USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913 > Part 11
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The first rector of Christ Church was the Rev. East Apthorp, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, an earnest and scholarly man, who came to Cambridge in 1761, with an evident purpose of making it his permanent home, for he built himself the large mansion which is still standing between Linden and Plympton Streets. The good rector was suspected of aspiring to be the Bishop of New England, and his mansion was called in derision the Bishop's Palace. In 1764, he gave up his post and returned to England, where he had a prosperous career. He was succeeded by the Rev. Winwood Ser- jeant.
Among the Cambridge families of the Christ Church congregation were the Lechmeres, the Lees, the Olivers, the Ruggleses, the Phipses, the Sewalls, the Borlands, the Inmans and the Vassalls. Mr. Robert Temple and his accom- plished wife and lovely daughters drove over every Sunday from Ten Hills Farm in Medford.
From Medford also came Colonel Isaac Royall, whose daughter had married Henry Vassall. Many of these families, as has been seen, were connected by relationship and marriage. Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Lechmere and Mrs. John Vassall the elder, were sisters of Colonel David Phips, and daughters of Lieutenant-Governor Spencer Phips. The "pretty, little, dapper man, Colonel Oliver," as Reverend Mr. Serjeant used to call in sport the sometime lieutenant- governor, married a sister of Colonel John Vassall the younger, and Colonel Vassall married the sister of Colonel Oliver. Mrs. Ruggles and Mrs. Borland were the sisters of Henry and John Vassall. These families were on very intimate terms with one another and scarcely a day passed that did not bring them together for social pleasures. All of them were loyalists and the sad fate that overtook them in the Revolutionary upheaval must be de- scribed later.
Another new element came into Cambridge with the advent of several distinguished lawyers. The first generation had got along without lawyers, and the local courts held by the magistrates had sufficed for the ends of justice. In the more complicated life of the seventeenth century the provincial and county courts became more important, and a genera- tion of distinguished lawyers laid the founda- tions of the pre-eminence of the Massachusetts bar. Three of these men were the sons of old Cambridge families.
In the latter part of the seventeenth century Jonathan Remington kept the Blue Anchor Tavern, and served as selectman of Cambridge, and as town clerk. He was a man of property and much engaged in public affairs, and his son, Jonathan Remington, Jr., became the first legal authority of his time. He graduated at Harvard in 1696 and then served as a tutor. He began the practice of law in Cambridge in 1710, was a selectman for several years, for twelve years a representative in the General Court, for eleven years a counsellor, and then until his death a judge of the Supreme Court. His daughter, Martha Remington, in 1737 married Edmund Trowbridge, a Cambridge boy and the grandson of Colonel Edward Goffe. Judge Trowbridge in turn became attorney-
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general of the Province and a justice of the Supreme Court. His sister, Lydia Trowbridge, married in 1737 Richard Dana, who was also a counsellor and barrister at law, and the father of Francis Dana, the most distinguished citizen of Cambridge in the period just after the Revolution. The Danas established them- selves on what is now known as Dana Hill and built a homestead on the northwest corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Dana Street. Francis Dana was a delegate to the Continental Congress, a presidential elector in 1789, Am- bassador to Russia, and finally Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.
A brief description of the village as it ap- peared just before the Revolution will serve to show how its boundaries had been enlarged. The center was at Harvard Square, which was really the southern end of the Common which stretched, a dusty, treeless waste, to the north, and was crossed by the Menotomy Road (now Massachusetts Avenue) and by other cart tracks, which ultimately became Garden, Mason and Waterhouse Streets and Concord Avenue. On the east side of the Square stood the meeting-house, on the south side were the Boardman house and various smaller houses, on the west was the little court house which had been built out of the timbers taken out of the old meeting-house destroyed in 1756, and northward, where the Common began to widen, were the graveyard and Christ Church. South of the Square the original village retained its rectangular plan and was the most thickly settled part of the town. The highway to Boston (now Boylston Street) ran down to the causeway and the Great Bridge, and Ebenezer Bradish's Tavern stood by the old market-place ready to entertain the wayfarer. Across the market-place (now Winthrop Square) was the jail, which was cared for by Ebenezer Bradish's brother, Isaac Bradish, who was also the blacksmith with a smithy next the jail on Winthrop Street. Just to the east of the Boston Road, on what is now Mt. Auburn Street, was the tavern of Captain Ebenezer Stedman, and to the west, across what is now Brattle Square, were the house and the extensive grounds of General Brattle.
Going eastward from the meeting-house along what is now Massachusetts Avenue, one came first, on the left, to the President's house, which is still standing and known as Wadsworth House. Next to it stood Professor Wigglesworth's house, which was the old original Hooker-Shepard house made over at the time of President Leverett's inauguration in 1707. The Wigglesworths were successively the Hollis Professors of Divinity, and the proof of their scholarship could be seen in a hole worn through the floor by their feet under the desk of the room used, by father and son, as a study. Next to this interesting house stood the old parsonage, the residence successively of Dr. Urian Oakes, of Rev. Nathaniel Gookin, Rev. William Brattle and Dr. Nathaniel Apple- ton. This venerable house underwent occa- sional repairs which materially altered its appearance and freshened its life. It was finally removed in 1843 and the Wigglesworth house was taken down a year later. On the right-hand side of the road opposite the parson- age stood the "Bishop's Palace," which faced south. After Mr. Apthorp's departure it had been bought by Mr. John Borland, who had married a sister of Henry Vassall. The Bor- lands had added a third story to the mansion, it is said, for the accommodation of their slaves, but as they had twelve children it is more probable that they needed the extra rooms for their large family. Beyond was the estate of Colonel David Phips, where he and his wife and seven children entertained with princely hospitality.
Continuing eastward, over what was then known as Butler's Hill, one passed Mr. Dana's house, set in the midst of orchards and culti- vated grounds, and then came to Mr. Ralph Inman's estate, which was the last house in the direction of Boston and stood just back of where the City Hall now is. Mr. Inman was another of the Tory aristocrats of the town, and a member of Christ Church. Mrs. Inman was a remarkable woman. She was a staunch Scotch woman, and had the energy of character common to that people. She had crossed the ocean many times in company with her brother, Mr. James Murray, and she had been three times married. When she was Elizabeth Murray she carried on a business in a shop at
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ELMWOOD-LOWELL'S HOUSE
CRAIGIE-LONGFELLOW'S HOUSE
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the corner of Queen Street and Cornhill in into being. Beyond the Brattle estate, on Boston, and made for herself a comfortable fortune. Her first husband, Mr. Smith, also left her his whole estate, so that she had all the luxuries of wealth. Her education and social advantages united to make her a most de- lightful companion, and one whose presence was eagerly sought. In spite of her Tory con- nections she remained in Cambridge during the Revolutionary troubles, and owing to her acquaintance with General Putnam, Major Mifflin and other American officers, was secured from molestation. On the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, General Putnam deputed his son to remain in Cambridge to guard Mrs. Inman -a proof of the high regard he entertained for her.
Turning to the north from the meeting - house one passed on the right the col- lege buildings, Massachu- setts, Stough- ton and Har- vard, Holden Chapel and Hollis Hall, and then, across the Charlestown road, which is now Kirkland Street, came to a gambrel-roofed house which shielded itself be- hind a row of Lombardy poplars. This was the house of Jonathan Hastings, the college steward, and was famous later as the headquarters of the Committee of Safety, and of General Ward, and still later, as the birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Northeast of the Hastings house lived Mr. Moses Richardson, one of the Cambridge men who were killed in the Lexington battle, and northeastward stretched the acres of the Fox- croft estate. Along the Menotomy road were several houses, from that of Captain Walton of the militia company, to the Frost house on what is now Linnaean Street, which practically marked the northern end of the village.
At the western end of the town there were several houses along Garden Street, and the handsome houses of "Tory Row" had all come
RICHARDSON HOUSE
either side of the road to Watertown, now Brattle Street, were the estates of Mrs. Henry Vassal on the left and John Vassal on the right. Next, was the residence which Richard Lech- mere had just sold to Judge Jonathan Sewall, the Attorney-General of the Province. The Phips farm, which is now East Cambridge, had passed into the hands of Mr. Lechmere on his marriage with Miss Phips, and later became known as Lechmere's Point. The boundaries of the Lechmere-Sewall estate ex- tended to Judge Joseph Lee's, a house still standing almost unchanged. Judge Lee had bought it in 1758 of the widow of Cornelius Waldo. The frame of the house was brought from Eng- land, not be- cause Mas- sachusetts had no trees, but because it was feared that capable workmen could not be found to put together a house that would suit the fastidious taste of its owner. Next above was the Fayerweather house, which was built in 1745 by Captain George Ruggles, another wealthy West Indian planter, who had married another of the sisters of Henry Vassall. Later he became embarrassed, and in 1774 the prop- erty came to Thomas Fayerweather, whose wife was the daughter of the College treasurer, Thomas Hubbard. The last house was the mansion of Thomas Oliver, who built it about 1760, and which is famous as Elmwood, the residence later of Elbridge Gerry, vice-president of the United States; of Rev. Charles Lowell of the West Church in Boston; and the birthplace and home of James Russell Lowell. All of these seven houses of the "Tory Row," with the ex- ception of the Lechmere-Sewall house, are still standing along Brattle Street, and make it not only one of the most beautiful, but also one of the most historic streets in America.
VIII THE SIEGE
T HE time had now come when Massa- chusetts was to cease to be either colony or province and to become a sovereign commonwealth. It was not a sudden change. The traditions and training of the New England people had long been preparing them for self- governing independency. They were of the same stock as the Englishmen who defied the royal power at Naseby and Marston Moor, who sent Charles Stuart to the block and drove his son James across the narrow seas. They were the sons of men and women who had bought at a great price the right to be free, and they were ready to complete the purchase. In their churches these descendants of the Puritans had been taught the authority of conscience, the sovereignty of duty, the de- mands of justice and right. They had been trained to choose their own rulers in church and state, and the spirit of liberty had become a force which could not be resisted.
Long before the outbreak of the Revolution there was great and widespread discontent in America over the ways in which American affairs were managed by the British govern- ment and its representatives. From his suc- cession, in 1760, King George the Third, with all the intensity of a narrow mind, had striven to impose his personal will upon his ministers. The emphasis upon the prerogative of a dull and arbitrary king was reflected in all the departments of the government, but it par- ticularly influenced the colonial policies. When America began to resist, the king's tempera- mental obstinacy was aroused and the struggle with the colonies thus became a part of the struggle between popular and autocratic prin- ciples of government in England itself. Three lines of policy were adopted by the Grenville ministry which grew to be the direct causes of the American Revolution. The first was the rigid execution of that system of mediæval monopolies known as the Acts of Trade; the second was the taxation of the colonies for
the partial support of British garrisons; the third was the permanent establishment of British troops in America.
There is scarcely a proceeding in the pre- liminary struggles of the Revolution which is not illustrated by the votes of the Cambridge town meeting. It is true that the life of the town was not especially disturbed by the acts of the British Parliament however arbitrary, and that the local interests of Cambridge were not seriously impaired by the enforcement of the navigation acts; but the attitude of the citizens of the town in opposition to the royal measures for raising revenue by taxing the colonies was bold and unyielding. In town meeting in October, 1765, they declared the Stamp Act to be an infraction of their rights, demanded its immediate repeal and instructed their representatives to do nothing which should aid its operation.
The riotous outbreak in Boston, which resulted in the destruction of Lieutenant- Governor Hutchinson's house, did not, how- ever, meet with any approval. The Cam- bridge people voted that they "abhorred and detested" such proceedings, and would use their utmost endeavors to protect the property of residents of Cambridge from such outrages. While they were thus outspoken in condemna- tion of the violence of the mob, it appears that they were not ready to have the loss charged to the province, and thriftily recommended that their representatives should vote against any such proceeding. From this opinion, after the repeal of the Stamp Act, they receded, and, at a town meeting a year later, instructed their representatives to favor compensation to those who had suffered at the hand of the mob.
The change in the British government by which the Rockingham ministry had succeeded the Grenville ministry and the consequent repeal of the Stamp Act removed the immediate difficulty, but the principle of taxing the colonies was by no means abandoned. When
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Charles Townshend became the leading spirit of the ministry he declared in the House of Commons-" I know a mode in which a revenue may be drawn from America without offence . England is undone if this taxation of America is given up." Accordingly in June, 1767, a new Taxation Act was introduced, and rapidly passed through Parliament. In order to avoid the objections to "internal taxes," it laid import duties on various articles and especially on tea. The proceeds of the act were to be used to pay the salaries of the royal governors and judges in America. A few months afterwards,-December, 1767,-a colo- nial department was created, headed by a secretary of state. The machinery of what might prove to be an exasperating control was thus provided for, and the principle of taxation, once admitted, might, of course, be carried farther. The actual amount of money involved was not a heavy burden on the colonies, but it was to be used in such a way as to make the governors and judges independent of the local assemblies.
Public feeling in America ran high. At the Cambridge town meeting of November 26, 1767, the opposition of the town to the collec- tion of the duty on tea was set forth as forcibly as possible. The claim of Parliament to tax the colonists was firmly denied. The sending of the tea, subject to the payment of duties, was a violent attack on the liberties of America. Every person who should aid, directly or in- directly, in unloading, receiving, or vending any tea subject to these duties, was declared to be an enemy of America. The factors appointed to receive the tea in Boston, who had been requested to resign this appointment, but who had refused to do so, had by this conduct forfeited all right to the respect of their fellow-countrymen. Finally, it was re- solved "That the people of this town can no longer stand idle spectators, but are ready, on the shortest notice, to join with the town of Boston, and other towns, in any measures that may be thought proper, to deliver our- selves and posterity from slavery."
The protest of the other towns and of the various colonial and provincial assemblies was equally positive, but the ministry proceeded to new repressive measures. It was proposed
that American agitators be sent to England for trial and troops were sent to Boston. The regiments arrived in September, 1768, and for nearly eight years Boston was a garrisoned town. There was constant friction between the troops and the people, which broke into riot on March 5, 1770, in the affray known as the Boston Massacre.
In November, 1772, Committees of Corre- spondence were formed throughout Massa- chusetts, and later in the other colonies. The circular letter issued by the Boston Committee was duly read at a town meeting held in Cambridge, December 14th, and a committee was appointed on the part of Cambridge, which was instructed to acquaint the Boston committee that Cambridge would "heartily concur in all salutary, proper and constitutional measures for the redress of the intolerable grievances which threatened, and which, if continued, would overthrow the happy civil constitution of the province." The com- mittee was also instructed to take under con- sideration the infringements upon the rights of the people which were complained of, and to report at an adjournment of the meeting. After a recess of a few minutes this committee submitted a report, in which a long and care- fully prepared review of the situation prefaced instructions to the Cambridge representative, Captain Thomas Gardner, to use his greatest influence at the next session of the General Court for a speedy redress of all grievances. A year later, December 16, 1773, came the Boston Tea Party-the violent expression of the sentiments of the people against the tax. It made further conciliation practically im- possible.
It was not in the temper of Englishmen and still less of their King, to withdraw or to change front in the face of such daring resist- ance. Five new bills were introduced and hastily pushed through Parliament. The first enacted that no further commerce was to be permitted with the port of Boston till that town should make its submission. The second act abolished certain provisions of the charter granted by William III in 1692. Under the old charter, the members of the Governor's Council were chosen in a convention consisting of the Council of the preceding year and the
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Assembly. Each councillor held office for a year, and was paid out of an appropriation made by the Assembly. Under the new act the members of the Council were to be appointed by the governor on a royal writ of mandamus, and their salaries were to be paid by the Crown. The governor and his dependent Council could appoint sheriffs and all the judges and court officers, and they too were to be paid from the royal treasury and removed at the king's pleas- ure. Worse than all, the town-meeting system of local self-government was practically de- stroyed. Town meetings could indeed be held twice a year for the election of town officers, but no other business could be transacted in them. "The effect of all these changes would, of course, be to concentrate all power in the hands of the governor, leaving no check what- ever upon his arbitrary will. It would, in short, transform Massachusetts into an absolute despotism, such as no Englishman had ever lived under in any age." The third act di- rected that "persons questioned for any Acts in Execution of the Law" should be sent to England for trial. The fourth act provided for the quartering of soldiers upon the inhabi- tants, and was intended to establish a military government in Massachusetts. The fifth act provided for the government of the region ceded by France in 1763, and among other things it annexed to Canada the whole terri- tory between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes. The purpose was un- doubtedly to remove the danger of disaffection or insurrection in Canada, but at the same time the act extinguished all the title of Con- necticut, Massachusetts and Virginia to the region west of Pennsylvania.
The news of these coercive measures was received in Massachusetts on May 10th. Soon after the new military governor, General Gage, appeared, and in a few weeks the Boston Port Bill and the modifications of the charter began to be ruthlessly enforced. The committees of the Massachusetts towns promptly met, and adopted a circular letter, prepared by Samuel Adams, to be sent to all the other colonies, asking for their sympathy and co-operation. The response was prompt and emphatic. In the course of the summer, conventions were held in nearly all the colonies, declaring that
Boston should be regarded as "suffering in the common cause." The obnoxious acts of Parliament were printed on paper with deep black borders, and in some towns were publicly burned by the common hangman. Droves of cattle and flocks of sheep, cartloads of wheat and maize, vegetables and fruit, barrels of sugar, quintals of dried fish, provisions of every sort, were sent overland as free gifts to the Boston people, even the distant rice-swamps of South Carolina contributing their share. The 1st of June was kept in Virginia as a day of fasting and prayer. In Philadelphia bells were muffled and tolled in the principal churches; and ships put their flags at half- mast. Marblehead, which was appointed to supersede Boston as the port of entry, imme- diately invited the merchants of Boston to use its wharves and warehouses free of charge in shipping and unshipping their goods.
The time was at hand when men would be wanted more than money or provisions or votes of sympathy. This had become plain to at least one American. People were telling of the excellence of the oratory in the Virginia Convention, and enthusiastic Virginians had assured John Adams that Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry would respectively bear comparison with Cicero and with Demosthenes. But a delegate from South Carolina, who on his way to the meeting of the Continental Congress had stopped to see what they were doing in the Old Dominion, gave it as his opinion that the most eloquent speech had been made by a certain Colonel Washington. "I will raise," that officer had said, "one thousand men towards the relief of Boston, and subsist them at my own expense."
Another violent outbreak could not be long postponed, and this time Cambridge was the scene of action. The powder belonging to the Province had been stored in the magazine which is still standing in the Powder House Park in Somerville. This stock General Gage deter- mined to secure. On the morning of the first of September, in the early daylight, detach- ments of troops in boats rowed up the Mystic, landed at the Temple's Farm, seized the powder, and also secured two cannon belonging to Gen- eral Brattle's regiment, and carried them off down the harbor to the Castle. Rumors of
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violence and bloodshed spread rapidly through the country, and before nightfall the New England militia were marching toward Boston.
The companies converged upon Cambridge, whence the Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Oliver, rode hastily to Boston, to implore Gage to send out no more troops. The militia paraded upon Cambridge Common and called for the newly appointed mandamus councillors. The two Cambridge members of the Council, Judge Danforth and Judge Lee, promised to resign at once and to be in no way concerned in the acts of the government. Each submitted a written promise attested by the clerk of the court. Then the high-sheriff of Middlesex, Colonel David Phips, was forced to promise to do nothing toward executing the new laws.
Benjamin Hallowell, the Commissioner of Customs, had a narrow escape. Passing in his chaise by the crowds on the Common, he "spoke somewhat contemptuously of them." Some mounted men promptly rode after him. On seeing them coming he stopped his chaise, unhitched his horse and mounted, and galloped to Boston Neck, where he found safety.
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