Cambridge, Massachusetts

“ I was glad to hear them praise Sheridan; and glad, Mr. Editor, of another thing,—to hear them put Massachusetts first, and then Cambridge a little ahead of her! Didn’t I join hands with them there? If you at home love the old city as well as we whose various duties call us away, and will keep her up not merely to what she has been, but to what she can be, we will do all we can to prove ourselves citizens of no mean city, of whose doings she need not be ashamed. ”

“ Colonel Shays had hidden himself only too well.
The Massachusetts man began to think his errand a futile one, and prepared to turn back. But on a chance he rode down to Cambridge, just over the New York line. Cambridge was the nearest town to a number of small valley settlements in Vermont. He would ask there if any one had seen or heard of the man he was seeking. He knew that men from the remote outlying settlements came to Cambridge to do their trading. ”

“ We have seen that a Washington lies buried in the ancient chapel of the first Cambridge college, and we are to see further on that the impulse which set the “Mayflower” on her course proceeded from a Cantabrigian. The oldest of the ‘pilgrim fathers’ was a Peterhouse man, persecuted in England for his ‘Brownist’ opinions. There were many university men among the first settlers, but they were chiefly from the one university; and ‘Cambridge’ was the name which rose to their lips when they christened the town in the great state of Massachusetts where they first set foot. ”

“ Thursday last (the day of the reception of the gallant Thirty Eighth regiment, three full companies of which were recruited from this city) was the greatest day Cambridge has ever known. Every heart beat high with exultant joy and pride, for there was not a citizen, young or old, who did not have a special interest in the patriot soldiers whose return has made us all so happy in the repossession of our brave soldier sons, brothers, husbands, and friends. ”

“ Thus, in the memorable year in which our great university was born, did Cambridge become, in the true Greek sense of a much-abused word, the metropolis or 'mother town' of Hartford. The migration at once became strong in numbers. {497} During the past twelvemonth a score of ships had brought from England to Massachusetts more than 3,000 souls, and so great an accession made further movement easy. Hooker's pilgrims were soon followed by the Dorchester and Watertown congregations, and by the next May 800 people were living in Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. ”

“ Hastily packing knapsacks, the three companies were soon in line. The citizens of Cambridge had provided horse-cars to convey them to Boston; but, in the first flush of military spirit, they voted to march. The knapsacks, filled to overflowing with innumerable articles then considered essential to a soldier’s well-being, bore heavily on the backs of the new recruits; and without arms and equipments, and not fully uniformed, the column had not a very military aspect as it marched down Main Street. Dusty and tired, the halt in Cambridgeport was a welcome one ”

“ For several years it was uncertain whether Cambridge, Charlestown or Boston should be the capital of the colony, but in 1632 the General Court agreed “by general consent, that Boston is the fittest place for public meetings of any place in the Bay.” It rapidly became the wealthiest and most populous. Throughout the 17th century its history is so largely that of Massachusetts generally that they are inseparable. ”

“ I am by no means sure that it is wise to love the accustomed and familiar as much as I do, but it is pleasant and gives a unity to life which trying can’t accomplish.”
Cambridge is to-day the abode of as happy, comfortable and progressive a people as the world contains. It presents a unique example in this country of a city thoroughly well governed. It is now a quarter-century since partisanship has been tolerated in city affairs. ”

“ MASSACHUSETTS, Middlesex County, Cambridge, **Building at 259 Mount Auburn Street (Cambridge MRA) , 259 Mt. Auburn St. (06/30/83)
MASSACHUSETTS, Middlesex County, Cambridge, **Old Cambridge Historic District (Cambridge MRA) , Irregular pattern along Brattle St. (06/30/83)
MASSACHUSETTS, Middlesex County, Cambridge, **Avon Hill Historic District (Cambridge MRA) , Washington and Walnut Aves. and Agassiz, Humboldt, Arlington and Lancaster Sts. (06/30/83)
MASSACHUSETTS, Middlesex County, Cambridge, **Cambridge Common Historic District Amendment (Cambridge MRA) , Massachusetts Ave. ”

“ With these materials he embarked for America in 1638, but died a few days before the ship reached the shore. Cambridge was at that time the seat of the civil and ecclesiastical power in Massachusetts; and as the academy which subsequently grew into Cambridge University had then been commenced, it was determined by the leading men of the colony to establish the press there; and there it remained for sixty years under their control, and forty years before a press was established in any other colony. The first printer was Stephen Day, engaged in London by Mr. ”

“ At twelve o’clock we left Boston, though the heat was extreme, and rode over the wooden bridge which connects both towns, and is three thousand four hundred feet long. Cambridge is by no means compactly built, but occupies a large extent of ground. The houses are generally frame, a few of brick, and very few entirely of granite; they are however painted with bright colours and are very pleasing to the eye. Every house has a garden. Many meadows, like those in England, are enclosed with three rails, lying one above the other; Indian corn is cultivated in the fields ”

“ Various long causeways over the wide expanse of Charles River where it spreads out to form the Back Bay, and passing in front of the newly filled-in West End, lead from Boston to the academic city of Cambridge. This populous city, best known from Harvard University, is beautifully situated on a plain, has important manufacturing industries, handsome public buildings, and a large number of elegant private residences in spacious grounds ornamented with fine old trees, shrubbery and flower-gardens. ”

“ It is only four miles out to Lowell’s, who lives on the other side of Cambridge, but we were obliged to pay five dollars for a carriage to get out there. We could get nothing but a great handsome family coach with two horses, and in that, accordingly, out we lumbered. Cambridge is a very pretty suburb of Boston, the centre point of it being Harvard College, consisting of four or five large blocks of red brick building and a stone chapel, standing in the midst of some fine trees. ”

“ A dam between East Cambridge and Boston, traversed by a roadway 150 ft. wide, was in the process of construction in 1907; and an extension of the Boston subway into Cambridge to the grounds of Harvard University, a distance of about 3 m., was projected. The city government is administered almost entirely under the state civil-service laws, Cambridge having been a leader in the adoption of its provisions. A non-partisan association for political reform did excellent work from 1890 to 1900, when it was superseded by a non-partisan party. ”

“ Historical Society, October 30, 1905: “But even a greater change than that from country village to suburban town has taken place here in Old Cambridge in the last seventy years. The people have changed. In my boyhood the population was practically all of New England origin, and in large proportion Cambridge-born, and inheritors of Old Cambridge traditions. The fruitful invasion of barbarians had not begun. The foreign-born people could be counted up on the fingers. ”

“ The river Grant or Cam (call it what you will) , running by Cambridge, will have its stream dried up by the draining of the Fens. Now, as Cambridge is concerned in its river, so that whole County, yea, this whole Kingdom, is concerned in Cambridge. No reason, therefore, that private men's particular profit should be preferred before an universal good, or good of an University. ”

“ Yet in spite of its municipal expansion and business enterprises, Cambridge is still pre-eminently the place where the lamp of learning is kept lighted. Though the college waxes great in numbers and its buildings multiply, and the jar of business invades the academic quiet, yet the purposes and habits of the scholar’s life still distinguish the community. ”

“ Cambridge is now a chief station on the Great Eastern line, and is also connected with the Great Northern, the London and the North-Western, and the Midland lines. A large market is held on Saturdays. The town has returned two members since the time of Edward I. It is a very ancient corporation, and under the Municipal Reform Act is governed by a mayor, ten aldermen, and thirty common councilmen The university, a corporation separate from the borough, also returns two members. ”

“ In 1846 there were but five cities in the United States with a population exceeding 100,000; New York had not yet reached half a million. To-day New York is approaching the two-million mark, three other cities [28] have passed the million, and not less than thirty have passed the hundred-thousand. During this half century the 13,000 of Cambridge have increased to more than 80,000. The Cambridge of to-day contains as many people as the Boston of sixty years ago.
The causes of this growth of Cambridge might be treated, had we space for it, under three heads. ”

“ This Bowling Green lies to the west of Trinity Chapel, and is one of the choicest gems of Cambridge, a gracious, walled oblong of turf, with a wooded terrace overlooking the river at its western end, and at the east, the lately discovered fourteenth century front of the College Bursary, once forming part of King's Hall. The privilege of entering this Paradise can only be attained under the escort of a Fellow. ”

“ Geographical and commercial importance of the city site—Map of the county a palimpsest—Glamour of the Fenland—Cambridge the gateway of East Anglia—The Roman roads—The Roman station—The Castle Hill—Stourbridge Fair—Cambridge a chief centre of English commerce.
ONE could wish perhaps that the story of Cambridge should begin, as so many good stories of men and cities have begun, in the antique realm of poetry and romance. ”

“ Out of the hard soil of the Puritan thought, out of the sterile rocks of the New England conscience, spring flowers of poetry. This story of the planting of Cambridge has—if I might linger on it—a wealth of dramatic interest, not indeed in its antiquity,—it is but a story of yesterday,—but in the human associations that belong to it and the patriotic memories it stirs. The Cambridge dust is eloquent of the long procession of saints and sages, scholars and poets, whose works and words have made the renown of the place. ”

“ It is the centre of a rich agricultural district, and has an extensive oyster-canning industry, and important manufactures of underwear and lumber. Settled in 1684, Cambridge was incorporated as a Colonial town early in the Eighteenth Century ”

“ Our city has grown because of its proximity to Boston; it has grown by reason of its flourishing manufactures; and it has grown with the growth of the University. That Cambridge should have shared in the general prosperity of this whole suburban region is but natural. But persons at a distance are apt to show surprise when we speak of it as a manufacturing city. ”

“ This is in part due to Oxford's situation on a great artery leading from the Metropolis to large centres of population in the west; while Cambridge, although it grew up on a Roman road of some importance, is on the verge of the wide fenlands of East Anglia, and, being thus situated off the trade-ways of England, has managed to preserve more of that genial and scholarly repose we would always wish to find in the centres of learning, than has the other university. ”

“ And that idle and useless young female, Alice, too, whom we shall have to feed and clothe!... Cambridge is all right for business in Boston. Living in Boston or Brookline, etc., would be as expensive as Newport if Harry or I stayed here, for we could not easily go home every day. ”

“ It is not for a moment suggested that the modern growth of the place is ideal, but what is new and unsightly is so placed that it does not interfere with the old and beautiful. The real Cambridge is so effectively girdled with greens and commons, and college grounds shaded with stately limes, elms, and chestnuts, that there are never any jarring backgrounds to destroy the sense of aloofness from the ugly and untidy elements of nineteenth-century individualism which are so often conspicuous at Oxford. ”

“ CAMBRIDGE Dr Caius’ ingenious contention that Cambridge was founded in 3538 B.C. by Cantaber, a Spanish prince, has never received the support which its audacity deserves. The town cannot pretend to so great an antiquity, nor is its Roman origin even certain. It stood in the middle of a country intersected by Roman lines of road; in no part of England are Roman and British remains more plentiful and more interesting. ”

“ It is a business centre for the prosperous farming region by which it is surrounded, and is a shipping point for oysters and fish; among its manufactures are canned fruits and vegetables, flour, hominy, phosphates, underwear and lumber. Cambridge was founded in 1684, received its present name in 1686, and was chartered as a city in 1900. ”

“ The seminary is now affiliated with Harvard University, though it remains independent and autonomous.
Cambridge is a typical New England city, built up in detached residences, with irregular streets pleasantly shaded, and a considerable wealth of historic and literary associations. There are many reminders of the long history of Harvard, and of the War of Independence. Cambridge was the site of the camp of the first American army, at the outbreak of the war, and from it went the detachment which intrenched on Bunker’s Hill. ”