and of the present, while at the same time giving to the residents of the city and those who are familiar with its traditions and institutions a volume which will furnish accurate information and, at the same time, interesting reading. In this volume the emphasis has been placed upon the quaUty of the men and women who have made the renown of Cambridge rather than upon the chronology of its history or the record of the passing day. While neglecting no important movement or occasion, the present writer has tried primarily to describe the purposes and accomplishments of the people who composed the town and to depict the minds and characters of the Cambridge citizens whose lives, whether famous or obscure, have made the events possible and carried the hopes of each generation toward fulfilment.

J. Lee Robinson.

Table Of Contents

I

THI': FOUNDATIONS

Introductory — Arrival of Governor John Winthrop and his company in Massachusetts Bay — Settlement at Charlestovvn and the organization of the first church — Scarcity of water causes the settlers to disperse — Boston settled and named — The search for a position less open to attack results in the choice of Newtowne— Thomas Dudley and other early inhabitants — The Braintri'e company — The original town — The Rev. Thomas Shepard and his flock — The founding of Harvard College 9-15

II

The English Puritans — Thomas Dudley; his family; his military career and connection with the courts; his contemporaries — Political and religious unrest in England — Dudley and the Earl of Lincoln — Protestants, oppressed in England, meet with reverses on the Continent — The Puritans at a conference at Cambridge, England, decide to emigrate to America — The twelve signers — The Massachusetts Bay Company — The Puritan exodus — Thomas Hooker; his career in England — He arrives at Newtown and becomes pastor — Thomas Shepard and his troubles in England — Shepard minister of a new church at Newtowne — Qualities of Dudley, Hooker and Shejiard 16-23

III

The great aim of the settlers — The first meeting-house — The gathering of February 11, 16,36 — Winthrop, Dudley, Vane and other notable men present — Shepard chosen pastor — How the question of a new form of church government worked out in New England — Nearly all the first ministers originally ordained clergymen of the Church of England — The New England churches, at first independent, drawn into close alliance — The development of Congregationalism and its adoption to the new life of the Western Continent 24—29

IV

The colonists desire to advance education — The General Court votes four hundred pounds towards a college — Newtowne selected for the site and renamed Cambridge — A committee chosen and the erection of a building begun — Description of the edifice — John Harvard; his family and education — He comes to America — His early death — His bequest to Harvard — Gifts from others — The first Ijook in America is printed — President Dunster — The first Commencement and the first graduat <s — Board of Ov:r3e:?r3 established and the Charter granted .' 30-37

V

Massachusetts in 1641 — Independence of the colony and its efficient government — The Charter— The first session of the General Court held at Boston — The attempt to limit the franchise to church members — Widespread misunderstanding of the motives of the founders of Massachusetts — Roger Williams — Anne Hutchinson — Re-election of Winthrop and return of Vane to England— The Charter saved by Winthrop's management — The "Body of Liberties" — The New England Confederation 38-45

VI

The original Newtowne and its subsequent enlargement— The militarj' force — Picture of Cambridge in the latter half of the seventeenth centurv— Important houses and estates— The "Printery"— Manners and customs — Interest in education and influence of the ministers — President Dunster's heresy and that of Benanuel Bower~A dwelling-house for the minister built at public expense— Dr. Chauncy— Daniel Gookin— Relations with the Indians— John Eliot— Thomas Danforth — The Charter revoked— The royal Prov^ne€ of Massachiisetts 46-56

VII THE V^ILLAGE Increase in prosperity — Influence of the College — A new Harvard Hall built in 1682 — -The College described by two Dutch travelers — Increase Mather made president; his personality — New buildings begin to appear — Record of those who graduated during Mather's presidency — Jolm Leverelt president — Benjamin Wadsworth — Edward Holyokc — Harvard Hall burnt ami the present l)uilding erected on the old site — Story of the Cambridge Church — William Brattle's pastorate — Nathan Appleton — A new Parsonage built — George Whitefield and his controversy with the College — The fourth meeting-house built — A new element comes into Cambridge life with the advent of families of wealth — -Christ Church is built for tlie Episcopalians — Several distinguished lawyers — The village as it appeared just before the Revolution 57-75

VIII THE SIEGE Discontent with the British government — The Stamp Act and the Taxation Act — Committees of Correspondence formed — Coercive measures and the appointment of General Gage as military governor — His acts lead to riotous scenes in Cambridge — The Massachusetts Assembly meets at Salem, adjourns first to Concord, then to Cambridge, and votes that military preparations be made — The 19th of April, 1775 — The Cambridge Train band^Combat at Menolomy and North Cambridge — Cambridge men who lost their lives — The days following the battle of Lexington see Cambridge filled with American fighting men — Flight of the loyalists; their fate — The besieging force — The battle of Bunker Hill; Colonel Thomas Gardner's death — Washington, selected as general-in-chief by the Continental Congress, comes to Cambridge and takes command of the aniiy under the great elm — Famous Revolutionary officers and public men at Cambridge during the siege — Raw troops drilled and forts built — Slow progress of the siege — Treason of Church — The British evacuate Boston and American troops take possession 76-89

IX THE TOWN Cambridge after the siege — A list of patriot soldiers — General Burgoyne and the troops that surrendered with him detained at Cambridge — The Constitution of Massachusetts framed in the meeting-house — Washington revisits the town — Visit of Lafayette — Development of the eastern part of the town — The purchasers of the Tory estates— The West Boston Bridge opened for travel — Effect of the Embargo Act and the War of 1812 on Cambridge — Dowell's description of the town in 1824 — Andrew Craigie and East Cambridge — Harvard Square and its environs in the early part of the nineteenth century — The old meeting-house and new churches — Wadsworth House — The College Yard — The dormitories— Student life — The old Court House — Noteworthy houses — "Tory Row" — Birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes — "Professors' Row" — Margaret Fuller — Washington AUston— Nathaniel F. Wycth — President Kirkland — Josiah Quincy— Famous College professors—Judge Joseph Story— Theologians— Edward Everett, John Quincy Adams and John S. Popkin — Three presidents; Sparks, Walker and Fclton — Francis Sales — Charles Pollen — Louis Agassiz; his scientific enthusiasm— The himible beginnings of the Museum of Comparative Zoology— Debt of Cambridge to Agassiz — What Darwin said of him — Mount Auburn 90-1 16

X

Cambridge receives a City Charter— Needs of the young city — The new city government — Causes of the growth of Cambridge — Boston merchants and professional men residents — Influence of the University — Reasons for the number of factories — Characteristic industries — The water- works — Cambridge public schools; Private schools; Professional schools — Cambridge a great center for the education of ministers— Radclifife College — Parks and playgrounds — Churches and charitable institutions — Banking and public service corporations— Frederick H. Rindge and his gifts to the city; Public Library, Manual Training School, High and Latin Schools, City Hall — The population doubled in thirty years — Cambridge patriotism — Loyalty of Cambridge people to their city — James Russell Lowell — Richard Henry Dana — Charles Eliot Norton — Noted men of letters — Longfellow; his life in Cambridge — William Dean Howell's account of his Cambridge neighbors— John Fiske — Henry James and his sons— Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer, and William E. Rolfe, the Shakespearean scholar — Other leaders in science and literature — Emerson 1 17-138

XI

THE OUTLOOK Prestige of Cambridge — Cambridge compared with other American cities — Problems of public service — Administration — Cambridge fortunate in the plan and names of the streets — Necessity for care in the development of the newer parts of the city — The main highways and the amount of traffic carried— Schools and libraries — Police and fire departments — Health statistics — Water supply — Hospitals — Topography of the city — The Charles River — Parkway development — The approaches to the city from Boston — Question of new bridges — City planning — Playgrounds — Growing density of population and the problems resulting therefrom — Civic spirit of Cambridge 140-153

The Widener Library 273-276

Industrial 288-305

A HISTORY

OF

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

THE FOUNDATIONS

CAMBRIDGE is an interesting place in which to live, because it is hallowed by so many heroic memories. There is a good background of inspiring tradition. The very dust is eloquent of the long procession of saints and sages, soldiers, scholars and poets, whose works and words have made the renown of the place. The names of the Cambridge streets and schools recall its historic associations and its former inhabitants. Winthrop, Dudley, Endicott and Eliot Streets commemorate the foimders of the Massachusetts Colony. The names of Washington and Green, Prescott and Putnam, recall the times when those patriot soldiers commanded the revolutionary army here at the siege of Boston. Hancock, EUery and Gerry Streets are named for signers of the Declaration of Independence who lived in Cambridge or had close associations with the town. The streets named for the Cambridge families of the period before the Revolutionary War, such as Vassall, Oliver, Inman, Dana, Danforth, Lee, Trowbridge, Remington and Brattle, recall the Tory gentry who made the town the center of an abundant hospitality, and who maintained a genial social life, whose memories still linger in the beautiful homes they left behind them. There are streets named for the college presidents, Dimster, Chatmcy, Wadsworth, Holyoke, Willard, Langdon, Kirkland, Quincy, Sparks, Everett, Felton and Walker; and for distinguished college professors like Ware, Channing, Story, Bond, Farrar, Francis, Frisbie, Follen, Gurney and Peabody. Shepard Street is named for the first pastor of the First Church.

Appleton Street recalls the name of Nathaniel Appleton, who was minister of the same church for more than fifty years. Allston Street takes its name from the famous Cambridge-bom painter, Washington Allston, and Lowell Street and Holmes Place from the two Cambridge-born poets. Riedesel Avenue reminds us of the time when the German troops captured at Saratoga were quartered in Cambridge. The streets named Craigie, Fayerwcather, Coolidge, Gushing, Wyeth, Brewster, Hastings and Sidney, tell us of the local worthies who developed the town. The names of Decatur, Perry, Lawrence, Erie and Niagara recall the times of the War of 1S12, and the names of Grant, Andrew, Banks, Ericsson, Sherman and Sheridan arouse the stirring memories of the period of the Civil War. The names of Garfield and Cleveland, of Washburn and Greenhalge, of Russell, Houghton, Allen and Bancroft remind us of more recent leaders in the nation, the Commonwealth and the citv. Waterhouse Street and Wyman Square are named for distinguished Cambridge physicians, Agassiz and Gray for the great scientists who made Camljridge famous by their presence and their work, and Longfellow Park for the beloved poet who made Cambridge his home. Then there are the streets that remind us of the landmarks of the iilace: Harvard Street, leading to the College Yard; Divinity Avenue, to the Divinity School: Garden Street, leading to the Botanic Garden, which is appropriately bordered on the south by a street named for the great botanist, Linnaeus. Arsenal Square marks where the State Arsenal used to stand; Magazine Street leads to where the powder was once kept on Captain's Island; Reservoir Street recalls the former site of the City Reservoir; Bridge Street marks the line of the old bridge to Charlcstown. It is not likely that of KiiJO was a great event in human history. It was no uncertain adventure. It was the pitrpose of those who had engaged in the enterprise to make their final home in the wilderness and to devote their lives to the establishment on the shores of Mass-

V- in any^but an academic community we should find streets called after the colleges, Oxford, Cambridge, Amherst, Bowdoin, Vassar and Wellesley, or bearing such classic designations as Athens Cotirt and iVppian Way.

The arrival in Massachusetts Bay of Governor John Winthrop and his company in Jime achusctts Bay of a permanent Christian Commonwealth.

The first settlement of the newcomers was on the point at the junction of the river Charles and the river Mystic, where Charlcstown now stands. Here, in the course of the summer, houses were built and here the First Church was gathered. We can picture the scene at

THE FOUNDATIONS the gathering for public worship. The minister stood on the hillside, beneath the trees heavy with summer foliage, and before him on stiimps and logs and rudely improvised seats sat the leaders of the colony and their families, — the Governor, John Winlhrop; the Deputy- Governor, Thomas Dudley; the Assistants, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Isaac Johnson, Roger Ludlow, Increase Nowell, William Pynchon and Simon Bradstreet; and liehind them, sitting or standing in groups, the heroic people who had joined their fortunes to the enterprise. The preacher's vision took in the sunny stretches of the harbor, dotted with the islands which still bore the primeval forests. To the right, across the river, rose the three hills of Tri Mountain where Boston now stands. To the left, across the Mystic, were spread the broad salt marshes, and behind rose the hill where nearly a century and one-half later the descendants of these people were to defy the powers of the motherland.

It was here at Charlestown that the characteristic organization of these Puritan emigrants, their religious societ}', now the First Church of Boston, was organized on the 27th of August, liV.iO, and the following covenant, which simply set forth their motive and jnirpose, was adopted:

" In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in Obedience to His Holy will and Divine Ordinance, —

"We whose names are hereunder written, being by His most wise and good Providence brought together into this part of America in the Bay of Massachusetts, and desiroiis to unite ourselves into one congregation or Church, imder the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, in such sort as becometh all those whom lie hath Redeemed and Sanctified to Himself, do hereby solemnly and religiotisly (as in His most holy Presence) Promise and bind ourselves to walk in all our ways according to the Rule of the Gospel, and in all sincere Conformity to His holy Ordinances, and in mutual love and respect each to other, so near as God shall give us grace." Under this Covenant we read in Winthrop's Journal, "We of the congregation kept a fast and chose Mr. Wilson oiir teacher and Mr. No well an elder."

The water stipply at Charlestown proved inadequate or imhcalthy, and the people, during the summer, scattered more or less in search of more desirable locations. Then it was that William Blackstone, who had for some years been living a hermit life on the western slope of what is now Beacon Mill, invited Governor W'inthrop to settle on his side of the river and showed him an excellent spring of water, whereupon Winthrop and other leaders moved thither, planted the future capital of the Commonwealth, and there ])assed the first winter.

Thomas Dudley later described the dispersal of the colonists as follows:

"But there (at Charlestown), receiving advertisements by some of the late-arrived ships, from Lincoln and Amsterdam, of some French preparations against us (many of our people brought with us being sick of fevers and the scurvy, and we thereby unable to carry up our ordnance and baggage so far), we were forced to change counsel, and for our present shelter to plant dispersedly, some at Charlestown, which standeth on the north side of the mouth of Charles River; some on the south side thereof, which place we named Boston (as we intended to have done the place we first resolved on) ; some of us upon Mystick, which we named Medford; some of us westwards on Charles River, four miles from Charlestown, which place we nained W^atertown; others upon the river of Saugus, between Salem and Charlestown; and the western men four miles south from I^oston, at a place we named Dorchester. This dispersion troubled some of us; but help it we could not, wanting ability to remove to any place fit to build a town upon, and the time too short to deliberate any longer, lest the winter should surprise us before we had builded our houses."

W^hile Boston was clearly marked for prominence in the colony because of its geographical position, there was not at first the intention to make it the seat of government. It was too open to attack from the sea. A position farther inland could be more easily defended, not indeed from the Indians, but from the enemy more to be dreaded— the warships of an irate and hostile motherland. Accordingly, Governor Winthrop and his Assistants, on one of the autumn days after they had established themselves at Boston, rowed three or four miles up the Charles River behind Boston until they came to a meadow gently sloping to the riverside, backed by roimded hills and protected by wide-spreading salt marshes. This, wrote Winthrop, seemed to all "a fit place for a fortified town, and we took time to consider further about it." To quote the old chronicle written by Edward Johnson in l(i54 and called "The Wonderworking Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England," "They rather made choice to enter further among the Indians than to hazard the fury of malignant adversaries who might pursue them, and therefore chose a place situated upon Charles River, between Charlestown and Watertown, where they erected a towne called Newtowne, and where they gathered the 8th Church of Christ."

Thomas Dudley, describing these events in his famous letter to the Cotmtess of Lincoln, says, "We began again to consult about a fit place to build a town upon, leaving all thoughts of a fort, because upon any invasion we were necessarily to lose our houses when we should retire thereinto. So after diverse meetings at Boston, Roxbury and WatertOwn, on the twenty-eighth of December (1630), we grew to this resolution, to bind all assistants (Mr. Endicott and Mr. Sharpe excepted, which last purposeth to return by the next ship to England) to build houses at a place a mile east from Watertown, near Charles River, the next spring, and to winter there the next year; that so by our examples, and by removing the ordnance and munition thither, all who were able might be drawn thither, and such as shall come to us hereafter, to their advantage, be compelled so to do; and so, if God would, a fortified town might there grow up."

According to this agreement, the Governor, John Winthrop, the Deputy-Governor, Thomas Dudley, and all the councillors, except John Endicott, who had already settled at Salem, were to btuld and occupy hotises at Newtowne in the spring of Ki^l, but this agreement was never carried out. Winthrop, Dudley and Bradstreet built their houses, and the General Ccvrt of the colony met alternately at Newtowne and at Boston tmtil KioS, when it finally settled in Boston. Winthrop removed his house to Boston, thereby stirring up a controversy with Dudley which was never completely healed, and the other leaders of the colony settled elsewhere.

The inhabitants of the Newtowne during the first year of its existence probably did not number more than ten families, yet there were enough men to be noted in an order of the Court on July 2(), 1631, reqturing military training. In the "Towne Book" there are recorded the names of eight heads of families living in what is now Old Cambridge, in the summer of 1G31. They are "Mr. Thomas Dudley, Esq., Mr. Symon Bradstreet, Mr. Edmond Lockwood, Mr. Daniell Patrick, John Poole, William Spencer, John Kirman, Symon Sackett."

Of these eight persons who laid the foundation of the Newtowne, Thomas Dudley was the leader. He was the first Deputy-Governor of the Colony, became Governor in 1631, and was either Governor, Deputy-Governor, or Assistant, during the remainder of his life. In 1630 he removed from Cambridge to Ipswich. Later he removed again to Roxbury, where he died July 31, 1653. Simon Bradstreet was an Assistant from 1630 to 1678; Deputy-Governor in 1678; Governor from 1679 to 1686, and from 1689 to 1692. He removed to Ipswich with Dudley, whose daughter was his wife; was afterwards in Andover for a short time; then in Boston until September 18, 1()95, when he removed to Salem, and died there, March 27, 1697. Edmond Lockwood was evidently a man of substance for he was appointed by the General Court Constable of the Newtowne at its organization, and at the same session was selected as one of the two deputies of the town to the General Court. He died before March, 1635. Daniel Patrick had been a soldier in the guard of the Prince of Orange and was one of the two captains originally appointed to command the militia of the Colony. He served three months in the Pequot War and performed other military duties. In l(i37 he planned to follow Dudley and Bradstreet to Ipswich, but seems rather to have gone to Watertown, where he was a Selectman in 1638. He afterwards removed to Connecticut, and was killed in a quarrel with Dutch traders at Stamford in 1643. The

THE FOUxXDATIONS name of "Captain's Island" at the foot of Magazine Street preserves his memory. John I'oole probably remained in the Newtowne only a few months, as he is not named in the list of proprietors in l();5o. lie appears afterwards as a citizen of Lynn and he died at Reading, April 1, l(i()7. William Spencer was one of the "principal gentlemen." He was associated with Mr. Lockwood in l()o'2, as the first deputy of the town and continued to serve until ll);57. He was one of the first Board of Selectmen in l()3o; the lieutenant of the trainband in 1037, a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company at its organization in llJoi), and he died in 1040. John Kirman removed to Lynn in 1().S2, and was a deputy from that place in Kioo. Simon Sackett died before November 3d, Ki.'Jo, when administration was granted to his widow, Isabell Sackett.

In the spring of 16o2 the settlement received a great addition to its population. The Puritan congregation of Braintree, in Essex, England, had emigrated in a body, and were soon followed by their famoxxs minister, Thomas Hooker, afterwards the founder of Connecticut and the man who first visioned and did much to make possible oiir American democracy. The Braintree company first located at Motmt Wollaston biit soon removed to the Newtowne, raising the population to some four himdred souls. House lots were laid out compacth', and farming and grazing lands assigned to each household. Riiles were adopted for the well-being of the community. Town meetings were provided for on the first Monday of each month and at the first of these meetings it was ordered, "that no person \vhatever (shall set) up any house in the bounds of this town (without) leave from the major part.

" Further, it is agreed, b\- a joint consent (that the) town shall not be enlarged until all (the vacant) places be filled with houses.

" Further, it is agreed, that all the houses (within) the bounds of the town shall be covered (\vith) slate or board, and not with thatch.

"Further, it is ordered, that all (the houses shall) range even, and stand just six (feet on each man's) own groimd from the street."

These regulations appear to have been successful, for in 1G33 a traveller, the author of "New England's Prospect," described the village as "one of the neatest and best compacted towns in New England, having many structures, with many handsome contrived streets. The inhabitants, most of them, are rich and well stored with cattle of all sorts." This is doubtless an extravagant picture and true only in comparison with some of the neighboring plantations which were not so favorably situated. So primitive was the place that Thomas Dudley, the chief man of the town, writing home, could say, " I have no table or any place to write in than by the fireside on my knee."

The original "town was all contained within the small section between Harvard Square and the river, from Holyoke Street on the east to Brattle Square on the west. By Kil?.'), the streets, now called Mount Auburn, Winthrop, South, Holjoke, Dunster and Boylston, had come into existence within these limits, and there were some eighty-five dwelling-hoiises. The meeting-house, built of rough-hewn boards with the crevices sealed with mud, stood at the crossing of the road with the path that led down to the river, where there was a ladder for the convenience of a landing. The northem frontier street, upon the line of Massachusetts Avenue and Harvard Square, was called Braintree Street. The road upon the site of what is now Brattle Square was known as Creek Lane, and it was continued in a southeasterly sweep into Boylston Street by Marsh Lane, afterwards called Eliot Street. On the north side of Braintree Street, opposite Dunster, and thence eastward about as far as Linden Street, stood a row of houses, and at their back, where the College Yard now is, was the forest. Through this forest ran the trail or path from Charlestown to Watertown, which coincided pretty closely with the line of Kirkland, Mason, Brattle, Elmwood and Mount Auburn Streets. This was the first path from the seaboard into the inland country. It followed the windings of river and marsh. A pali.saded wall, with a ditch, for defense against Indians and wolves, started at "Windmill Hill," or the present site of Ash Street, and ran along the western and northern sides of the present Common. The common grazing-land covered the site of the Common, and extended beyond the palisade as far as Linnaean Street.

Eastward from Holyoke(then called Crooked) Street ran Back Lane, while Braintree Street, deflecting southeastward, took the name of Field Lane. These two lanes, meeting near the present junction of Bow and Arrow Streets, formed the "highway into the Neck." "The Neck," was a name for the territory now covered by Cambridgeport and East Cambridge. It was largely a salt marsh but the arable land was parceled otit among the inhabitants in severalty. The western part was cut up into small portions of from one to three acres, but to the eastward of the site of Hancock Street it was granted in large tracts 6f from twenty to sixty acres. This region of the Neck was marked off and protected by a fence which ran — to use modem names — from Holyoke Place to Gore Hall, and thence to the line between Cambridge and Somerville at Line Street near Cambridge Street. "Thus we find," said John Fiske, "in the beginnings of Cambridge clear traces of the ancient English method of forming a town, with its threefold partition into town mark, arable mark, and common."

A little later a second arable portion was inclosed between Garden Street and Vassall Lane, westward from Wyeth Street to Fresh Pond meadows; this was known as the "West Field." Another farming region, a little to the north of the Palfrey estate on Oxford Street, was known as "Pine Swamp Field." Extensive marshes stretched along the bank of the river from the vicinity of Mount Auburn to East Cambridge. Along the west side of Brattle Square ran a small creek, which curved southwestward through the marshes. This creek, deepened and widened into a canal, furnished access to the Town from the river, and at its mouth a ferry was established in 1635, connecting with a road on the sotith bank through Brookline and Roxbury to Boston Neck. The only other communication with Boston was by river or over the trail to Charlestown and thence by ferry to Copp's Hill. No bridge was built until as late as 1662 when the "Great Bridge" — now the Boylston Street Bridge — was completed.