USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 51
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The work of public improvement began with the beginning. In June, 1631, Mr. John Maisters, or Masters, having undertaken "to make a passage from Charles Ryver to the newe towne, 12 foote broad and 7 foote deepe," the Court of Assistants, in session at Boston, promised him satisfaction according to the expense of the same. In July following the sum of thirty pounds was levied by the court upon the surrounding towns for this purpose, " the newe towne " itself being exempt from the tax. This canal was constructed by the enlargement of a natural creek, and " still exists on the westerly side of College Wharf, from Charles River nearly to Sonth Street." From that point it extended originally along the edge of South and Eliot streets to Brattle Street, which it crossed, requiring afterwards the erection there of a foot- bridge and canseway. In February, 1631-32, the sum of seventy pounds was levied by the court on the surrounding towns for the building of a " pallysadoe " around " the newe towne." To this tax Watertown, whose share was eight pounds, ob- jected, the pastor and elder of the church there assembling the people, and delivering their opin- ions, " that it was not safe to pay moneys after that sort, for fear of bringing themselves and pos- terity into bondage."2 Upon being summoned be- fore the governor and assistants, the Watertown protestants were led to see their error, and hum- bly recanted it. The palisade thus provided for " was actually made; and the fosse which was then
1 Paige's History of Cambridge.
2 Savage's Winthrop.
dug around the town is, in some places, visible to this day," says Holmes. He continues : -
"It commenced at Brick Wharf (originally called Windmill Hill) and ran along the northern side of the present Common in Cambridge, and through what was then a thicket, but now con- stitutes a part of the cultivated grounds of Mr. Nathaniel Jarvis; beyond which it cannot be dis- tinctly traced."
Early in March the hounds of " the newe towne," as relating to Charlestown and Watertown, were defined by order of the court, and later in the same month the town itself took the following action, as quoted by Paige, -the first entry on the town records : -
" An agreement by the inhabitants of the New Town, about paling in the neck of land. Imprimis, That every one who hath any part therein shall hereafter keep the same in good and sufficient re- pair : and if it happen to have any defect, he shall mend the same within three days after notice given, or else pay ten shillings a rod for every rod so repaired for him. Further, it is agreed, that the said impaled ground shall be divided according to every man's proportion in said pales. Further, it is agreed, that if any man shall desire to sell his part of impaled ground, he shall first tender the sale thereof to the town inhabitants interested, who shall either give him the charge he hath been at, or else to have liberty to sell it to whom he can."
The general course of this " pale," or fence, is thus made out by Paige from the ancient records of possession and conveyance : -
" Commencing in the present College yard, near the northwesterly angle of Gore Hall, and extend- ing eastwardly, it passed very near the junction of Ellsworth Avenue with Cambridge Street, to the line between Cambridge and Charlestown (now Somerville), at its angle on Line Street near Cam- bridge Street, and thence followed that line to the creek, a few rods easterly from the track of the Grand Junction Railroad. Commencing again at the point first mentioned, the fence extended south- wardly to the marslı near the junction of Holyoke Place with Mount Anburn Street."
In April, Deputy-Governor Dudley, because of uncomfortable differences which had grown up between him and Governor Winthrop, resigned his office; but, a reconciliation being afterward effected, he accepted of his place again. In May, Mr. Ed- mond Lockwood was appointed by the court con-
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stable of " the newe towne." In June a grant of two hundred acres of land across the river was made to the deputy-governor. By November a difference had arisen between "Charles-Towne and Newe-Towne," " for ground," and the same was referred by court to a commission, which shortly effected an amicable settlement.
And thus "Newe Towne " came fairly into being, - a lusty child, with a strong voice, active limbs, and a mind of its own, destined to make itself heard and felt, from the outset, the colony through.
The first event of prime importance in the his- tory of "Newe Towne's " settlement was a consid- erable accession to its population, in August, 1632, from Mount Wollaston. This accession consisted of what was known as the " Braintree Company," from the place of its English origin, or as " Mr. Hooker's Company," from the name of its pastor, the Rev. Thomas Hooker. Mr. Hooker was a native of Leicestershire, England ; born in 1586, and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Taking up the ministry, and exercising it with great talent, piety, and zeal, he was first silenced for his non-conformity, and afterward compelled to flee to Holland for his life. This was in 1630, and there he remained for three years. Meanwhile a body of the people to whom he had ministered had emigrated to New England, and, after begin- ning a settlement at Mount Wollaston, made this removal, by order of the court, to "the newe towne." The company would appear to have included about fifty men. On their re-establishment in " the newe towne," word was sent to Mr. Hooker in Holland to come over and unite himself to them again, which he accordingly did in 1633. He was accom- panied by an assistant, Mr. Samuel Stone, a native of Hertford ; and in October of this year, a church being then or having been previously duly organ- ized, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone were solemnly ordained to their respective offices of pastor and teacher. A meeting-house with a bell had already been built.1
Thus the religious life of " the newe towne " was formally begun, though, as it proved, in only a temporary form.
The old division line between " the newe towne " and Charlestown was substantially that which now divides Cambridge from Somerville. That part of the town which lay to the eastward, now Cam- bridgeport and East Cambridge, passed under the
general name of " the neck," and was a waste of woodland, pasture, swamps, and marshes. Its main portion was divided into the Old Field and Small-Lot Hill. The upland and marsh, since built over by East Cambridge, went by the partic- ular name of "Graves his Neck." The ten or twelve streets which composed "the towne" enclosed and intersected a space corresponding, in the main, to that now bounded by Harvard, Brattle, Eliot, South, Holyoke, and Bow streets. Beyond this centre, toward Watertown, was the West End. Along the river, to the southward, stretched a suc- cession of marshes, each of which had its name ; the tract now bounded by North Avenue, Garden, and Linnæan streets was set apart as " a cow com- mon "; on the two sides of this joined the West End Field and the Pine Swamp Field ; while be- yond all lay the Fresh Pond meadows.
The territory we are now surveying, before its adoption as the site of " the newe towne," was trav- ersed by the " path from Charlestown to Water- town," which is to be accounted the most ancient highway of Cambridge. Its course was about that of the present Kirkland, Mason, and Brattle streets, Elmwood Avenne, and Mount Auburn Street. From the town, when planted, radiated the highway to Watertown, now Brattle Street ; the highway to Fresh Pond, now Garden Street and Vassall Lane ; the highway to Menotomy, now North Avenue ; the highway into the neck, now Main Street ; and the "highway to Roxbury," now Brighton Street. Access to Boston, as the new tri-mountain capital had been called, could be had only indirectly, through Charlestown, or through Roxbury, the rivers in both cases being crossed by ferries.
Great pains must have been taken in laying out and building " the newe towne," for one of the earliest visitors to it 1 describes it as " having many fair structures, with many handsome contrived streets." "One of the neatest and best com- pacted towns in New England," he calls it. It made upon him the impression that " the inhabi- tants, most of them, are very rich." The earliest municipal regulations were well calculated to bring about this result. It was ordered in 1633 that no person should put up any house within the town limits without leave from a majority of the inhabi- tants ; that all houses should "range even," six feet in each lot from the street front; and that roofs should be slated or boarded, and not thatched.
1 Wood, in New England's Prospect.
1 Prince's Annals.
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The building of wooden chimneys had been previ- ously forbidden. It was afterwards ordered that whoever felled a tree should not allow it to lie across the highway ; that felled lumber should not be sold out of the town; that every inhabitant should keep in orderly and neat condition that part of the highway "against his own ground "; that the town should have the first privilege of buying improved lots which owners might wish to sell ; etc.
In October, 1633, the court imposed a tax of £48 each upon Boston, Roxbury, Charlestown, Watertown, and "the newe towne"; three years lafer (March, 1636) " the newe towne's " share in a tax of £300 was £42, no other of the towns being assessed above £37 10s. Thus early did Cambridge take the leading place it has continued to liold among the towns of the commonwealth in the scale of taxable property.
The reader must keep in mind, as we run over these first sources of Cambridge society and life, the very peculiar but rigid mould in which every such organization was cast. Town and church were but two names for one and the same constit- uency. The town was the church, acting in sec- ular concerns, and the church was the town, acting in religious concerns. The ecclesiastical and the civil bodies were two forms, which one spirit ani- mated. There was a duality in unity. The mem- bers of the church only were the freemen and voters of the town. Those were the times when congregationalism of the purest type was the stand- ing order, and its principles dominated everything. The " dissenter " therefrom was more than a heretic; he was politically an alien. The town was taxed to support the minister. Selectmen and deacons jointly " seated " the meeting-house, which, having served its religious purpose on the Sabbath Day, was used as the town-house on Monday. This was the central edifice of the community ; and the ideas which it doubly typified were the core of the com- munal life.
Of the situation of the first meeting-house of Cambridge, - the rallying-point of "the newe towne," - and of its size and appearance, we know nothing. But we can imagine its eminence in the eyes of the little band of settlers as being their tabernacle in the wilderness, and we can picture the scene, as with devout unanimity they assembled under its lowly roof for the two sacred services of each Lord's Day. We can see the women sitting apart on their side of the house, and the men on
theirs, and the boys herded, awe-stricken, together under the stern eye of the tithing-man; and we can almost hear the weird strains of Sternhold and Hopkins, and the impressive accents of the godly minister, as prayer and praise proceed.
Under the precious droppings of this sanctuary, so to speak, were clustered the first rude cabins of " the new towne." It was barely more than shelter that they gave. The life was new, and there was exposure to all manner of necessities and privations. Conveniences were few. Bread was the first requi- site. The "planting fields," whose laying out was the first occupation of the people, supplied prompt crops of corn and fodder. A windmill, for grind- ing, had been early erected on what was known as Windmill Hill, near what is now the foot of Ash Street, where the old gas-works stood; but it had been removed to Boston, because it would work only in a westerly wind; and the nearest water- power grist-mill was now at Watertown. Meeting- house and windmill were the first of "the new towne's " public buildings.
The church organization of the inhabitants, as above intimated, took precedence, in respect both of time and of importance, of all others, and was the basis of all other ; but as early as December, 1632, provision was made for regular town-meet- ings for the transaction of business. These meet- ings were at first held on the afternoon of the first Monday of every month, at the meeting-house, " at the ringing of the bell." Here the sturdy set- tlers roughly hewed and firmly joined the founda- tion timbers of their municipal structure. The first town officer having been a constable, there was presently added a surveyor, the latter being charged with care of the highways. In February, 1634-35, a new departure was made by the ap- pointment of seven townsmen to manage all town affairs in their discretion, and to serve in that ca- pacity till their successors should be chosen in the November following. At the same time a board of surveyors was appointed, - four men beside the constable, -- to make a survey of the town lands. This was in compliance with an order of the court directing such a survey to be made by every town in the colony. The result of this survey, a " Reg- estere Booke of the lands and houses in the New Towne," is preserved to this day in the archives of the city.
These particulars of town business enable us to name a dozen of the chief inhabitants of "New Towne" in 1634. Such may be supposed to have
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been James Olmstead, constable ; John White, sur- veyor ; John Haynes, " Symon " Bradstreet, John Taylcott, William Westwood, William Wadsworth, of the "townsmen "; John Benjamnin, Daniell Denison, Andrew Warner, and William Spencer, of the committee of survey.
The plan of Cambridge in 1635, given in Paige's IIistory, shows most of the homestead lots occu- pied or owned in "the newe towne." Substi- tuting the modern street names for the ancient, Mr. Olmstead lived on Harvard Street, about where the old Wadsworth house stands; Mr. Westwood just west of him; Mr. White on the east side of Holyoke Street, about midway between Harvard and Arrow ; Mr. Haynes in the centre of the block bounding Mount Auburn, Eliot, and Winthrop streets, and Winthrop Square; Mr. Bradstreet on the east side of Brighton Street, just south of Har- vard ; Mr. Wadsworth on the west side of Holy- oke, between Harvard and Bow, and opposite Mr. White's ; Mr. Benjamin on the south side of South Street, between Dunster and Holyoke; Mr. War- ner on the north side of Eliot Street, as you go round from Winthrop to Brighton Street ; and Mr. Spencer on the south side of Brattle, just north of the corner of Mount Auburn Street. The names of Taylcott and Denison do not appear, but it is known that the former, who was a large land- holder, lived out of " the Towne," at the " West End," namely, at what is now the easterly corner of Brattle and Ash streets ; the latter probably on or near Bow Street, between Arrow and Mount Auburn. William Man lived on the road to Fresh Pond; Thomas Judd on or near the site of the Craigie House, now Mr. Longfellow's home ; and John Gibson on the hill about where now lives Charles Deane, L L. D. Atherton Hough had a farm on the East Cambridge upland.
It will be further of interest to note that Rev. Thomas Hooker lived on the north side of Harvard Street, about where Dane Hall stands, but of course nearer the street; and his assistant, Mr. Stone, on Brighton Street, next south of Mr. Bradstreet ; while the total number of homestead lots in " the Towne," most of which were occupied, was something like sixty. What is now Win- throp Square was set off very early as a "market- place." At about the same time the present burying-ground on Garden Street, opposite the junction of North Avenue, was ordered to be " paled in," though a lot for graves had, in all probability, been provided previously on the " path
to Watertown," beyond Ash Street. Mr. Thomas Chesholme, a deacon of the church, who lived next to the meeting-house, in Dunster Street, was licensed by the General Court, which at present took jurisdiction of such concerns, "to keepe a house of intertainmente," - the first in the town ; And Mr. Nicholas Danforth, who lived on the northerly side of Bow Street, near Plympton, was similarly licensed " to sell wine and strong water." Somewhat later a "town spring," convenient for man and beast, was opened in the field west of the present University Press, between Brattle and Mount Auburn streets; and, later still, the ex- treme northeastern corner of the cow common was set apart as a "gallows place " for public execu- tions.
Such was "the newe towne " in its earliest as- pect, - a little network of streets and lanes, laid out on an upland surrounded by marshes, midway on " the path from Charlestowne to Watertowne "; a cluster of forty or fifty houses centred about the meeting-house ; a population of a few hundred souls, - sturdy men and brave women, with their children, intent on occupying and improving their place in the new Christian state they had crossed the seas to found ; these - simply organized, first as a church, with a pastor and a teacher beloved, and secondly as a town, with their constable, surveyor, and selectmen - looked out day by day across the Charles River bay to the horizon line of the Shawmut peninsula, on whose farther slopes were slowly rising the walls of the new colonial capital. Taking a wide sweep around them, beyond the lim- its of sight, New Hampshire had scarce emerged from a wilderness; the scattered settlements in Maine and Rhode Island were yet all hidden in the trackless woods ; Roger Williams had just made his escape from Salem to the shores of Narragan- sett ; the figure of Vermont lay yet imbedded in the granite of her mountains; New Haven was only just lifting up its head ; and the Dutch were intrenching themselves commercially at the mouth of the newly discovered Hudson River, on an island which they had bought of the Indians for $24 in goods, "The newe towne " was a single grain in the handful of wheat which had been flung by the hand of Providence over on the wild New England shore.
A variety of local events diversified the two or three years immediately ensuing upon the arrival of Mr. Hooker's Company. One of the earliest manifestations was a feeling of some uneasiness on
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PUBLIC LIBRARY
Hooker's Company reach the Connecticut.
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the score of too narrow room. The territory of " the newe towne" was felt to be limited, and it seemed to be circumscribed by natural barriers which could not be set aside. The legislation of the court indicates endeavors to ease the town upon this score. Further difficulties arose re- specting boundaries, but this time with Watertown, the neighbor on the west. In May, 1634, Mr. Dudley was chosen governor in place of Mr. Will- throp, and in August following the court assem- bled in " the newe towne," its sessions being held here consecutively till 1636, and again in 1637 and 1638. Little by little, discontent with quarters, confined for the most part, it would appear, to Mr. Hooker's company, took active form and defi- nite direction. In May, 1634, an expedition was sent out to " Merrimack," to prospect for a " fit place " for removal. In- July half a dozen men took passage in the Blessing of the Bay, the little bark which Governor Winthrop had built at " Mistick," and had launched on the 4th of July, 1631, with the purpose of discovering the Con- necticut River, and of removing the town thither. This project of removal, which had received some previous countenance from the authorities, came up in full form before the court at its session in " the newe towne " in September, and provoked inuch discussion. The discussion grew into " a great difference," to heal which, and to find a wise way out of the exigency, a day of humiliation was resorted to. Mr. Cotton of Boston preached ; and so well was the occasion improved, that "the newe towne " people accepted of "the enlargement " which had been proposed to them, and "the fear of their removal to Connecticut was removed." " This 'enlargement' embraced Brookline, Brigh- ton, and [the present] Newton. Brookline, then called Muddy River, was granted on condition that Mr. Hooker and his congregation should not remove. They did remove; and thus this grant was forfeited. But the grant of what was after- wards Brighton and Newton held good."
The removal of Mr. Hooker's company to Con- necticut, which was the final result of all this agi- tation, was not fully accomplished until the spring of 1636; by which time a new chapter had been opened in the history of the settlement of the town, the disclosures of which were sufficiently cheering to offset in a good measure the drawback of such an important departure. This was the arrival of Mr. Shepard's company.
The Rev. Thomas Shepard was in some sense
another Hooker. He was a native of Towcester, Northamptonshire, where he was born in Novem- ber, 1605. Like Hooker, he was educated at Em- manuel College, Cambridge, took up the ministry, and encountered persecution because of his Puri- tanism. After a variety of truly romantic and often pathetic adventures and experiences, colored deeply with the religious hue, he turned his face towards America, and, with his wife and child, a brother, and some sixty followers and friends, arrived in Boston in the Defence, October 30, 1635. This was on a Saturday, and as to what followed we may read his own words : -
" Upon Monday, Oct. 5, we came (being sent for by friends at Newtown) to them, to my brother Mr. Stone's house, and that congregation being upon their removal to Hartford at Connecticut, myself and those that came with me found many houses empty and many persons willing to sell, and here our company bought off their houses to dwell in, until we should see another place fit to remove into." 1
On the 15th of October "about sixty men, women, and little children went by land towards Connecticut, with their cows, horses [heifers] and swine," 2 the pioneers of Mr. Hooker's company. The temporary entrance of Mr. Shepard's com- pany ended in a permanent occupation, "partly because of the fellowship of the churches, partly . because they thought their lives were short and removals to new plantations full of troubles, partly because they found sufficient for themselves." On the Ist of February, 1635-36, they organized themselves into a new church, to take the place of Mr. Hooker's. In May, the weather being set- tled, " Mr. Hooker .... and the rest of his con- gregation " went to Connecticut, " following those who had gone the autumn before, and completing the removal. His wife was carried in a horse- litter ; and they drove an hundred and sixty cattle, and fed of their milk by the way." Thus, by a very happy fitting together of circumstances, the places of the departing were immediately taken ; and a population for " the newe towne " was per- petuated without interruption.
The exact reasons of Mr. Hooker and his com- pany in taking their departure are enveloped in some obscurity. They alleged lack of sufficient accommodation, too great proximity of towns, superior advantages of the region of Connecticut,
1 Life of Shepard, as quoted by Paige.
2 Savage's Winthrop.
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and a laudable desire to pre-empt the latter from acquisition by the Dutch. Some of these reasons, at least, would seem to have been made untenable by concessions of territory by the court. It is quite likely that there were other reasons which were not mentioned. Mr. Hooker had a mind of his own, and some jealousies and rivalries existed, as we have had glimpses of, between his people and those around them. Whatever the cause, the fact remains, and the issues of it constituted a most important element in the beginnings of Con- necticut. The seed of Hartford was carried from Cambridge.
More " enlargement " of the territory of " the newe towne " followed upon the establishment of Mr. Shepard and his company, and though the full growth of it was not reached till 1643-44, the various stages of that growth may properly be noted here as a conclusion to this chapter of settle- ment. What are now Brighton and Newton hav- ing been joined to " the newe towne " in 1634, the - Court in 1635 - 36 extended the bounds eight miles into the country on the north, taking in the whole of the present Arlington, and most if not all of Lexington ; and in 1642 and 1643-44 these bounds were again successively further extended so as to include Bedford and Billerica; thus spread- ing out the domain of " the newe towne " in a fig- ure of curiously elongated crookedness from Ded- ham to the Merrimack River. Its extreme length was something like twenty-five miles, but its width at the point of original settlement barely above one mile, while its outlines it would be difficult to describe in words. As the colony of Massachu- setts grew, one town after another of those named above was cut off from the Cambridge territory ; Billerica, first known as Shawshine, in 1655; Newton, or Cambridge Village, as it was origi- nally called, in 1691 ; Lexington, originally known as The Farms, in 1713; West Cambridge, origi- nally Menotomy, now Arlington, in 1807; and Brighton, sometimes called Little Cambridge, but now a ward of the city of Boston, in 1807. Thus ancient Cambridge, after temporarily swelling up with the incorporated areas of half a dozen Middle- sex towns, has undergone a very nearly exact terri- torial restoration in the city of the present time. The territory west of Sparks Street and south of Vassal Lane, originally belonging to Watertown, was transferred to Cambridge by the General Court in 1754 and after.
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