USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913 > Part 5
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THE COLLEGE
the center of the Puritan movement, and that it was there, during John Harvard's time, that Winthrop and Dudley and Sir Richard Salton- stall, and the other leaders of the Massachu- setts Colony, met and arranged for their enter- prise. It is interesting too to recall that John Milton and John Harvard were at the Uni- versity together. Both were youths of London Puritan families, living not far apart, of nearly the same station in life, and of about equal means. It is a safe guess that the two young men were friends.
Harvard spent nearly eight years at Cam- bridge. He took his Bachelor's Degree in 1632, and his Master's Degree in 1635. The next year he married the sister of one of his college mates, a girl named Ann Sadler. While he had been at college his step-father had died and his mother had again married, this time to an old friend of the family, Richard Year- wood, a Puritan member of Parliament and a comrade with Hampden, Pym and Sir John Eliot. In 1637 John Harvard's mother died and shortly afterwards his brother Thomas, so that all the modest wealth of the family came to John, and at the same time the ties that bound him to the motherland were mostly broken. It is no surprise, therefore, that we discover that in the year 1637 he sold his real estate in Southwark, including the Queen's Head Inn, which is still standing, to a ship captain, presumably as passage money for himself, his wife, and his belongings, to New England. In the fall of 1637 we find him admitted a freeman in Charlestown in Massa- chusetts and later he joined the church in that place and was apparently associated as a col- league with the minister, Zachariah Symmes. He bought considerable land, some of it in Charlestown, some of it across the Mystic river, and some of it "adjoining the Newtowne line" and he evidently built a house which stood until it was destroyed when Charlestown was burned at the Battle of Bunker Hill. There is no certain record of his ever visiting the place with which his name is forever asso- ciated, yet we know that within a few weeks of his arrival a Synod was held at Newtowne and it is altogether probable that he attended that meeting, coming over from Charlestown either on foot or on horseback. His whole
life in New England extended over only a little more than a year, for he died of consumption on the 14th day of September, 1638. His widow married the Rev. Thomas Allen, whose name appears in the records of the College as having paid over the timely legacy to the Committee. The bequest of John Harvard amounted to not quite four hundred pounds. The books which he also bequeathed give us some insight into the reading of a Puritan "lover of learning" He had brought with him across the sea more than two hundred and sixty volumes, among them not only Chrysostom and Calvin, Duns Scotus, and Luther, but Homer and Plutarch, Terence and Horace, Chapman's Homer, Bacon's Essays and Advancement of Learning, and Camden's Remains. Was ever gift so mul- tiplied as the bequest of this obscure young scholar? By this act of public-spirited and well-directed munificence, this youth of thirty- one made for himself an imperishable name and enrolled himself among the foremost bene- factors of the American Commonwealth.
Besides the liberality of the General Court for the foundation of the College and the legacy of John Harvard, gifts and benefits from indi- viduals were not wanting, but it was "willing poverty" rather than wealth which gave. Among the gifts of the early days we read that the Rev. W. Allen sent two cows. Cotton cloth worth nine shillings was given by Richard Dana, the ancestor of another Richard Dana, who, nearly two hundred years later, when a student at Harvard, went for two years before the mast, and on his return gave the world a delightful book. The Rev. Mr. Latham, of Lancaster County, England, sent five pounds. Sir Richard Saltonstall, a man of large means, gave generously and his descendants, for gen- eration after generation, have shown their love for Harvard by a continued bounty. Theophilus Gale, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, "a learned and industrious divine, as appears by his "Court of the Gentiles," and his "Vanity of Pagan Philosophy," be- queathed his library to the College. From the New England towns and villages, and even from distant settlements, contributions flowed in. Little Scarborough, away to the north in Maine, sent two pounds nine shillings and
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
six pence, while from the far-distant South, the people of Eleutheria in the Bahamas, "out of their poverty," sent one hundred and twenty- four pounds. Smaller gifts came in, such as a pewter flagon worth ten shillings, a bell, a fruit-dish, a sugar-spoon, a silver tipped jug, one great salt, and one small trencher salt.
One event in connection with the founding of the College was of equal importance to the town and to the Colony. In a letter dated at Salem, Octo- ber 10th, 1638, Hugh Peters wrote, "We have a printerer here and think to go to work with some special things." This was a hand press with which, in the summer of 1638, Jose Glover and his wife started from England. Glover died on the voy- age, but with him had started Stephen Daye, his wife and two children, and his stepson William Boardman, an- cestor of four successive stew- ards of Harvard College. In Jan- uary, 1639, Stephen Daye brought the press to Cambridge and set it up there. The first "special thing" printed was the "Freeman's Oath," then an almanac made for New England by "Mr. William Peirce Mariner," the founder of the family which has produced the most distinguished of American mathematicians. These two were pamphlets,
and the first little book printed in America was a metrical version of the Book of Psalms for use in the worship of the New England congregation. The press became "an append- age to Harvard College," and its establishment at Cambridge founded there a business for which the town has been and still is famous. The great establishments of the Riverside Press, the Uni- versity Press, and the Athe- naeum Press still make Cambridge the center of printing in America, and send the charac- teristic Cam- bridge product all over the world.
STATUE OF JOHN HARVARD
The arrival and installation in 1640 of Henry Dunster to be the first Presi- dent was an event of large significance. Dunster was born at Bury, in Lancashire, on November 26th, 1609, so he was only thirty-one when he became Presi- dent. He took his Bachelor's Degree at Cam- bridge, England, in 1630, and his Master's Degree in 1634. He was thus a contemporary at the University with John Harvard and John Milton. After leaving the University he appears to have engaged in teaching, though Cotton Mather speaks of his having "exercised his ministry" in England. He came to New England in the summer of 1640, and almost immediately upon his arrival
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THE COLLEGE
1136225
he was invited to take charge of the little college which had barely escaped infanticide at the hands of Eaton. He was at first the sole teacher, and he also acted as Treasurer and General Manager. It appears that Dunster gave instruction not only in Greek and Latin, but also in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac. At morning prayers his students were required to translate from the Hebrew scripture into Greek, and at evening prayers to retranslate the English text of the New Testament into Greek. As already noted Latin was the only language authorized on the college premises. Dunster also "exercised his gift" of preaching, both in Cambridge and in the neighboring churches, so that it is obvious that his varied qualities and resources were given plenty of exercise. He was untiring in industry and faithful to every duty. Though his salary was very small and irregularly paid, he gave to the college not only his learning and his skilled labor, but also practically all of his limited estate, including one hundred acres of land in Shawsheen, which he had purchased on his arrival as an investment for the little fund he had brought with him. This liber- ality quickened that of his fellow citizens, but it was always the hardest kind of a struggle to maintain the institution. "I was and am willing," wrote Dunster to Winthrop in 1643, "considering the profit of the country to de- scend to the lowest step. If there can be nothing comfortable allowed me, I will sit down appeased, desiring not more than what may supply me and mine with food and raiment to the furtherance of our labors for the good of the Church and the Common- wealth." It was Dunster, who thus joined with Harvard in laying the foundation, both educationally and materially, of the college.
In the autumn of 1642 Governor Winthrop had the satisfaction of writing in his Journal: "Nine bachelors commenced at Cambridge; they were young men of good hope and per- formed their acts so as gave good proof of their proficiency in the tongues and arts. The General Court had settled a government or superintendency over the College, viz., all the magistrates and elders over the six nearest churches and the president, or the greatest part of these. Most of them were now present
at the first Commencement, and dined at the College with the scholars ordinary commons, which was done of purpose for the students' encouragement, and it gave good content to all."
A copy of the first Commencement pro- gramme, written in sonorous Latin, and dated September 26th, 1642, is still in existence. The titles of the theses in language, in rhetoric, in philosophy, justify Governor Winthrop's testimony to the proficiency of the young scholars. The names of the nine first gradu- ates are significant not only of the loyalty of the leaders of the Colony, but also of the purpose for which their little College was founded. At the head of the list stands the name of Benjamin Woodbridge, the son of a prominent Puritan minister in England, who had already studied for several terms at Ox- ford. His brother, Rev. John Woodbridge, had come to Boston in 1634, had married Mercy, daughter of Thomas Dudley, and was settled as minister at Andover, Mass. Ben- jamin Woodbridge returned to England and was minister at Newbury for nearly forty years; enjoying "a mighty reputation as a scholar, a preacher, and a Christian." Though silenced by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662, he evidently continued to preach until his death in 1684.
George Downing, whose name stands next, was a nephew of Governor Winthrop, the son of his sister Lucy. He came over with his parents in 1638 and the family settled at Salem under the ministry of Hugh Peters. Downing had a strange and romantic career. At first he was employed as a tutor at the College at a salary of £4 "to read to the junior pupils as the President shall see fit." Then he went to England by the way of the West Indies and next appears in the Parliamentary army, where he rose so fast that when not more than twenty- five years old he became a member of Crom- well's own staff and wrote the dispatch to Parliament announcing the victory at Worces- ter. He was Cromwell's agent sent to the Duke of Savoy to remonstrate against the persecution of the Waldenses in Piedmont, and was also a special ambassador to France. He became a member of Parliament and later minister to Holland. He changed sides at the Restora-
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
tion and served Charles II as zealously as he had served the Commonwealth. His name appears often in Pepy's Diary, and he is de- scribed as "keen, bold, subtle, active and observant, but imperious and unscrupulous, actually preferring menace to persuasion, reckless of the means employed or the risks incurred in the pursuit of a proposed object." He was later Secretary of the Commissioners of the Treasury, and Downing Street, in London, where the Prime Minister lives, was named for him. He married Frances Howard, and so became allied with one of the noblest families of the English peerage. He died in 1648, leaving a reputation of a man of extra- ordinary force but of doubtful character and merit.
John Bulkley, the third gradu- ate, was the son of Rev. Peter Bulkley, who had come to New England in 1635 and was the first min- ister at Con- cord, Mass. The younger Bulk- ley served for a ycar or two with his class- mate Downing as a tutor to the College and then he, too, went to England and settled in the ministry at Fordham in the county of Essex. He was ejected by the Act of Uniformity in 1662 and he died in London in 1689. This John Bulkley was one of the earliest benefactors of the College, for in 1635 he gave to the College a piece of land "situate and near adjoining to the College, and ordered the same to be for the use of the Fellows that should from time to time belong to and be resident at the said Society. The said Garden being commonly called and known by the name of the Fellows Orchard." This was a piece of ground lying to the east of the College building and stretching from what is now
A Infect f the Gladges in Cambridgein New England.
From the oldest known print of Harvard College, engraved in 1726, and representing the college as it appeared when ninety years old. The building on the right, Massachusetts Hail, is still in use.
Massachusetts Avenue nearly to the present Library building.
The next name on the list of the Class of 1642 is that of William Hubbard, who later was settled in the ministry at Ipswich, Mass. He is remembered as the author of "A Narra- tive of the Trouble with the Indians," pub- lished in 1677, and of a "History of New England," finished in 1680. Hubbard kept up his connection with the College all his life, and we find him presiding at the Commence- ments of 1684 and of 1688. He is recorded as "the most eminent minister in the county of Essex, equal to any in the province for learning and candor and superior to all of his contemporaries as a writer." He died in 1704, aged 83.
The next is Samuel Belling- ham, son of Richard Bell- ingham, a mem- ber of the Com- mittee in charge of the College and the future Governor. This man also re- turned to Eng- land and later studied medicine at Leyden. He appears to have lived in or near London and never to have returned to New England.
Then comes the name of John Wilson, the son of the Rev. John Wilson of the First Church in Boston. He became for a time an assistant to Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, and in 1651 was settled at Medfield, where he was minister for forty years, until his death in 1691.
Henry Saltonstall was the son of Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the founders of the Colony. He returned to England and became a Fellow at Oxford.
Tobias Barnard apparently returned to England soon after he graduated, and dis- appeared from sight; but the last of the nine
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THE COLLEGE
graduates, Nathaniel Brewster, had an honor- able career. He was a Puritan minister in England and later in Ireland, where he received the Degree of Bachelor of Theology from the University of Dublin. Ejected by the Act of Uniformity he returned to New Eng- land and later settled as minister at Brook- haven, on Long Island, where his three sons lived. He continued his work there until his death in 1690 at the age of 70.
and in 1650 the Charter was granted under which the College is still administered. By this Charter the College was made a corpora- tion, con- sisting of the President, five Fellows and a Treas- urer, to be called by the name of the Presi- dent and Fellows of Harvard College. This Char- ter created Henry Dun- ster, Presi- dent; Sam- uel Mather, Samuel Danforth, Jonathan Mitchell, Comfort Starr, and Samuel Eaton, the five Fellows, and Henry Belknap, Treasurer. The Charter bears the signature of "Thomas Dudley, Governor." It must have given Governor Dudley pro- found satis- faction to sign the
With the completion of the build- ing, the set- tlement of the first President and the graduation of the first class, the founding of the College may be said to have been completed. By an act of the General Court on the 8th of September, 1642, the Board of Overseers was established,
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, CAMBRIDGE COMMON.
paper which thus gave permanent distinction to the town which he had done so much to plant.
V
THE COLONY
T HE year 161 is the year in which the adoption of the Great Remonstrance showed that the Long Parliament of England understood its duty and could do it. "If the vote had been lost," said Cromwell, "I would have sold all I had and never have seen England more." That meant that he would have emigrated to Massachusetts. He would have arrived just in time for the first Commencement of Harvard College, just as the General Court was striking the name of King Charles I out of the oath of allegiance, and just as four of the New England colonies were planning their confederation. He would have found Massachusetts a well ordered, self- controlled community of more than twenty thousand people, with all the necessary insti- tutions of government, education and religion in operation. He would have found churches, schools and college, rudely housed indeed, but with all the essential elements of efficiency provided, a code of law adopted by the will of the people and resolutely administered, a representative system of government working smoothly and successfully, and a people prac- ticing all the industries required for their separate maintenance. He would have found, in short, the completed foundations of what is now the most prosperous democracy in the world.
Here, on a clear field, unoccupied by any organized society, with no pre-existent institu- tions to cumber the ground, the experiment of planting and constructing a civil and ecclesi- astical government was being successfully worked out. No external power had been suffered to interfere, and no Old World pre- cedents allowed to claim authority. No noble proprietor, nor commercial corporation,dictated the procedure. The whole plan of action was formulated without suggestions or influence from any outside quarter, by the people on the spot. They were a chosen people, intelligent, thoughtful, brave and devout. They were
well acquainted with the ancient and feudal forms of government but they applied none of them here. Having a new country to dwell in, they resolved to establish nothing but what their own experience should prove to be neces- sary or desirable. In this respect the New England colonies differed from most of the other American plantations. General Ogle- thorpe planned the social and political system of Georgia, John Locke drafted a contrivance of government for the Carolinas, Lord Balti- more superintended Maryland, William Penn planted and ruled Pennsylvania, and other proprietors and patrons controlled their several settlements. But the founders of Massachu- setts tried every step for themselves, they held fast only to what they themselves discovered to be appropriate and efficient. By the con- sent and initiation of the people all the essential features of a stable commonwealth were stamped into the fabric of society in the first twenty years of the Colony.
This is no insignificant fact in the history of liberty. One hundred and forty-six years before the Declaration of Independence of the United States, Massachusetts was an inde- pendent government and continued so for more than half a century. It was more inde- pendent in this colonial period than it ever has been since. After the abolition of the first charter in 1684, Massachusetts became a royal province. Its governors were appointed by the king and the royal assent was needed to give validity to its laws. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, Massa- chusetts has been in many respects and to a considerable extent subjects to the law adopted by Congress for the general welfare of the nation. During the first fifty-four years, however, the people of Massachusetts were as free to rule themselves as if they had lived on another planet. They chose all their own administrators, asked the approval of no authority for their laws, suffered no appeal to
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THE COLONY
any higher tribunal, and bowed to no rulers save those of their own free choice.
It is further significant that a more efficient government for the preservation of order and the promotion of the common welfare has never existed anywhere. Nothing can surpass the spirit, courage, ability and success with which the people of Massachusetts withstood and repelled all the demands or possible encroach- ments from the mother country. Local offences were rebuked and disorder suppressed by decisive measures. No rank nor station, no popular affection, no respect for particular persons, however eminent, could obstruct the course of an even-handed justice. The General Court in the exercise of its sovereignty treated all men alike, those of its own body as well as those without. The most distinguished men of the community were brought to the bar, when they offended, as promptly as the mean- est. John Winthrop himself suffered the rebuke of his colleagues. Thomas Dudley was admonished. Sir Richard Saltonstall was fined. John Endicott was disqualified tem- porarily from holding office and committed for contempt of the court. The severities of the penal code adopted by the General Court have often been condemned by the historical writers of a more humane age, but it should be remembered that this code was far in ad- vance of the habits of the most enlightened countries in the seventeenth century. More than one hundred years passed before England adopted a code so just and mild as the New England "Body of Liberties." If the Puritans based their penal laws upon the Old Testament, that was itself a standard far in advance of the common usage of their day. In fact they did not always follow the details of the Hebrew law. It was a gratification to them when they found confirmation of their principles in the Scriptures, and they often availed themselves of that support. Nevertheless, it is true that in their secular administration they sought, first, to put into practice the principles that can stand the test of all time. Rightly, as a well qualified critic has affirmed, "Our an- cestors, instead of deducing all their laws from the Books of Moses, established, at the outset, a code of fundamental principles, which, taken as a whole, for wisdom, equity, adaptation
to the wants of their community, and a liber- ality of sentiment superior to the age in which it was written, may fearlessly challenge com- parison with any similar production, from Magna Charta itself to the latest Bill of Rights that has been put forth in Europe or America."
The geographical boundaries of the Colony and the frame-work of its government were outlined in the Charter granted to the Massa- chusetts Company by Charles the First. The liberal terms of this Charter plainly indicate that the King was not loath to have such turbulent subjects betake themselves across the Atlantic. He was quite ready to expedite their departure and to speed an enterprise which would take such sturdy opponents of his policies comfortably out of the way.
The Charter provided that the officers of the company should be a governor, a deputy- governor, and eighteen assistants, to be chosen annually. To the governor and assistants was given power and authority to choose "as many freemen as they shall think fit; to elect and constitute such officers as they shall deem requisite for the ordering, managing and de- spatching the affairs of the governor and company," and, in General Court assembled, "to make laws and ordinances for the good and welfare of the said Company and ordering of the said lands and plantation, and the people inhabiting and to inhabit the same, as to them from time to time shall be thought meet; so that such laws and ordinances be not contrary or repugnant to the laws and statutes of this our realm of England," and further, "from time to time to make, ordain and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable orders, laws, statutes and ordinances, directions and instructions, not contrary to the laws of this our realm of England, for the settling of the forms and ceremonies of government and magis- tracy there," and to name the officers they shall appoint, define their duties and prescribe the administering of oaths to them.
The Charter gave to the members of the Company the express and absolute right to admit new associates. The persons thus admitted became full partners and equal members of the Company and were called Freemen. Had the original members been actuated by selfish motives and retained their
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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
rights as a close corporation, the fortunes of the plantation and their own fame would have been brief and ignoble. They were, however, so generous and enlightened as to almost at once transfer their authority to the people of the Colony itself.
The steps by which the Massachusetts plan- tation became a self-governing and inde- pendent colony are very interesting to follow. They are closely associated with the history of Cambridge, for not only were Cambridge citizens among the foremost to promote the successive advances, but many of the important decisions were made upon Cambridge soil or had direct relation to Cambridge events.
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