Cooper--Davenport Tavern Wing

Within a few years afterwards, a desire was manifested to abandon this pleasant spot, which had attained a greatly increased marketable value, and to try the experiment of farming on a larger scale. Accordingly the city purchased, Aug. 7, 1849, of Samuel Smith and Spencer Cook, for $12,000, about thirtytwo acres of land, situated partly in the northwesterly corner of Cambridge and partly in the southwesterly corner of Somerville, and erected a stone Almshouse of the size and fashion then prevalent. The cost of the whole establishment was reported by a committee to be, - for the land, $12,000; for the house, $32,970.69; for fences, furniture, etc., $3,000; total, $47,970.69. The house was formally placed in the custody of the Overseers of the Poor, April 3, 1851, with much congratulatory speech-making, in presence of a large assembly of citizens, and the paupers were transferred to their new home. When this house was erected, its magnificent proportions were considered necessary for the accommodation of the large number of State paupers then under the charge of the city. Shortly afterwards, the Commonwealth adopted a new policy, erected State Almshouses, and withdrew its paupers from the care of cities and towns. Complaints were uttered, that the erection of so large a house for so few inmates was unnecessary, and involved an extravagant outlay of money. But such complaints are no longer heard ; partly, because the increase of city paupers has kept pace with the rapidly increasing population, until the house is nearly if not altogether filled ; and partly, because the citizens have become accustomed to expenditures so much more unnecessary and extravagant, that this has dwindled into comparative insignificance. The old Almshouse (together with the land) was sold, May 22, 1851, to Little & Brown, publishers and booksellers, for $24,000 ; they converted it into an establishment for the manufacture of books, and erected many additional buildings. Subsequently the larger part of the estate became the property of H. O. Houghton & Co., by whom it was further embellished and rendered famous as the seat of the Riverside Press.

Passage source: History of Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1630-1877. With a Genealogical Register, published 1877.

Eastward from Holyoke(then called Crooked) Street ran Back Lane, while Braintree Street, deflecting southeastward, took the name of Field Lane. These two lanes, meeting near the present junction of Bow and Arrow Streets, formed the "highway into the Neck." "The Neck," was a name for the territory now covered by Cambridgeport and East Cambridge. It was largelj' a salt marsh but the arable land was parceled out among the inhabitants in severalty. The western part was cut up into small portions of from one to three acres, but to the eastward of the site of Hancock Street it was granted in large tracts of from twenty to sixty acres. This region of the Neck was marked off and protected by a fence which ran - to use modem names - from Holyoke Place to Gore Hall, and thence to the line between Cambridge and Somerville at Line Street near Cambridge Street. "Thus we find," said John Fiske, "in the beginnings of Cambridge clear traces of the ancient English method of forming a town, with its threefold partition into town mark, arable mark, and common."

Passage source: A History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913, published 1913.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Cambridge City - 234,005 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.