USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77
53
St
St
51
Walker
Avon
Gray St
Bowdoin
Hurlbut
Garfield St
Park er
St
St
Shepard
St
Craigie
St
Garden
Chauncy St
Mellen
Ave
Everett
Follen
St
St
A ve
St
Phillips
St
40
I
38
37
10
16
Mt
5
15
12
4
3
2
14
St
0
St
32
Cambridge
Memorial
Eliot
Mt
St
Aub
urn
43
Bow St
Mill
St
CAMBRIDGE
St
Charles
TOUR
R
Ave
Grant St
D
S
Brattle
8
St
Jarvis
9
St
aterhouse
39
Mason
1
6
COMMON
Brattle
Holmes
Oxford
Frisbie Pl
Divinity Ave
University Rd
Peabodyo
St
17
St
St
St
Boylston
Quincy
Prescott
33
Broadway
AZ
Dr
Auburn
Kirkland
13
St
St
I
34
Massachusetts
PI
Hastings
Berkeley
St
Concord
St
Bond
Aye
St
Berkeley Pl
Madison St
52 Linnean
River view
36
191
Cambridge
in humbler fields, perfected flowerpots, the famous reversible collars, waterproof hats, and the first mechanical egg-beater. Call the roll of the industries today and Kendall Square will answer: Ink, machineries, and foundries; glass, rubber, food and cracker factories. Call the roll and North Cambridge and Cambridgeport will answer: Binderies, printeries, and paper boxes; wire cable, valves, and boilers.
Here it lies, crowded in between and around two great universities: a city of workers, most of whose thousands never even dreamed of going to college, many of whom never even completed high school; yet a city no less real than its intellectual other self, with no less lusty a heritage and no less potent and problematic a future.
FOOT TOUR 1 - 1.5 m.
SW. from Harvard Square on Brattle St .; R. from Brattle St.
I. The Brattle Mansion (open), 42 Brattle St., is a three-story, clap- boarded, gambrel-roofed house with dormer windows, shorn of much of its former glory, but otherwise well preserved as the home of the Cam-
CAMBRIDGE MAP INDEX
I. Brattle Mansion
2. Site of Village Smithy
3. Cock Horse Tearoom
4. Read House
5. Samuel Longfellow's Home
6. House that John Fiske Built
7. Belcher House
8. Craigie-Longfellow House
9. Longfellow Park
IO. Campus of Radcliffe College
II. Site of the Washington Elm
12. Christ Church
13. Old Town Burying Ground
14. First Parish Church
15. George Washington Memorial Gateway
16. Common
17. Wadsworth House
18. Harvard Yard
19. Chinese Student Memorial
20. Widener Library
2I. New Yard
22. University Hall
23. Statue of John Harvard
24. Massachusetts Hall
25. Harvard Hall
26. Hollis and Stoughton Halls
27. Holworthy Hall
28. Holden Chapel
29. Appleton Chapel
30. Robinson Hall
31. Sever Hall
32. Emerson Hall
33. Fogg Art Museum
34. Memorial Hall
35. Germanic Museum
36. Semitic Museum
37. Biological Laboratories
38. University Museum
39. Children's Museum of Cambridge
40. Harvard Law School
41. Site of the first Meeting House
42. Bishop's Palace
43. New Houses
44. Harvard Business School
51. Cambridge Observatory of Har- vard University
52. Botanic Garden of Harvard University
53. Cooper-Frost-Austin House
54. Site of Oliver Wendell Holmes' Birthplace
192
Main Street and Village Green
bridge Social Union. Built in 1727, it was one of the 18th century show houses of Cambridge.
Later it was the home of Margaret Fuller (1810-50), the most brilliant American woman of her day, a friend of Emerson and other transcen- dentalists, first editor of the Dial, author of 'Woman in the Nineteenth Century,' literary critic and teacher. Holmes, who went to grammar school with her, described Margaret Fuller as a queer child; and the urbane and customarily gallant Lowell went as far as to call her 'that dreadful old maid.' In her thirties, however, she married the Marquis D'Ossoli in Italy and bore him a son. On their return voyage to America she perished with him and the child in a shipwreck off New Jersey.
2. The Site of the Village Smithy immortalized by Longfellow is marked by a stone at the corner of Story St.
3. The Cock Horse Tearoom (open), 56 Brattle St., was built in 1811 as the home of Dexter Pratt, the village blacksmith ('The smith a mighty man was he'). The main house, to which have been added quaint and harmonious ells, is of two stories with brown clapboards and green blinds.
4. The Read House (private), 55 Brattle St., was built in 1725. It is a two-and-a-half-story yellow frame dwelling distinguished by a white doorway framed by wedge-shaped wood quoins. Though encroached upon by the business district, it maintains a front garden stretching back 60 feet from the sidewalk to the house.
5. Samuel Longfellow's Home (private), 76 Brattle St., is a two-and-a- half-story brown frame dwelling with a flat-roofed ell. Its one-time owner, brother of the famous poet, wrote several fine hymns still in general use.
6. The House that John Fiske Built (private), corner of Ash St., is a Victorian dwelling with a tower, which the eminent historian (1842-1901) was building at the time of his sudden death. An early champion of the then heretical theory of evolution, Fiske was not invited to teach at Harvard. After the University embraced the theory it still thought Fiske a little too 'popular' to adorn its faculty, but awarded him an honorary degree.
7. The Belcher House (private), 94 Brattle St., is an impressive mansion of yellow frame, with a mansard roof and white roof-rail. Having main entrances both east and west, it could easily be mistaken for a double house, and as a matter of fact the west end was constructed first - some experts say as early as 1635, because of its use of shell plaster in the chimney. The east end, a harmonious block, dates from 1700. Although the house has undergone alterations, it is still a dignified example of the more massive type of Colonial home.
8. The Craigie-Longfellow House (study and grounds open Sat. 2-4), 105 Brattle St., the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and now occupied by his grandson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, has a mellow prosperous dignity very characteristic of the poet himself. Built in 1759 by Major John Vassall, a Tory, the house is a three-story square yellow
193
Cambridge
clapboarded mansion with white Ionic pilasters, a white roof-rail, and yellow brick chimneys capped with ornamental hoods. Side piazzas, east and west, overlook wide lawns, and in front of the house a small formal park runs down almost to the Charles River.
This was one of the seven famous houses that made up Tory Row. When Major Vassall fled to Boston in 1774, General Washington made the house his headquarters. Martha Washington joined him in December, and on the sixth of January they celebrated their wedding anniversary here. Later the house was occupied by Dr. Andrew Craigie, who added the banquet hall behind the study and entertained lavishly. He died bankrupt, and his wife rented rooms in the front of the mansion.
Young Longfellow came here to lodge in 1837, in his second year of teaching at Harvard, and was installed in the second-floor front rooms at the right of the entrance. His study at that time had once been Washington's private chamber. In this historic atmosphere, the poet wrote 'Hyperion,' 'The Psalm of Life,' 'The Wreck of the Hesperus,' and other early poems. Here he brought his second bride, Frances Appleton of Boston, whose father gave them the house as a wedding present. In 1845 the poet's former study became the nursery, and the study was transferred to the right-hand front room on the lower floor, outside which in the hall, stands 'The Old Clock on the Stairs.'
Here in his later years were held the meetings of the Dante Club. At the Wednesday evening gatherings, to which Lowell, Norton, and other scholars and friends were invited, Longfellow read his translation of 'The Divine Comedy,' and welcomed suggestions for revision. The evenings always ended with a good supper, good wine and good conversation.
9. Longfellow Park, opposite the Craigie-Longfellow House, was named after the poet and later given to the city by his family and friends. At the lower end of the park stands a Memorial Monument by Daniel Chester French, embellished in bas-relief with figures of some of the poet's best known characters, including 'The Village Blacksmith,' 'Miles Standish,' 'Evangeline,' and 'Hiawatha.'
Retrace Brattle St .; L. from Brattle St. on Mason St.
IO. The Campus of Radcliffe College for women occupies a block bounded by Garden, Mason, James, and Brattle Sts. and Appian Way.
The architecture of the college buildings, like those of Harvard, derives from the Georgian; but the more modern of them are tempered with a strain of refinement - especially in interior work - which distinguishes and feminizes them. Unlike Harvard, where the architecture runs the full gamut from early Georgian through Victorian Gothic and Richard- sonian Romanesque to revived Colonial forms, Radcliffe has maintained a certain consistency of style.
Fay House, the Administration Building, is the oldest structure. It was built in 1807 by Nathaniel Ireland as a private home from, according to tradition, designs by Charles Bulfinch. Agassiz House and Bertram Hall were designed by the poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Library was designed by Winslow and Bige-
194
Main Street and Village Green
low, and Hemenway Hall, the gymnasium, was built in 1899 from designs by McKim, Mead, and White.
Alice Mary Longfellow Hall, completed in 1931, brought to her architects, Perry, Shaw, and Hepburn, award of the Parker medal. The design of this building, which is devoted to lecture halls, is based upon that of University Hall, a Harvard building designed by Bulfinch. Besides the base course of cut granite, a special brick of a pink salmon color was used in the structure to match that of Fay House.
R. from Mason St. on Garden St.
II. The Site of the Washington Elm, under which Washington took com- mand of the Continental Army in 1775, is marked by a circular bronze plaque, bordered by cobblestones.
12. Christ Church, designed by Peter Harrison and built in 1761, is the oldest church building in Cambridge, and was used in the Revolution as a barracks for the Colonial troops. The gray flush-board exterior and the small squat wooden tower, visibly leaning forward, and only relieved by small lunette windows at front and sides, are not particularly pre- possessing, though their humility has a certain charm; and they give little idea of the great beauty of the interior. It is, in fact, among the four or five best church interiors in or near Boston, and is a jewel of Georgian Colonial. The simplicity of the seven tall windows at each side, and the six white wooden columns in each of the side aisles, give it, though small, a great deal of dignity; and the mahogany-colored pew-backs add the necessary touch of warmth. An unusual feature is the presence of heavy two-piece slatted shutters inside the church, folded back so as partly to obscure the white wooden pilasters between the windows. These do much to enrich the whole effect of the interior, and to give it depth. The windows, of plain glass, are heavily muntined in the early Georgian manner. The fine crystal chandeliers were given in memory of Mrs. Francis Sayre, daughter of Woodrow Wilson. The tower holds the Harvard Chime, a set of thirteen bells given in 1860 by Harvard gradu- ates. The original organ loft remains, but the metal pipes of the original organ were melted into bullets during the Revolution.
13. The Old Town Burying Ground (open to visitors) lies adjacent between Christ Church and the First Parish Church and dates from 1636, the year Harvard College was founded. Here is buried Dexter Pratt, the ' Village Blacksmith.'
R. from Garden St. on Massachusetts Ave.
14. The First Parish Church (Unitarian) houses the oldest church or- ganization in Cambridge, dating from 1633. Among its early pastors was Thomas Hooker, who, disagreeing with some of the policies of the Massachusetts Bay clergy, quietly and peaceably led his flock to Hart- ford, Connecticut. The present building, a gray wooden edifice with a latticed belfry, was erected in 1833. Harvard College commencements were held here from 1833 to 1873, and a number of Harvard Presidents, including Dr. Eliot, were inaugurated here. Its most popular minister was the late Samuel McChord Crothers, genial wit and essayist, who after listening to the speeches at a certain Harvard Commencement re-
195
Cambridge
marked that he gathered that the world had been in great danger, but that all would now be well.
Retrace Massachusetts Ave.
15. The George Washington Memorial Gateway to the Common at the corner of Garden St. was dedicated on the sesquicentennial of Washing- ton's taking command of the Continental Army.
16. The Common was originally the common pasture and was called the 'cow common.' On it criminals were punished, and it was the scene of several executions.
FOOT TOUR 2
(Harvard University)
E. from Harvard Square on Massachusetts Ave.
17. The Wadsworth House (semi-private housing the Alumni Association), which stands at the edge of Harvard Yard opposite Holyoke St. was built in 1726. It is a typical yellow clapboarded Colonial house of two- and-a-half-stories, and is of considerable dignity. The ell is of brick; the roof gambrel, with dormers; green blinds set off the 24-paned windows on the lower floor. Harvard presidents, from Wadsworth to Leverett, lived here, and Washington stayed here briefly in 1775.
L. from Massachusetts Ave. into the Yard by the McKean Gate, the first gate E. of Wadsworth House.
18. The Harvard Yard, which is the university campus, is the original center of the College, and still keeps much of its Old World charm. Not unlike Lincoln's Inn Fields and Gray's Inn, in London, and roughly con- temporary with them, it shares much of their characteristic blending of Georgian stateliness and mellowed red brick. On the whole, the modern additions to the Yard have been tactfully adapted to their surroundings, with but a few exceptions, to be noted later. It may well be described as one of the most beautiful college campuses in America.
19. The Chinese Student Memorial is a granite shaft 10 feet high, carved with dragons at the top, its base resting on a dragon-headed mythical monster. An inscribed tablet explains in Chinese that it was presented at the Harvard Ter- centenary in 1936 by 1,000 Chinese alumni of the University.
20. The Widener Library (open Mon .- Fri. 8.45-10; Sat. 8.45-5.30), on the south side of the Yard, is a huge red-brick edifice which unfortunately somewhat dwarfs its surroundings, and has therefore been adversely criticized. A wide cascade of shallow stone steps leads up into the deep Corinthian portico, with its 12 lofty columns, the main floor being considerably above ground level. Designed by Horace Trumbauer and built in 1913-14, the Library is a memorial to Harry Elkins Widener, class of 1907, who was drowned with the sinking of the 'Titanic.' The much-marbled interior, at its worst in the pillared entrance hall, has been con- sidered too lavish to be quite in keeping with the general character of the college buildings. On the stairway above are John Singer Sargent's World War Murals.
196
Main Street and Village Green
The Treasure Room, reached from the southwest corner of the entrance hall, is allotted to such rare books and manuscripts as need special supervision. Here are a collection of the various editions of the 'Imitatio Christi,' a similar series of the issues of the 'Compleat Angler,' the 'George Herbert Collection,' given by George Herbert Palmer, and a remarkable theater collection. Among examples of fine printing is the collection of books designed and printed by Bruce Rogers. Also of interest is a case containing an approximate reproduction of the library of books bequeathed by John Harvard.
The Widener Memorial Room, on the first landing of the main stairway, entered between the two Sargent murals, contains a portrait of Widener and his own collec- tion of rare books, among them an almost unrivaled collection of Stevensoniana. This room, finished in carved English oak, is approached through an octagonal reception room executed in white Alabama marble.
The Poetry Room, on the third floor, west of the staircase, dedicated to George Edward Woodberry, contains the valuable Amy Lowell collection, especially interesting for its Keats manuscripts.
21. The New Yard, on which the Library faces, bounded on the west by University Hall, on the north by Appleton Chapel, and on the east by Sever Hall, was the scene of the tercentenary exercises in 1936.
22. University Hall, at the left, designed by Charles Bulfinch and built in 1813-15, is one of the most beautiful buildings in the Yard. Its gray Chelmsford granite body, white wooden pilasters and white chimneys, provides an excellent foil for the Georgian red brick which everywhere surrounds it. Particularly effective, in the unusual impression of lightness which they give, are the six tall round-topped windows of the second story which light the Faculty Room. Within is a flight of granite stairs, each step a single granite block, so designed that they appear to climb to the second floor unsupported. With its white wainscoting and pilasters, green-tinted walls, and the twelve tall windows with deep-paneled reveals, the Faculty Room is easily the handsomest room in the university. One regrets the presence of a good many indifferent portraits of Harvard worthies. To be noted, however, is the very fine portrait of Nicholas Boylston by John Singleton Copley, one of the painter's most brilliant works.
23. The Statue of John Harvard, which stands in front of University Hall, was done by Daniel Chester French in 1880, and is an imaginary likeness; no portrait of Harvard is known to exist.
24. Massachusetts Hall was erected in 1720 with funds granted by the Province of Massachusetts, and designed by John Leverett, then president of the college, is the oldest of all the Harvard buildings, and in recent years has been used as the archetype from which the style of the new buildings has been evolved. Standing opposite University Hall, but endlong to it, it plays a lesser part in the general impression of the Yard than the houses which face directly on the Yard. Simple in line, with gambrel roof, end-chimneys, and white roof-rail, the belt-courses of brick between the stories and the somewhat heavy woodwork of the windows (as in the thick muntins) give it an air of great solidity. It is this effect which has been sought, for the most part in the recent additions to Harvard - an earlier and heavier type of Georgian Colonial, with the emphasis on weight and simplicity.
25. Harvard Hall, to the North of Massachusetts Hall and parallel with it, built in 1766 from the design of Sir Francis Barnard, has been largely spoiled by later additions, in 1842 and 1870, but traces of the 18th century character may still be seen in the upstairs lecture rooms.
26. Hollis and Stoughton Halls, to the North, are almost identical twins, the former built in 1763 from the design of Colonel Thomas Dawes, the latter being frankly modeled after it. They are not quite identical, however, for Hollis has belt-courses between stories, and looks heavier than the more graceful Stoughton.
27. Holworthy Hall (1812), which closes the north end of the Yard, does most, along with University, Hollis, and Stoughton Halls, to give the Yard its character.
197
Cambridge
It was named for Sir Matthew Holworthy, a generous English benefactor of the college, and its architect, Loammi Baldwin, was a graduate of the college, class of 1800. The building is a very nearly perfect example of the essential unobtrusive- ness with which, in such groupings as this, the Georgian Colonial style makes its effect. Seen from any part of the Yard, with its simplicity, in which no detail, not even the admirable doorways with their stone trim and splayed steps, is con- spicuous, it affords the perfect counterfoil to University Hall, and the perfect end-piece for the finest part of the Yard. The brick work is very good without being quite as good as that of Hollis and Stoughton - both of the latter having a color of brick probably not to be matched in beauty today.
28. Holden Chapel (between Hollis and Stoughton) is a tiny building of which the most conspicuous feature is the huge coat of arms with elaborate mantling (much imitated in the new college Houses) which adorns the bright blue flush-board gable of the eastern end. But it is also the most complete small example of pure Georgian Colonial architecture to be seen in the Yard, and one of the finest in America. Built in 1744, its plans were probably drawn in London. Its anonymous architect set an example of purity which is now probably more intelligently appreciated than in his own day.
Recross the Yard and pass University Hall to the N.
29. Appleton Chapel or Memorial Church (open daily by the west door, 9-5), built in 1932 as a War Memorial for Harvard men, was designed by the firm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, who were also architects of the new Houses. It tries at one and the same time to oppose the mass of Widener to the south and the dead weight of Thayer Hall to the west, with a portico of heavy Doric columns directed toward each. A doubtful success, though admired by some, the building seems on the whole to be at odds with its surroundings, and not too well synthesized in itself: the needle-fine white spire appears much too elongated for so squat and massive a structure. Part of this effect is due to the excessive fatness of the wooden Doric columns, and to the fact also that the pediment above the south portico breaks the otherwise admirable long roof-line. The interior, very much in the Wren tradition, is carried out almost wholly in white, with white Colonial pews, Corin- thian columns, and pilasters between heavy-muntined rounded windows. The pulpit is of the Colonial wineglass design, and advanced into the body of the church.
At the right of the nave is the Memorial Room, which commemorates the 373 Harvard men who died in the World War. The pseudo-classic treatment, carried out in Italian travertine, is too opulent, and out of key with the rest of the church. The low-relief figures on the north wall, by Joseph Coletti, and the sculptured group by Malvina Hoffman do little to redeem it.
30. Robinson Hall, to the east, built in 1901 by McKim, Mead, and White, houses the Schools of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. The entrance is properly from the south, the side which faces Emerson, which, together with Sever and the Fogg Museum (across Quincy St.), forms what is known as Sever Quadrangle, one of the pleasantest quadrangles in the Yard, and the scene of the Harvard Commencements. The small brick columns which intersperse the windows of the second story, together with the wide shallow steps, set with urns before the door- way, and the sculptured plaques inlaid in the walls right and left of the door, com- bine to give an air of spaciousness to a small quadrangle which might easily have looked a little cramped.
31. Sever Hall (1880), a red-brick building which forms the west side of the Sever Quadrangle, was designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, famous for his adapta- tions of the Romanesque style. Not too fortunate a specimen, it was the first, and remains the most glaring, note of incongruity in an otherwise harmonious grouping of Georgian Colonial buildings. Of interest is the brick carving, comparatively rare, over the doors at front and back.
32. Emerson Hall (1905), designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott for the Philosophy Department, is a somewhat heavy building whose massive brick columns and pilasters, of Doric design, dominate Sever Quadrangle from the
198
Main Street and Village Green
south. Beyond this, in the southeast corner of the Yard, are the President's House (1912) (private), a brick Colonial house designed by Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, and the Dana-Palmer House (1820) (private), built by Thomas Foster. To the west of this, behind Widener, and somewhat cramped for room, is Wiggles- worth Hall (1931), which together with Straus Hall in the southwest corner of the Yard, and Lionel and Mower Halls in the northwest (1926-31), are the most recent additions to the Yard, showing on the whole a very skillful adaptation of the style of Massachusetts Hall.
Exit from the Yard by the SE. gate; L. from gate on Quincy St.
33. The Fogg Art Museum (open weekdays 9-5; free) is an admirably designed Georgian Colonial building of red brick in which function and appearance have been skillfully combined. It was built in 1927 from the designs of Charles A. Coolidge, with the co-operation of Henry R. Shepley and Meyric Rogers. In addition to its use for lectures and class-work, it houses an extremely good art collection. Noteworthy are two very fine Spanish sculptures in wood of the 13th century, a superb group of Copley portraits, some excellent Italian primitives, fine Tintorettos and El Grecos, and a very large collection of prints.
34. Memorial Hall (open Mon .- Fri., 9-5; Sat. 9-1), the one fantastic building in all the Harvard group, is an immense pile of red brick in Victorian Gothic style, with a gargoyled tower which is a landmark for miles. Dedicated as a memorial to Harvard men who died in defense of the Union in the Civil War, and built between 1870 and 1878 from the designs of Ware and Van Brunt, this remarkable building is fascinating if only as a monument in a style now wholly discredited. The Great Hall, at the west end, was formerly used as a dining-hall, and Sanders Theatre, the Auditorium at the east end, is now used for part of the Commence- ment exercises and for symphony concerts.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.