USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Old landmarks and historic fields of Middlesex > Part 18
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We are now trenching upon classic ground. We have passed the sites of the old parsonage of the first parish, built in 1670, and in which all the ministers, from Mr. Mitchell to Dr. Holmes, resided, taken down in 1843 ; the traditional Fellows' Orchard, on a corner of which now stands Gore Hall; the homes of Stephen Sewall, first Hancock Professor, and of the Professors Wigglesworth, long since demolished or removed, to find all these former landmarks included within the College grounds.
If the reader obeys our instincts he will not fail to turn aside and wend his way to the Library, erected in 1839 - 42, through the munificence of Governor Gore. Within the hall are the busts of many of
" Those dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns."
The cabinets of precious manuscripts, some of them going before the art of printing, and almost putting it to blush with their beautifully illuminated pages ; the alcoves, inscribed with 9*
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the benefactors' names, and garnered with the thoughts and deeds of centuries, - each a storehouse of many busy brains, and each contributing to the aggregate of human knowledge ; ___ all these seemed like so many ladened hives of human patience, industry, and, perchance, of ill-requited toil.
GORE HALL, 1873.
Here is your dainty fellow in rich binding, glittering in gold title, and swelling with importance, - a parvenu among books. You see it is but little consulted, - the verdict of condemna- tion. Here is a Body of Divinity, once belonging to Samuel Parris, first minister of Danvers, in whose family witchcraft had its beginning in 1692. His name is on the fly-leaf, the ink scarcely faded, while his bones have long since mouldered. Truly, we apprehend such bulky bodies must have sadly lacked soul ! Many of Hollis's books are on the shelves, beautifully bound, and stamped with the owner's opinions of their merits by placing the owl, his family emblem, upside down when he wished to express his disapproval.
Somehow we cannot take the book of an author, known
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or unknown, from its accustomed place without becoming as deeply contemplative as was ever Hamlet over the skull of Yorick, or without thinking that each sentence may have been distilled from an overworked, thought-compressed brain. But if one laborer faints and falls out of the ranks, twenty arise to take his place, and still the delvers in the mine follow the alluring vein, and still the warfare against ignorance goes on.
The library was originally deposited in Old Harvard, which was destroyed by fire on the 24th January, 1764, and with it the College library, consisting of about five thousand volumes of printed books and many invaluable manuscripts. The philosophical apparatus was also lost. This was a severe and irreparable blow to the College, for the books given by John Harvard, the founder, Sir Kenelm Digby, Sir John Maynard, Dr. Lightfoot, Dr. Gale, Bishop Berkely, and the first Thomas Hollis, together with the Greek and Hebrew types belonging to the College, perished in the flames. Only a single volume of the donation of Harvard remains from the fire. Its title is " Douname's Christian Warfare."
A picture of the library as it existed before this accident is given by a visitor to the College in 1750 :-
" The library is very large and well stored with books but much abused by frequent use. The repository of curiosities which was not over well stock'd. Saw 2 Human Skellitons a peice Neigro's hide tan'd &c. Hornes and bones of land and sea animals, fishes, skins of different animals stuff'd &c. The skull of a Famous Indian Warrior, where was also the moddell of the Boston Man of Warr of 40 Gunns compleatly rig'd &c."
We can only indulge in vain regrets that so many valuable collections relative to New England history have been swept away. The fire which destroyed Boston Town House in 1747 ; the mobs which pillaged the house of Governor Hutchin- son, and also the Admiralty archives ; the mutilation of the invaluable Prince library stored in the tower of the Old South, of the destruction of which Dr. Belknap related that he was a witness, and which was used from day to day to kindle
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the fires of the vandal soldiery ; the plunder of the Court of Common Pleas by the same lawless soldiery, - all have added to the havoc among our early chronicles, which the conflagra- tion at Harvard assisted to make a lamentably conspicuous funeral-pyre to learning.
After the fire the library was renewed by contributions, among the most valuable of which was the gift of a consider- able part of Governor Bernard's private library. John Han- cock was the donor, in 1772, of a large number of books, and also of a carpet for the floor and paper for the walls. The library and apparatus were packed up on the day before the battle of Bunker Hill, under the care of Samuel Phillips, assisted by Thompson, afterwards Count Rumford, and re- moved, first to Andover, and a part subsequently to Concord, to which place the government and many of the students had retired. Many of the books, however, were probably scattered in private hands, as we find President Langdon advertising for the return of the apparatus and library to Mr. Winthrop, the librarian, early in 1778.
Here are works on which the writers have expended a lifetime of patient research, and which are highly prized by scholars ; but their laborious composition has failed to meet such reward as would keep even the body and soul of an author together. And here are yet others that have struck the fickle chord of transient popular favor, requiting their makers with golden showers, and perhaps advancement to high places of honor. In our own day it is literary buffoonery that pays the best. Once master the secret how " to set the table in a roar," be it never so wisely, and we warrant you success. Perhaps it is because, as a people, we laugh too little that we are willing to pay so well for a little of the scanty wit and a good deal of the chalk and sawdust of the circus.
Among other treasures which the library contains is a copy of Eliot's Indian Bible, the first Bible printed on the continent of America, perhaps in the Indian College, certainly on Samuel Green's Cambridge press, though where this press was set up diligent inquiry has failed to enlighten us. In 1720, as we
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gather from an English authority, the press was kept either in Harvard or Stoughton, the only two buildings then existing.
Last, but not least, we have chanced on Father Rale's Dic- tionary of the Abenaquis, captured, with the priest's strong- box, at Norridgewock, in 1721. Sebastian Rale exercised great influence over the eastern Indians, among whom he re- sided after his coming to Canada in 1689. This influence, which was exerted on behalf of the French, by exciting the Indians to commit depredations upon the frontier settlements of the English, caused an attempt to be made to seize Rale at his house at Norridgewock by a party led by Colonel West- brook. The priest escaped, but his strong-box was taken, and in it were found the letters of M. de Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, which exhibited Rale in the light of a political agent.
This attempt was retaliated by the Indians, and Lovewell's War ensued. In 1724 Norridgewock was surprised and Rale killed, refusing, it is alleged, the quarter offered him. Rale was slain near a cross which he had erected near the middle of the village, and with him some Indians who endeavored to defend him. The father went boldly forth to meet his enemies, and died, like a martyr, at the foot of the cross. He was scalped, his chapel destroyed, and the plate and furniture of the altar, with the devotional flag, brought away as trophies. The strong- box passed into the possession of the family of Colonel West- brook, the commander of the Eastern forces. The story is harrowing, but true.
The guardian of this treasury of thought, John Langdon Sibley, has presided over it since 1856, with previous service as assistant for many years after his graduation in 1825. Him- self a scholar, and an author whose energies have been chiefly exerted in behalf of his Alma Mater, his long experience has made of him a living encyclopedia, with brain arranged in pigeon-holes and alcoves, and where the information accumu- lated for so many studious years is always at command, - not pressed and laid away to moulder in its living receptacle.
The idea of a secure depository for the College library origi- nated in an attempt, in April, 1829, to blow up Harvard Hall.
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Leaving the castellated granite Library, the first attempt at architectural display these precincts knew, we pass on to the ancient dwelling-place of the governors of the College, known as the President's House.
It is a venerable gambrel-roofed structure, of no mean con- sideration in its day, and certainly an object remarkable enough for its antiquated appearance, standing, as it does, solitary and alone, of all its companions that once stretched along the lane. A tall elm at its back, another at its front, droop over it lov- ingly and tenderly. These are all that remain of a number planted by President Willard, the exigencies of improvement having cut off a portion of the grounds in front, now turned into the street.
The house is of two stories, with a chimney at either end, and a straggling collection of buildings at its back, which the necessities of various occupants have called into being. It was literally the habitation of the presidents of the College for a hundred and twenty years, beginning with Benjamin Wads- worth, minister of the First Church in Boston, and son of the old Indian fighter, for whom it was erected. The entry from the President's MS. book, in the College Library, which follows, fixes the date with precision : -
" The President's House to dwell in was raised May 24, 1726. No life was lost nor person hurt in raising it ; thanks be to God for his preserving goodness. In ye evening those who raised ye House, had a supper in y· Hall ; after wch we sang ye first stave or staff in V° 127 Psalm.
" 27 Oct. 1726. This night some of our family lodged at y. New House built for ye President; Nov. 4 at night was ye first time yt my wife and I lodg'd there. The house was not half finished within."
Miss Eliza Susan Quincy, daughter of President Quincy, who resided in this house for sixteen years, has lately given the annexed description of the old mansion .* She says : -
" My sketch represents the house as Washington saw it, except that there were only two windows on each side the porch in the
* Charles Deane, in Mass. Hist. Society's Proceedings.
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lowest story. The enlargement of the dining and drawing rooms, which added a third, was subsequently made under the direction of Treasurer Storer, as his daughter informed me. The room in the rear of the drawing-room, on the right hand as you enter, was the President's study, until the presidency of Webber, when the end of the house was added, with a kitchen and chamber and dressing-room, very commodiously arranged, I was told, under the direction of Mrs. Webber. The brick building was built at the same time for the President's study and Freshman's room beneath it, and for the preservation of the college manuscripts. I went over the house with my father and mother and President Kirkland, soon after his acces- sion. As there were no regular records kept during his presidency of eighteen years, he did not add much to the manuscripts. We then little imagined that we should be the next occupants of the mansion, should repair and arrange the house under Mrs. Quincy's direction, and reside in it sixteen very happy years. I regret its present dilapidated state, and rejoice, in view of ' the new departure,' as it is termed, that I sketched the antiquities and old mansions of Old Cambridge."
The brick building alluded to, and which now joins the ex- treme rear additions, formerly stood on the left-hand side of the mansion as the spectator faces it, and communicated with it. This part was built under the supervision of President Webber, and was, in 1871, removed to its present situation. It is now the office of the College Steward.
Probably no private mansion in America has seen so many illustrious personages under its roof-tree as the President's House. Besides its occu- pancy by Wadsworth, Holyoke, Locke, Langdon, Willard, Webber, Kirkland, Quincy, and Everett, the royal governors have assembled there on successive anniver- saries, and no distinguished traveller passed its door without paying his respects to the MAUDET PATIENTIA DURIS administration for the time being. No doubt the eccentric Dr. Witherspoon broke WILLARD. bread at the table of Holyoke when he visited Boston in the memorable year 1768.
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The office of president, though for a long time, either through policy or parsimony, a dependent one, was always an eminent mark of distinction, and its possessor was regarded - outside the College walls at least, if not always within - with venera- tion and respect. The earlier incumbents were men who had acquired great influence for their piety and learning as teachers of the people, whose spiritual and temporal wants were in those primitive days equally under guardianship.
Chauncy, who is styled in the " Magnalia " the Cadmus Americana, and who rose at four in the morning, summer and winter; In- crease Mather, whose dynasty embraced a period of great importance in the political history of the Colony ; Wadsworth, in whose time the Church of England made its CHAUNCY. ineffectual effort to obtain an entrance into the government ; Holyoke, whose term is memorable as the longest of the series ; and Langdon, who left his office at the dictation of a cabal of students, - all are honored names, and part of the history of their times.
Upon the coming of General Washington to Cambridge the Provincial Congress assigned the President's House for his use, not because it was the best by many the place could afford, but probably because it was the only one then unoccupied by the provincial forces or their military adjuncts. The house not being in readiness when the General arrived, on the 2d of July, 1775, he availed himself, temporarily, of another situation, and within a week indicated his preference for the Vassall House, which he had not passed down the old Watertown road with- out observing. There is no conclusive evidence that the Gen- eral ever occupied the President's House, and the absence of any tradition involves it in doubt.
Washington made a passing visit to Cambridge in 1789, and was welcomed on behalf of the governors of the College by President Willard. He was then accompanied by Tobias Lear, who had owed his confidential position as Washington's secre- tary to the good offices of Willard.
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With President Willard departed the day of big wigs at the President's House. He always appeared abroad in the full-bot- tomed white periwig sanctioned by the custom of the times ; this was exchanged in the study for a velvet cap, such as adorn the heads of some of the portraits in Old Massachusetts Hall.
It is related that when Congress was sitting in New York, during Washington's term, President Willard visited that place. It chanced that he wore his full-bottomed wig, which attracted so great a crowd when he walked about as to occasion on his part apprehensions of ill usage from the mob. With what satis- faction he must have shaken off the dust of that barbarous city, where the sight of his periwig aroused a curiosity akin to that exhibited by the Goths when they beheld the long white beards of the Roman senators.
In Willard's time a club of gentlemen were accustomed to assemble at his house on certain evenings, of which, besides the President and resident professors, Judge Dana, Governor Gerry, Mr. Craigie, Mr. Gannett, and others, were members. Bachelors were excluded, which caused Judge Winthrop, the former libra- rian and one of the tabooed, to say they met to talk over their grievances.
President Kirkland, an elegant scholar and most fascinating companion, was noted for his pithy sayings as well as for his wit. On one occasion an ambitious young fellow, who had a pretty good opinion of himself, having asked the Doctor at what age a man would be justified in becoming an author, replied, "Wait until you are forty ; after that you will never print anything." To a student who observed in his presence that dress of itself was of little consequence, he made this shrewd remark : " There are many things which there is no particular merit in doing, but which there is positive demerit in leaving undone."
The rare abilities of Dr. Kirkland make it a never-failing re- gret that he was by nature indolent, and indisposed to call into action the full powers of his mind, or to bring forward his reserves of information except in brilliant conversation. He talked apparently without effort, and could unite the merest
N
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minutes of a discourse with little or no preparation and with marvellous address.
President Kirkland is described as of middling stature, portly, with fair complexion, a round and comely face, with blue eyes, a small mouth, regular and beautiful teeth, and a countenance noble, frank, and intelligent.
Josiah Quincy, after an active political life, became President in 1849. During his occupancy of the chair Gore Hall was built, and the security of the library, which had given him much solicitude, was assured against ordinary contingencies. The sixteen years of Mr. Quincy's administration were a period of great usefulness and prosperity to the College. In 1840 the President published his History of Harvard University, - a work of much value, in which he was assisted by his daughter, Eliza, a lady whose culture and tastes eminently qualified her for the work.
Mr. Everett's excessive sensitiveness contributed to make his contact with so many young and turbulent spirits at times dis- quieting. His elegant, classic diction and superb manner have gained for him an enviable name as an orator. He would never, if possible, speak extemporaneously, but carefully prepared and committed his addresses. His mind was quick to grasp any circumstance and turn it to account ; the simile of a drop of water, used by him with much force, occurred to him, it is said, through the dropping from a leak over his head while perform- ing his morning ablutions. Similarly, while once on his way to deliver an address at Williams College, he happened to pass the night at Stockbridge, where a gentleman exhibited to him the watch of Baron Dieskau. The next day this little relic furnished the theme for a beautiful passage, into which the de- feat of Dieskau and the death of Colonel Williams, on the same field, were effectively interwoven.
Rev. Sydney Smith, with whom Mr. Everett passed some time in Somersetshire, thus spoke of him :-
" He made upon us the same impression he appears to make uni- versally in this country. We thought him (a character which the English always receive with affectionate regard) an amiable Ameri-
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can, republican without rudeness, and accomplished without ostenta- tion. 'If I had known that gentleman five years ago (said one of my guests), I should have been deep in the American funds ; and, as it is, I think at times that I see nineteen or twenty shillings in the pound in his face.' "
Increase Mather was the first person to receive the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard. When he became President he refused to accede to the requirement that the President should reside at Cambridge, and finally resigned rather than comply with it. Vice-President Willard is the only person who has administered the affairs of the College under that title, which was assumed to evade the rule of residence, and to enable him to continue his functions as pastor of the Old South, Boston.
It was Increase Mather, then (1700) President, who ordered Robert Calef's " wicked book "-a satire on witchcraft, en- titled " More Wonders of the Invisible World," and printed in London - burnt in the College yard, and the members of the reverend Doctor's church (The Old North) published a defence of their pastors, Increase and Cotton Mather, called " Truth will come off Conqueror." This publication proved even a greater satire than Calef's, as the authors were erelong but too glad to disavow all sympathy with the wretched superstition.
The President's chair, an ancient relic, used in the College, from an indefinite time, for conferring degrees, is preserved in Gore Hall. Report represents it to have been brought to the College during the presidency of Holyoke as the gift of Rev. Ebenezer Turell. It has a triangular seat, and belongs to the earliest specimens of our ancestors' domestic furniture.
In Dunster Street we salute the name of the first President of the College, whose habitation, it is conjectured, stood near. It was at first called Water Street, and in it were situated the first church erected in Newtown, which stood on the west side, a little south of the intersection of Mount Auburn Street, upon land formerly owned by Thaddeus M. Harris, and also the house of Thomas Dudley, the deputy of Governor Winthrop, whose extravagance in ornamenting his habitation with a wain-
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scot made of clapboards the latter reproved. At the foot of Water Street was the old ferry by which communication was had with the opposite shore.
The old meeting-house stood till about 1650, when the town took order for building a new church on the Watch House Hill, of which presently. A vote of the town in the year mentioned directs the repair of the old house " with a 4 square roofe and covered with shingle." The new house was to be forty foot square, covered in the same manner as was directed for the old, the repair of which was discontinued, and the land belonging to it sold in 1651.
Dudley, the tough old soldier of Henri Quatre, with whom he had fought at the siege of Amiens in 1597, with a captain's commission from Queen Bess, finally settled in Roxbury, and left a name that has been honored in his descendants. His house stood on the west side of Water Street, near its southern termination at Marsh Lane. Governor Belcher says : " It was wrote of him,
' Here lies Thomas Dudley that trusty old stud, A bargain 's a bargain and must be made good.'"
A brief glance at the topography of our surroundings will enable the reader to understand in what way the Englishmen laid out what they intended for their capital town. They first reserved a square for a market-place, after the manner of the old English towns. This is the present Market Square, upon which the College grounds abut, and in its midst was perhaps placed a central milliarium, which marked the home points of the converging roads. The plain, as level as a calm sea, ad- mitted the laying out of the town in squares, the streets cross- ing each other at right angles. Between the market-place and the river were erected the principal houses of the settlement, and some of the oldest now standing in Cambridge will be found in this locality.
We have noticed the ferry. About 1660 this was super- seded by "the great bridge," rebuilt in 1690, and standing at the Revolution in its present situation at the foot of Brighton
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Street. Over this bridge came Earl Percy with his reinforce- ment on that eventful morning in April which dissolved the British empire in America. The people, having notice of his approach, removed the " leaves " or flooring of the bridge, but, as they were not conveyed to any distance, they were soon found and replaced by the Earl's troops. A draw was made in the bridge at Washington's request in 1775.
The street leading from the market-place to the bridge was the principal in the town for a long period, it being in the direct route of travel from Boston via Roxbury and Little Cam- bridge (Brighton) to what is now Lexington, and from the capital again by Charlestown Ferry to the Colleges, and thence by the bridge to Brookline and the southward.
It was intended to make Newtown a fortified place, and a levy was made on the several towns for this purpose. Rev. Abiel Holmes, writing in 1800, says : --
" This fortification was actually made, and the fosse which was then dug around the town is, in some places, visible to this day. 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 constitutes a part of the cultivated grounds of Mr. Nathaniel Jarvis, beyond which it cannot be distinctly traced. It enclosed above one thousand acres."
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