USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : containing carefully prepared histories of every city and town in the county, Vol. I > Part 56
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X. CAMBRIDGE IN 1775.
THE founding of Christ Church, which from one point of view closes the period immediately preceding the Revolution, may be taken, from an- other point of view, as an introduction to the
Revolutionary chapter in the history of Cambridge. There is certainly no better point of departure for that survey of the town in its social aspects which is a necessary preliminary to a clear understanding of the part it played in the great struggle. The founders of the church already named, with its ten or twelve additional families, all of whom were in " easy circumstances," and at least six of whom were " possessed of ample fortunes," made " a superior figure to most in the country."1 Christ Church was a new and shining centre in the town ; and the social and political atmosphere which was concentrated about it justly invested Cambridge, for a time, with the not over enviable title of "the Tories' paradise."
We have reached, then, a suitable point for a fresh and somewhat careful survey of the town, in order the better to comprehend the stage of the dramatic events soon to follow.
Upon a map of the environs of Boston in 1776 the territory of Cambridge presented the aspect of a broad and wholly rural tract of marsh-enveloped upland bounded on the east by the unvexed waters of the broad Charles River basin, on the south by the Charles River itself, and on the north by Willis' Creek, now Miller's River. Cambridge proper was a small village lying well back towards the western confines of this tract. One road led from it, as of old, southerly towards Roxbury ; another northeasterly to Charlestown, with branches diverging towards the pastures and farms of what are now Cambridgeport and East Cambridge ; while a third and fourth roads led away northerly towards the farms of Menotomy, Lexington, and Concord, and westerly towards Watertown. These four great highways corresponded substantially to the present Brighton Street, Kirkland Street, North Avenue, and Brattle Street. Cambridge was em- phatically " out in the country," and the round- about ways of reaching Boston made the distance from the latter not less than eight miles.
Making Harvard Square as it would be now our place of departure, we must imagine its limits straiter than at present, but less sharply defined, and its area dignified if not encumbered by some objects which have long since passed away. The meeting-house, the court-house, and the jail, those three factors of the old society, were all here ; and in the midst stood a spreading elm, which only within a few years has been removed to accom- modate the necessities of horse-car traffic. The
1 Rev. Winwood Serjeant.
1 Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Mr. Apthorp's youngest daughter was married to a son of Archdeacon Paley; and their son, Frederick Apthorp Paley, is a professor in the University of London.
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town-pump also was here. Just out of the Square, on the west side of Brighton Street, was Bradish's Tavern, " The Blue Anchor," a house of repute and popularity, as already instanced in this record. On " the way down the neck," first to be passed on the right was the Apthorp house, occupied, after the rector's departure to England, by Mr. John Borland, a Boston merchant; next, Colonel David Phips's, the large house still standing on Arrow Street, near Bow, known in later years as the Winthrop place ; and below this, on the north side of the road, on the swell of land now bounded by Inman and Bigelow streets, the spacious man- sion of Ralph Inman, most imposing in itself and its surroundings, perhaps, of all. Far away in the northeast, beyond woods and marshes, was the estate of Richard Lechmere, substantially the East Cambridge territory of to-day. Thus the whole easterly part of the town, since grown to be its most thickly inhabited part, was then divided into a few great farms, whose isolated buildings alone redeemed the landscape from being a seeming waste of woodland, swamp, and pasture.1
Going north from the Square, the college yard and its small but growing family of buildings filled the eye on the right. On the left, the pres- ent site of the First (Unitarian) Society's house of worship was occupied by the residence of Judge Trowbridge, of the Supreme Court, who had been attorney-general of the province, and whose lot it was to preside at the trial of Captain Preston, the British officer concerned in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Between Judge Trowbridge's and Christ Church lay the old burial-ground, already rich his- torically with the bones of Stephen Daye, and Samuel Green, and Elijah Corlett, and Thomas Shepard, and Henry Dunster, with others, their successors in the nurture of the ancient town, - " Each in his narrow cell forever laid."
.Across the unfenced Common stood the since fa- mous " gambrel-roofed house," then the home of Jonathan Hastings, flanked probably with a row of Lombardy poplars on the west. The northern limit of the Common was marked by the Water- house house, lately occupied by one of the Vassall family, and at or about the time now before us by
The Old Gambrel-roofed House.
Rev. Winwood Serjeant, Mr. Apthorp's successor at Christ Church. On the corner of Mason and Garden streets - Mason Street being then part of the highway to Watertown - where in recent days has risen the Shepard Memorial Church, stood an- other two-storied gambrel-roofed house, the home of Deacon Moore, whose family were in a good 1 Paige.
position to observe the memorable event which was soon to take place under the great elm before their door. Such, in brief, were the chief landmarks of the Common. Christ Church, as it may interest the reader to know, preserves its ancient aspect most unchanged to the present day, the elonga- tion of the building in 1857 having hardly altered the general effect.
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HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
The wealthy and aristocratic families who gave such social strength and standing to Christ Church parish were for the most part congregated in a series of ample and Inxurious estates so stretching along on Brattle Street and the highway to Water- town as to win for that avenue par excellence the title of "Tory Row." It was also sometimes desig- nated as " Church Row." The residences of Mr. l'hips and Mr. Inman have been already pointed out. Mr. William Brattle, son of Rev. William Brattle, one of the respected early ministers of the First Parish, was not one of the Churchmen of the town, but he was drawn more or less into connection with them by his tory sympathies and services. The homestead of the Brattle family embraced the pre- cinet where now stands the University Press, and the old dwelling still remains, next to it on the west. The grounds around were spacious and beautiful. Next to it, beyond Ash Street, in the house known to us as that of the late venerable Samuel Batchelder, lived widow Penelope Vassall, whose husband, Colonel Henry Vassall, youngest brother of Colonel John Vassall, had died in 1769. Across the street stood the stately mansion built by Colonel John Vassall's son, John the younger, about 1759, soon to be used as Washington's head- quarters, afterwards known as the Craigie house, and now Mr. Longfellow's- home. At the corner of Brattle and Sparks streets was the residence of Jonathan Sewall, built by Richard Lechmere; next to the corner of Appleton Street, on the same side of the way, the house of Judge Joseph Lee; at the corner of Fayerweather Street, in what is now known as the Wells house, lived Thomas Fayer- weather, who had lately succeeded Captain George Ruggles in occupation ; and on Elmwood' Avenue, then a part of the Watertown highway, which here made a sharp serpentine sweep to the southiward, lived Lieutenant-Governor Oliver. All these fami- lies - Lechmere, Phips, Inman, the Vassalls, Sew- all, Lee, Ruggles, and Oliver- were tories ; and all, with the exception of Mr. Sewall, were, as we have seen, prominent among the founders and early sup- porters of Christ Church. Mr. Sewall was one of the wardens of that church in 1773; while other incumbents of that office from 1762 to 1775 were David Phips, John Vassall, Robert Temple, Rich- ard Lechmere, Thomas Oliver, and Joseph Lee. Mr. Temple was a fitting representative of a circle of Christ Church families who lived out of the town proper. His residence was at Ten Hills, now in West Somerville. General Isaac Royall lived at
Medford; and Benjamin Fanenil and James and Thomas Apthorp, brothers of the Rev. East Ap- thorp, in what is now Brighton.
The social tie between several of these families was further strengthened by curious complications of relationship. Colonel John Vassall, senior, mar- ried one daughter of Lieutenant-Governor Spencer Phips, Richard Lechmere a second, and Joseph Lee a third. A daughter of Colonel Vassall was the wife of Lieutenant-Governor Thomas Oliver. Mrs. Penelope Vassall, widow of Henry, was a daughter of Isaac Royall of Medford. Colonel John Vas- sall, the younger, married a sister of Lieutenant- Governor Oliver, Mrs. Borland. The Baroness Riedesel, who with her captured husband, an offi- cer of Burgoyne's army, afterwards occupied en- forced quarters in the Sewall house at the corner of Brattle and Sparks streets, thus speaks of this social circle as she chanced to see it : ---
"Never had I chanced upon such an agreeable situation. Seven families, who were connected with each other, partly by the ties of relationship and partly by affection, had here farms, gardens, and magnificent houses, and, not far off, plantations of fruit. The owners of these were in the habit of daily meeting each other in the afternoons, now at the house of one and now at another, and mak- ing themselves merry with music and the dance, - living in prosperity, united and happy, until, alas ! this ruinous war separated them, and left all their houses desolate, except two, the proprietors of which were also soon obliged to flee."
Such are the details by which we may construct a tolerably full view of the sunny landscape of Cambridge in 1775; upon which, however, the advancing shadows of the Revolutionary cloud liad already begun to fall.
XI. PREPARATIONS FOR CONFLICT. 1765-1775.
THE storm did not burst until the spring of 1775, but as early as 1761 the ominous mutter- ings of its approach were heard. In that year the British Parliament had issued the Writs of Assist- ance, empowering officers of the crown in the American colonies to enter buildings in search of merchandise supposed to have been imported with- out the payment of duties ; and in 1765, by further act of parliament, the obnoxious provisions of the Stamp Act were extended to the colonies. Massa- chusetts, by voice of her representatives, in Gen- eral Court assembled, under date of October 29,
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PUBLIC LIBRARY
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1765, raised a vigorous protest against this en- croachment ; but may we not look to Cambridge for some part at least of the impulse which effected this protest ? For on the 14th of October, two weeks before this action of the General Court was taken, the citizens of the town, in town-meeting convened, " Toted, That (with all humility) it is the opinion of the town, that the inhabitants of this province have a legal claim to all the natural, inherent, constitutional rights of Englishmen, not- withstanding their distance from Great Britain ; that the Stamp Act is an infraction upon these rights," etc .; and summed up their sentiments upon the matter in the following sturdy and spirited terms : -
" The town, therefore, hereby advise their representa- tives by no means whatsoever to do any one thing that may aid said act in its operation ; but that, in conjunction with the friends of liberty, they use their intense endeav- ors that the same might be repealed : that this vote be re- corded in the Town Book, that the children yet unborn may see the desire their ancestors had for their freedom and happiness : and that an attested copy of it be given to said representatives."
Previous to the above date the town had for- mally and officially expressed its disapprobation of the riotous proceedings in Boston in August, directed against Secretary Oliver and Lieutenant- Governor Hutchinson, though it now instructed its representatives not to vote any public money to reimburse the victims for their damage, notwith- standing the governor's recommendation to the General Court to do so. Thus the head sought to curb the passions of the popular heart.
In September, 1768, the town sent its delegates to the convention of the towns of the province which Boston, in view of Governor Bernard's re- fusal to convene the legislature, had summoned to meet at Faneuil Hall. Ninety-five towns be- sides Cambridge were represented in that conven- tion, her delegates being Thomas Gardner and Samuel Whittemore, two typical patriots of their time. Captain Whittemore, at the age of seventy- nine, was to bear his musket on the coming 19th of April, 1775, and Colonel Gardner to lay down his life at Bunker Hill.
In May, 1769, the month before the death of President Holyoke, the college halls were taken possession of by the House of Representatives, whose sitting had been adjourned to Cambridge in consequence of its dignified protest against as- sembling in the State House while menaced there by the strong military armament which had arrived
in Boston in November previous. The legislators appear to have occupied the college in the first in- stance by the right of eminent domain, there being no record of leave either asked or granted.1 Per- mission was, however, subsequently obtained to use the new chapel instead of the old, the accommoda- tions of the latter proving insufficient. At Com- mencement, Professor Winthrop presiding in the stead of the deceased President Holyoke, the house dined with the corporation in the College Hall.
On the 8th of March, 1770, the solemn tolling of the meeting-house bell fell upon the waiting Cambridge ear. In a still air might have been detected, mingling with it, the tones of the bells in Charlestown and Roxbury. The victims of the Boston Massacre were being carried to their burial in mournful procession through the main street of Boston. A week later Governor Hutchinson, who had succeeded Governor Bernard, convened the legislature at Cambridge against its will. Prefer- ring to be restored to "its ancient place," -the Court House in Boston, - the body proceeded to business only under protest. In the end of May a new legislature was convened at Cambridge, only anew to remonstrate against being dispossessed of its right to the Town-House in Boston.
By 1772 events were moving with rapidly ac- celerating speed towards the crisis, and Cambridge history remained fully within the confines of the current. In November steps were initiated in a Boston town-meeting, under the lead of Samuel Adams, to organize a system of "Committees of Correspondence " among the several towns of the province. Cambridge joined promptly and heartily in the movement, and in town-meeting, on the 14th of December, despite a protest from the mod- erator, the cautious William Brattle, elected as its committee of correspondence Captain Samuel Whittemore, Captain Ebenezer Stedman, Captain Ephraim Frost, Captain Eliphalet Robbins, Captain Thomas Gardner, Joseph Wellington, Abraham Watson, Jr., Nathaniel Sparhawk, and Samuel Thatcher, Jr. "It is with the greatest pleasure we now inform you," wrote this committee a few days later in a letter to the Boston committee, published in the Boston Gazette of December 28, " that we think the meeting was as full as it has been for the choice of a representative for a number of years, if not fuller ; and the people discovered a glorious spirit, like men determined to be free."
Of Cambridge's committee of correspondence,
1 Quincy.
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HLISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.
Captain Whittemore was a sturdy-minded and able-bodied farmer living in Menotomy, on the main road, near Alewife Brook. For sixteen years prior to 1762 he had been a selectman, and was a captain of dragoons in his early days. Captain Stedman was a selectman at or about this time. He lived on the old homestead, which had been in the family from nearly the planting of the town, between Winthrop, Holyoke, Dunster, and Mount Auburn streets, and had kept a tavern for many years on Mount Auburn Street. Mr. Frost and Mr. Wellington were apparently Menotomy farm- ers. Captain Robbins lived on the south side of the river. Captain Gardner is the Colonel Gardner already referred to. Mr. Watson was a tanner, living on the southwesterly side of North Avenue, near Cogswell Avenue. Mr. Sparhawk, a member of one of the oldest, largest, and best known fam- ilies of the town, was a seleetman. Mr. Thatcher was the son of a weaver, though it is not stated whether he followed his father's trade. He in- herited the family homestead on the easterly corner of Mount Auburn Street and Coolidge Avenue, afterwards sold to Governor Gerry; but during the latter part of his life resided on the westerly corner of Mount Auburn and Brighton streets. He was an active citizen. None of these men were under forty years of age at this time; five of them were above fifty ; one, Captain Whittemore was seventy-six; and Captain Stedman and Mr. Wellington were upwards of sixty.
On the 22d of November, 1773, the Cambridge committee of correspondence, in convention with committees from other towns in Faneuil Hall, Boston, joined its voiee with theirs in advising resistance to the landing of taxed teas; and on the 26th of November, at a very full meeting, the town adopted a series of ringing resolutions, of which the following are specimens sufficient to show the spirit : -
" That a virtuous and steady opposition to this ministe- rial plan of governing America is absolutely necessary to preserve even the shadow of liberty, and is a duty which every freeman in America owes to his country, to himself, and to his posterity.
" That the resolution lately come into by the East India Company, to send out their tea to America, subject to the payment of duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America.
"That it is the duty of every American to oppose this attempt.
" That whoever shall, directly or indirectly, countenance
this attempt, or in any wise ala or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending, the tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company, while it remains subject to the pay- ment of a duty here, is an enemy to America.
" That this town can no longer stand idle spcetators, but are ready, on the shortest notice, to join with the town of Boston and other towns, in any measure that may be thought proper, to deliver ourselves and posterity from slavery."
Within three weeks from this time the first entering cargo of tea was thrown overboard in Boston Harbor.
The enactment by parliament of the Boston Port Bill speedily followed, and elose upon this came an amendment of the charter of the province, trans- ferring the appointment of the council from the General Court to the king, forbidding the con- vening of town-meetings, except- for the choice of town officers, without the permission of the governor, with other measures of similar import. Of the new couneil, known as the Mandamus Council, because constituted by royal behest, two members, Samuel Danforth and Joseph Lee, were residents of Cambridge, as was also Thomas Oliver, the new lieutenant-governor. The last two names have appeared before in this record. Mr. Danforth had been a Cambridge schoolmaster in early life, and was now living on the easterly side of Dun- ster Street, between Harvard and Mount Auburn streets. He had been selectman and representa- tive by turns, and for more than thirty years in succession a member of the old council. He had also served successively as justice of the peace, register of probate, judge of probate, and judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was an unde- monstrative Royalist.
In August, 1774, Mr. William Brattle, who had been put under bonds of loyalty to the crown by being appointed major-general of the militia throughout the province, conveyed information to General Gage, who had assumed the civil general command in Boston, that the towns were removing their powder from the powder-house in Charlestown. This magazine, believed to have been originally a windmill, an ancient strneture even in Revolu- tionary times, stood on what was known as Quarry Hill, at the junetion of roads leading to Cambridge, Mystie, and Menotomy, in what is now the western part of Somerville. General Gage determined at once on removing whatever powder was left to Castle William, in the harbor. Early on the morn- ing of the 1st of September an expeditionary force embarked in boats at Long Wharf and proceeded
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to the spot by way of the Mystic River. A con- siderable stock of powder was secured, and a de- tachment of the troops, pushing on to Cambridge, took possession of a couple of field-pieces which had been sent there for the use of the militia. The news of the seizure produced an intense excitement. Of what followed a sufficiently full and clear account is preserved in the Boston Gazette. The entire county took the alarm, and by Thursday evening large numbers of men, armed and provisioned, were on their way to Cambridge. That same evening a noisy rabble, " mostly boys and negroes," sur- rounded the house of Mr. Jonathan Sewall, the attorney-general, on the corner of Brattle and Sparks streets, and, " being provoked by the firing of a gun from a window, they broke some glass, but did no more mischief."
The sound of this disturbance must have reached Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, farther down Brattle Street, on what is now Elmwood Avenue, and as early as eiglit o'clock the following morning (Fri- day) he was on his way to Boston to carry tidings to General Gage of " the true state of matters and the business of the people." At the same time the Cambridge Committee of Correspondence, con- fronted with the spectacle on the Common of " some thousands " of men who had arrived during the night, sent an express to Charlestown and Boston, summoning the respective committees to Cambridge without delay. "When the first of the Boston committee came up, they found some thousands of people assembled round the court-house steps." The court-house occupied substantially the site of the present Lyceum Hall, on the western side of Harvard Square. The venerable Judge Danforth, who had just been appointed a Mandamus Coun- cillor, was in the midst of an address to the crowd, using the steps as a rostrum. He was now nearly seventy-seven. Referring to his advanced age, and to the fact that the greater part of his life had been spent in the public service, he expressed his regret at having incurred the censure of his fellow-citizens, but assured them that, in deference to their senti- ments, he had resigned his seat in the council, and that he would never thereafter accept any office " inconsistent with the charter-rights of lis coun- try "; in token of which he handed over a certifi- cate in writing, duly signed and attested. Judge Joseph Lee followed with a like declaration. The " body" then signified by a unanimous vote its " satisfaction " with the " declarations and resig- nations." It signified also its "abhorrence of
mobs, riots, and the destruction of private prop- erty." Colonel Phips, the High Sheriff of the county, residing at East Cambridge, next came forward, and defended himself for giving up the powder to the soldiery the day before, for which act he was duly excused on the ground that he had acted in " conformity to his order from the com- mander-in-chief." At the same time he handed in his written declaration that he would execute no more precepts that should be sent him under the new acts of parliament altering the constitution of the province, and that he would recall all the venires he had sent out "under the new establishment."
It was now probably noon, or after, and Mr. Oliver had returned from Boston, and from his interview with General Gage. It became his turn to appear before the committee. Bcing botlı lieu- tenant-governor and president of the council, he called the attention of the committee to the double office he held, and the peculiar complications under which he thereby labored ; yet he went so far as to say that if the whole province, in congress or otherwise, should desire his resignation, it should be forthcoming. This proposition was received with favor, and the committee was on the point of communicating it to "the body," when an un- looked-for incident interrupted the enforced har- mony of the proceedings.
" Commissioner Hallowell 1 came through the town on his way to Boston. The sight of that obnoxious person so inflamed the people, that in a few minutes above one hundred and sixty horse- men were drawn up and proceeding in pursuit of him on the full gallop. Captain Gardner of Cam- bridge first began a parley with one of the foremost, which caused them to halt till he delivered his mind very fully in dissuasion of the pursuit, and was seconded by Mr. Deavens of Charlestown and Dr. Young of Boston. They generally observed that the object of the body's attention that day seemed to be the resignation of unconstitutional counsellors, and that it might introduce confusion into the proceedings of the day if anything else was brought upon the carpet till that important business was finished ; and in a little time the gentlemen dismounted their horses and returned to the body. " But Mr. Hallowell did not entirely escape, as one gentleman of a small stature pushed on before
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