Cambridge City (part 8 of 15)

The seating plan of the meeting-house still exists. It was the custom to assign the seats in order of dignity. The best pews were those at the right and left of the door against the wall facing the pulpit. These were assigned to Lieutenant-Governor Phips, General Brattle, President Holyoke, Colonel Vassall, Professor Winthrop, Deacon Sparhawk and the minister's family. The other wall pews were occupied by the Wigglesworths, Boardmans, Danas, Hastings, Trowbridges, Gardners, Bradishes and Foxcrofts.

Some of the names connected with the building of this meeting-house indicate that a new element had come into the Hfe of Cambridge with the advent of a number of families of wealth and social standing who elected to make their homes in the village. The first of these was the family of Spencer Phips, who was colonel of the militia, a councillor, and from 1732 to 1757 Lieutenant-Governor. He was the son of Dr. David Bennett of Rowley, and was at an early age adopted by Sir William Phips, the bluff, illiterate Governor of the Province, whose wife was the sister of Mrs. Bennett. Young Bennett took the name of Phips, graduated at Harvard in 1703, and inherited the Governor's ample estate. In 170(3 he bought a tract of three hundred acres covering almost all of what is now East Cambridge and developed there a large farm. In 1714 he bought the fine place at the eastern end of Cambridge village which had been General Gookin's homestead and more lately had been the residence of Dr. James Oliver. The house is still standing at Arrow and Bow Streets, names which not only describe the position of the streets toward each other, but also recall the fact that the gate to Governor Phips's estate was guarded by the wooden figures of two Indians which were a source of wonder and sometimes of terror to the village children. Spencer Phips died in 1757, and the estate came to his son, David Phips, who was colonel of the militia and for ten years High Sheriff of Middlesex. The four daughters of Spencer properties on Brattle Street which continue to be'known by the Vassall name, but which are more closely identified with the brother and the son, Henry Vassall and John Vassall the younger, than with the original purchaser who died in 1747. Mary Phips in 175-1 married Richard Lechmere, and the next year the youngest daughter, Rebecca Phips, married Joseph Lee. The Lechmeres acquired the estate which is now the Brewster place at the comer of Brattle and Sparks Streets, and the Lees established themselves just beyond

Meeting-House In College Yard Harvard Square In 1830

Phips married men of high standing and abtmdant means, and all of them continued to live in Cambridge. Sarah, the eldest, married, in 1731, Andrew Boardman, who was, as we have seen, for twenty-two years the representative of the town in the General Court, and for seventeen years a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. They lived in the B_oardman homestead on the south side of Harvard Square. Elizabeth married Colonel John Vassall, in 1734, and they bought the in the fine old mansion which is still standing. Henry Vassall was the brother of the elder John Vassall and bought of him the mansion still standing on the south side of Brattle Street near Ash Street. He married the daughter of Colonel Isaac Royall, who, like the father of the two Vassalls, made a fortune in the West Indies, and then came to live in New England, and to educate his children there. John Vassall, the younger, built the stately house on the north side of Brattle Street, which.

A History Of Cambridge, Massachusetts

with the exception of Mount Vernon, is the most famous dwelUng house in America, for it was Washington's headquarters and afterwards the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

These families were, for the most part, members of the Church of England, and to provide for them a spiritual home, an Episcopal church was organized in 1759, and Christ Church built. The plans were furnished by Peter Harrison of Newport, R.I., the architect of the Redwood Library of that city, and of King's Chapel in Boston; and, despite the material used, it was deemed "a model of beauty of proportion." It was opened for worship on October 15th, 1761, and for thirteen or fourteen years its straight-back, square pews were occupied by the loyal wealth and aristocracy of Cambridge. The rector expounded the doctrines of Church and State to his flock from a cumbrous wineglass pulpit, which then stood in front of the chancel and at the head of the middle aisle; and the wardens sat at the other end of the church, their rods of office warning unruly attendants to beware of constituted authority; while an excellent London organ, built by Snetzler, gave forth chant and anthem from the loft overhead.

The first rector of Christ Church was the Rev. East Apthorp, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, an earnest and scholarly man, who came to Cambridge in 1761, with an evident purpose of making it his permanent home, for he built himself the large mansion which is still standing between Linden and Plympton Streets. The good rector was suspected of aspiring to be the Bishop of New England, and his mansion was called in derision the Bishop's Palace. In 1764, he gave up his post and returned to England, where he had a prosperous career- He was succeeded by the Rev. Winwood Serjeant.

Among the Cambridge families of the Christ Church congregation were the Lechmeres, the Lees, the Olivers, the Ruggleses, the Phipses, the Sewalls, the Borlands, the Inmans and the Vassalls. Mr. Robert Temple and his accomplished wife and lovely daughters drove over every Sunday from Ten Hills Farm in Medford.

From Medford also came Colonel Isaac Royall, whose daughter had married Henry Vassall. Many of these families, as has been seen, were connected by relationship and marriage. Mrs. Lee, Mrs. Lechmere and Mrs. John Vassall the elder, were sisters of Colonel David Phips, and daughters of Lieutenant-Governor Spencer Phips. The "pretty, little, dapper man. Colonel Oliver," as Reverend Mr. Serjeant used to call in sport the sometime lieutenantgovernor, married a sister of Colonel John Vassall the younger, and Colonel Vassall married the sister of Colonel Oliver. Mrs. Ruggles and Mrs. Borland were the sisters of Henry and John Vassall. These families were on very intimate terms with one another and scarcely a day passed that did not bring them together for social pleasures. All of them were loyalists and the sad fate that overtook them in the Revolutionary upheaval must be described later.

Another new element came into Cambridge with the advent of several distinguished lawyers. The first generation had got along without lawyers, and the local courts held by the magistrates had sufficed for the ends of justice. In the more complicated life of the seventeenth century the provincial and county courts became more important, and a generation of distinguished lawyers laid the foundations of the pre-eminence of the Massachusetts bar. Three of these men were the sons of old Cambridge families.

In the latter part of the seventeenth century Jonathan Remington kept the Blue Anchor Tavern, and served as selectman of Cambridge, and as town clerk. He was a man of property and much engaged in public affairs, and his son, Jonathan Remington, Jr., became the first legal authority of his time. He graduated at Harvard in 1696 and then served as a tutor. He began the practice of law in Cambridge in 1710, was a selectman for several years, for twelve years a representative in the General Court, for eleven years a counsellor, and then until his death a judge of the Supreme Court. His daughter, Martha Remington, in 1737 married Edmund Trowbridge, a Cambridge boy and the grandson of Colonel Edward Goffe. Judge Trowbridge in turn became attorney- general of the Province and a justice of the Supreme Court. His sister, Lydia Trowbridge, married in 1737 Richard Dana, who was also a counsellor and barrister at law, and the father of Francis Dana, the most distinguished citizen of Cambridge in the period just after the Revolution. The Danas established themselves on what is now known as Dana Hill and built a homestead on the northwest corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Dana Street. Francis Dana was a delegate to the Continental Congress, a presidential elector in 1789, Ambassador to Russia, and finally Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.

A brief description of the village as it appeared just before the Revolution will serve to show how its boundaries had been enlarged. The center was at Harvard Square, which was really the southern end of the Common which stretched, a dusty, treeless waste, to the north, and was crossed by the Menotomy Road (now Massachusetts Avenue) and by other cart tracks, which ultimately became Garden, Mason and Waterhouse Streets and Concord Avenue. On the east side of the Square stood the meeting-house, on the south side were the Boardman house and various smaller houses, on the west was the little court house which had been built out of the timbers taken out of the old meeting-house destroyed in 1756, and northward, where the Common began to widen, were the graveyard and Christ Church. South of the Square the original village retained its rectangular plan and was the most thickly settled part of the town. The highway to Boston (now Boylston Street) ran down to the causeway and the Great Bridge, and Ebenezer Bradish's Tavern stood by the old market-place ready to entertain the wayfarer. Across the market-place (now Winthrop Square) was the jail, which was cared for by Ebenezer Bradish's brother, Isaac Bradish, who was also the blacksmith with a smithy next the jail on Winthrop Street. Just to the east of the Boston Road, on what is now Mt. Auburn Street, was the tavern of Captain Ebenezer Stedman, and to the west, across what is now Brattle Square, were the house and the extensive grounds of General Brattle.

Going eastward from the meeting-house along what is now Massachusetts Avenue, one came first, on the left, to the President's house, which is still standing and known as Wadsworth House. Next to it stood Professor Wiggles worth's house, which was the old original Hooker-Shepard house made over at the time of President Leverett's inauguration in 1707. The Wigglesworths were successively the Hollis Professors of Divinity, and the proof of their scholarship could be seen in a hole worn through the floor by their feet under the desk of the room used, by father and son, as a study. Next to this interesting house stood the old parsonage, the residence successively of Dr. Urian Oakes, of Rev. Nathaniel Gookin, Rev. William Brattle and Dr. Nathaniel Appleton. This venerable house underwent occasional repairs which materially altered its appearance and freshened its life. It was finally removed in 1843 and the Wigglesworth house was taken down a year later. On the right-hand side of the road opposite the parsonage stood the "Bishop's Palace," which faced south. After Mr. Apthorp's departure it had been bought by Mr. John Borland, who had married a sister of Henry Vassall. The Borlands had added a third story to the mansion, it is said, for the accommodation of their slaves, but as they had twelve children it is more probable that they needed the extra rooms for their large family. Beyond was the estate of Colonel David Phips, where he and his wife and seven children entertained with princely hospitality.

Continuing eastward, over what was then known as Butler's Hill, one passed Mr. Dana's house, set in the midst of orchards and cultivated grounds, and then came to Mr. Ralph Inman's estate, which was the last house in the direction of Boston and stood just back of where the City Hall now is. Mr. Inman was another of the Tory aristocrats of the town, and a member of Christ Church. Mrs. Inman was a remarkable woman. She was a staunch Scotch woman, and had the energy of character common to that people. She had crossed the ocean many times in company with her brother, Mr. James Murray, and she had been three times married. When she was Elizabeth Murray she carried on a business in a shop at the comer of Queen Street and Comhill in Boston, and made for herself a comfortable fortune. Her first husband, Mr. Smith, also left her his whole estate, so that she had all the luxuries of wealth. Her education and social advantages united to make her a most delightful companion, and one whose presence was eagerly sought. In spite of her Tory connections she remained in Cambridge during the Revolutionary troubles, and owing to her acquaintance with General Putnam, Major Mifflin and other American officers, was secured from molestation. On the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, General Putnam deputed his son to remain in Cambridge to guard Mrs. Imnan - a proof of the high regard he entertained for her.

Hollis Hall, and then, across the Charlestown road, which is now Kirkland Street, came to a gambrel-roofed house which shielded itself behind a row of Lombardy poplars. This was the house of Jonathan Hastings, the college steward, and was famous later as the headquarters of the Committee of Safety, and of General Ward, and still later, as the birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Northeast of the Hastings house lived Mr. Moses Richardson, one of the Cambridge men who were killed in the Lexington battle, and northeastward stretched the acres of the Foxcroft estate. Along the Menotomy road were several houses, from that of Captain Walton of the militia company, to the Frost house on what is now Linnaean Street, which practically marked the northern end of the village.

into being. Beyond the Brattle estate, on either side of the road to Watertown, now Brattle Street, were the estates of Mrs. Henry Vassal on the left and John Vassal on the right. Next, was the residence which Richard Lechmere had just sold to Judge Jonathan Sewall, the Attorney-General of the Province. The Phips farm, which is now East Cambridge, had passed into the hands of Mr. Lechmere on his marriage with Miss Phips, and later became known as Lechmere 's Point. The boundaries of the Lechmere-Sewall estate extended to Judge Joseph Lee's, a house still standing almost unchanged. Judge Lee had bought it in 1758 of the widow of Cornelius Waldo. The frame of the house was brought from England, not because Massachusetts had no trees, but because it was feared that capable w o r k m e n could not be found to put together a house that ^" H'J^'SE would suit the fastidious taste of its owner. Next above was the Fayerweather house, which was built in 1745 by Captain George Ruggles, another wealthy West Indian planter, who had married another of the sisters of Henry Vassall. Later he became embarrassed, and in 1774 the property came to Thomas Fayerweather, whose wife was the daughter of the College treasurer, Thomas Hubbard. The last house was the mansion of Thomas Oliver, who built it about 1760, and which is famous as Elmwood, the residence later of Elbridge Gerry, vice-president of the United States; of Rev. Charles Lowell of the West Church in Boston; and the birthplace and home of James Russell Lowell. All of these seven houses of the "Tory Row," with the exception of the Lechmere-Sewall house, are still standing along Brattle Street, and make it not only one of the most beautiful, but also one of the most historic streets in America.

THE time had now come when Massachusetts was to cease to be either colony or province and to become a sovereign commonwealth. It was not a sudden change. The traditions and training of the New England people had long been preparing them for selfgoverning independency. They were of the same stock as the Englishmen who defied the royal power at Naseby and Marston Moor, who sent Charles Stuart to the block and drove his son James across the narrow seas. They were the sons of men and women who had bought at a great price the right to be free, and they were ready to complete the purchase. In their churches these descendants of the Puritans had been taught the' authority of conscience, the sovereignty of dutj^ the demands of justice and right. They had been trained to choose their own rulers in church and state, and the spirit of liberty had become a force which could not be resisted.

Long before the outbreak of the Revolution there was great and widespread discontent in America over the ways in which American affairs were managed by the British government and its representatives. From his succession, in 1760, King George the Third, with all the intensity of a narrow mind, had striven to impose his personal will upon his ministers. The emphasis upon the prerogative of a dull and arbitrary king was reflected in all the departments of the government, but it particularly influenced the colonial policies. When America began to resist, the king's temperamental obstinacy was aroused and the stmggle with the colonies thus became a part of the struggle between popular and autocratic principles of government in England itself. Three lines of policy were adopted by the Grenville ministry which grew to be the direct causes of the American Revolution. The first was the rigid execution of that system of mediaeval monopolies known as the Acts of Trade; the second was the taxation of the colonies for

There is scarcely a proceeding in the preliminary struggles of the Revolution which is not illustrated by the votes of the Cambridge town meeting. It is true that the life of the town was not especially disturbed by the acts of the British Parliament however arbitrary, and that the local interests of Cambridge were not seriousl}- impaired by the enforcement of the navigation acts; but the attitude of the citizens of the town in opposition to the royal measures for raising revenue by taxing the colonies was bold and unyielding. In town meeting in October, 1765, they declared the Stamp Act to be an infraction of their rights, demanded its immediate repeal and instructed their representatives to do nothing which should aid its operation.

The riotous outbreak in Boston, which resulted in the destruction of Lieutenant- Governor Hutchinson's house, did not, however, meet with an}- approval. The Cambridge people voted that they "abhorred and detested" such proceedings, and would use their utmost endeavors to protect the property of residents of Cambridge from such outrages. While the}- were thus outspoken in condemnation of the violence of the mob, it appears that they were not ready to have the loss charged to the province, and thriftily recommended that their representatives should vote against any such proceeding. From this opinion, after the repeal of the Stamp Act, they receded, and, at a town meeting a year later, instructed their representatives to favor compensation to those who had suffered at the hand of the mob.

The change in the British government by which the Rockingham ministry had succeeded the Grenville ministry and the consequent repeal of the Stamp Act removed the immediate difficulty, but the principle of taxing the colonies was bv no means abandoned. When

Charles Townshend became the leading spirit of the ministry he declared in the House of Commons - " I know a mode in which a revenue may be drawn from America without offence . . . England is undone if this taxation of America is given up." Accordingly in June, 1767, a new Taxation Act was introduced, and rapidly passed through Parliament. In order to avoid the objections to "internal taxes," it laid import duties on various articles and especially on tea. The proceeds of the act were to be used to pay the salaries of the royal governors and judges in America. A few months afterwards, - December, 1767, - a colonial department was created, headed by a secretary of state. The machinery of what might prove to be an exasperating control was thus provided for, and the principle of taxation, once admitted, might, of course, be carried farther. The actual amount of money involved was not a heavy biirden on the colonies, but it was to be used in such a way as to make the governors and judges independent of the local assemblies.

Public feeling in America ran high. At the Cambridge town meeting of November 26, 1767, the opposition of the town to the collection of the duty on tea was set forth as forcibly as possible. The claim of Parliament to tax the colonists was firmly denied. The sending of the tea, subject to the payment of duties, was a violent attack on the liberties of America. Every person who should aid, directly or indirectly, in unloading, receiving, or vending any tea subject to these duties, was declared to be an enemy of America. The factors appointed to receive the tea in Boston, who had been requested to resign this appointment, but who had refused to do so, had by this conduct forfeited all right to the respect of their fellow-countrymen. Finally, it was resolved "That the people of this town can no longer stand idle spectators, but are ready, on the shortest notice, to join with the town of Boston, and other towns, in any measures that may be thought proper, to deliver ourselves and posterity from slavery."

The protest of the other towns and of the va'rious colonial and provincial assemblies was equally positive, but the ministry proceeded to new repressive measures. It was proposed that American agitators be sent to England for trial and troops were sent to Boston. The regiments arrived in September, 1768, and for nearly eight years Boston was a garrisoned town. There was constant friction between the troops and the people, which broke into riot on March 5, 1770, in the affray known as the Boston Massacre.

In November, 1772, Committees of Correspondence were formed throughout Massachusetts, and later in the other colonies. The circular letter issued by the Boston Committee was duly read at a town meeting held in Cambridge, December 14th, and a committee was appointed on the part of Cambridge, which was instructed to acquaint the Boston committee that Cambridge would "heartily concur in all salutary, proper and constitutional measures for the redress of the intolerable grievances which threatened, and which, if continued, would overthrow the happy civil constitution of the province." The committee was also instructed to take under consideration the infringements upon the rights of the people which were complained of, and to report at an adjournment of the meeting. After a recess of a few minutes this committee submitted a report, in which a long and carefully prepared review of the situation prefaced instructions to the Cambridge representative. Captain Thomas Gardner, to use his greatest influence at the next session of the General Court for a speedy redress of all grievances. A year later, December 16, 1773, came the Boston Tea Party - the violent expression of the sentiments of the people against the tax. It made further conciliation practically impossible.

It was not in the temper of Englishmen and still less of their King, to withdraw or to change front in the face of such daring resistance. Five new bills were introduced and hastily pushed through Parliament. The first enacted that no further commerce was to be permitted with the port of Boston till that town should make its submission. The second act abolished certain provisions of the charter granted by William III in 1692. Under the old charter, the members of the Governor's Council were chosen in a convention consisting of the Council of the preceding year and the

Assembly. Each councillor held office for a year, and was paid out of an appropriation made by the Assembly. Under the new act the members of the Council were to be appointed by the governor on a royal writ of mandamus, and their salaries were to be paid by the Crown. The governor and his dependent Council could appoint sheriffs and all the judges and court officers, and they too were to be paid from the royal treasury and removed at the king's pleasvire. Worse than all, the town-meeting system of local self-government was practically destroyed. Town meetings could indeed be held twice a year for the election of town officers, but no other business could be transacted in them. "The effect of all these changes would, of course, be to concentrate all power in the hands of the governor, leaving no check whatever upon his arbitrary will. It would, in short, transform Massachusetts into an absolute despotism, such as no Englishman had ever lived under in any age." The third act directed that "persons questioned for any Acts in Execution of the Law" should be sent to England for trial. The fourth act provided for the quartering of soldiers upon the inhabitants, and was intended to establish a military government in Massachusetts. The fifth act provided for the goverriment of the region ceded by France in 1763, and among other things it annexed to Canada the whole territory between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and the Great Lakes. The pmpose was undoubtedly to remove the danger of disaffection or insurrection in Canada, but at the same time the act extinguished all the title of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia to the region west of Pennsylvania.

The news of these coercive measures was received in Massachusetts on May 10th. Soon after the new military governor, General Gage, appeared, and in a few weeks the Boston Port Bill and the modifications of the charter began to be ruthlessly enforced. The committees of the Massachusetts towns promptly met, and adopted a circular letter, prepared by Samuel Adams, to be sent to all the other colonies, asking for their sympathy and co-operation. The response was prompt and emphatic. In the course of the summer, conventions were held in nearly all the colonies, declaring that

Boston should be regarded as "suffering in the common cause." The obnoxious acts of Parliament were printed on paper with deep black borders, and in some towns were publicly burned by the common hangman. Droves of cattle and flocks of sheep, cartloads of wheat and maize, vegetables and fruit, barrels of sugar, quintals of dried fish, provisions of every sort, were sent overland as free gifts to the Boston people, even the distant rice-swamps of South Carolina contributing their share. The 1st of June was kept in Virginia as a day of fasting and prayer. In Philadelphia bells were muffled and tolled in the principal churches; and ships put their flags at halfmast. Marblehead, which was appointed to supersede Boston as the port of entr}-, immediately invited the merchants of Boston to use its wharves and warehouses free of charge in shipping and unshipping their goods.

The time was at hand when men would be wanted more than money or provisions or votes of sympathy. This had become plain to at least one American. People were telling of the excellence of the oratory in the Virginia Convention, and enthusiastic Virginians had assured John Adams that Richard Henry Lee and Patrick Henry would respectively bear comparison with Cicero and with Demosthenes. But a delegate from South Carolina, who on his way to the meeting of the Continental Congress had stopped to see what they were doing in the Old Dominion, gave it as his opinion that the most eloquent speech had been made by a certain Colonel Washington. "I will raise," that officer had said, "one thousand men towards the rehef of Boston, and subsist them at my own expense."

Another violent outbreak could not be long postponed, and this time Cambridge was the scene of action. The powder belonging to the Province had been stored in the magazine which is still standing in the Powder House Park in Somerville. This stock General Gage determined to secure. On the morning of the first of September, in the early dajdight, detachments of troops in boats rowed up the Mystic, landed at the Temple's Farm, seized the powder, and also secured two cannon belonging to General Brattle's regiment, and carried them off down the harbor to the Castle. Rumors of

The companies converged upon Cambridge, whence the Lieutenant-Governor, Thomas Oliver, rode hastily to Boston, to implore Gage to send out no more troops. The militia paraded upon Cambridge Common and called for the newly appointed mandamus councillors. The two Cambridge members of the Council, Judge Danforth and Judge Lee, promised to resign at once and to be in no way concerned in the acts of the government. Each submitted a written promise attested by the clerk of the court. Then the high-sheriff of Middlesex, Colonel David Phips, was forced to promise to do nothing toward executing the new laws.

Benjamin Hallowell, the Commissioner of Customs, had a narrow escape. Passing in his chaise by the crowds on the Common, he "spoke somewhat contemptuously of them." Some mounted men promptly rode after him. On seeing them coming he stopped his chaise, unhitched his horse and mounted, and galloped to Boston Neck, where he found safety.

After securing the withdrawal of Lee and Danforth, the people flocked up Brattle Street to the house of Lieutenant-Governor Oliver, who had returned from Boston, and demanded his resignation from the Council. This, after demurring, Oliver gave, "My house at Cambridge," he wrote, "being surrounded by about four thousand people, in compliance with their command I sign my name, - Thomas Oliver." General Brattle, the colonel of the Middlesex regiment, was then sought for but had gone to Boston. Thence he wrote an explanatory and apologetic letter, in which he denounced the threatenings he had received and his practical banishment from his home.

This was obviously one of the most exciting days in the history of Cambridge. The temper of the people was incapable of being misunderstood. There was no reasonable ground for objecting to the removal of the powder and guns which really belonged to the Province and there was no collision with the troops, but it is obvious that the 2d of September, 1774, just escaped the historic importance of the 19th of April of the succeeding year.

on October 11, 1774. The Cambridge delegates were Thomas Gardner and John Winthrop. After waiting two days for the Governor who never came, the members constituted themselves into a Congress, and adjourned first to Concord and later to the Cambridge Meeting-house. The Assembly first took pains to define their constitutional position, and to defend it by adducing precedents and quoting charters, and then they went on to the more pressing business of the hour. They began by ordering "that all the matters that come before the Congress be kept secret, and be not disclosed to any but the members thereof until further order of this body." Then, on the 24th of October, they appointed a committee to consider the proper time for laying in warlike stores; and on the same day the committee reported that the proper time was now. Without delay they voted the purchase of twenty field pieces and four mortars; twenty tons of grape and round shot; five thousand muskets and bayonets, and seventyfive thousand flints. They made an agreement to pay no more taxes into the royal Treasury, and arranged a system of assessment for the purpose of provincial defence. They then proceeded to elect by ballot three generals, Jedediah Preble, Artemas Ward and Seth Pomeroy. They appointed a Committee of Public Safety, of which John Hancock was the most notable and Joseph Warren the most active member. They invested that Committee with authority to call out the militia, every fourth man of whom was expected to hold himself ready to march at a minute's notice; - a condition of service that suggested the name of Minutemen. Then they adjourned until the fourth Wednesday in November; by which time the Committee of PubHc Safety, disbursing their funds thriftily, had bought in addition to the prescribed amount of ordnance three hundred and fifty spades and pick-axes, a thousand wooden messbowls, and some pease and flour. " That," said Sir George Trevelyan, "was their stock of material wherewith to fight the empire which recently, with hardly any sense of distress, had maintained a long war against France and Spain, and had left them humbled and half ruined at the end of it."

The irrevocable step was thus taken in the Cambridge meeting-house. That which for months, and perhaps years, had been a fact became now a visible and palpable finality. The action of the Assembly at Cambridge gave aim and purpose to the seething excitement of the Province. "Appointing a receiver-general," wrote Dr. Reynolds, "it took possession of the pttrse; organizing a committee of safety, it seized the sword; through its committee of supplies it gathered the munitions of war; by its minute inquiries it may almost be said to have counted up every musket and fowlingpiece, and weighed every ounce of powder, in the Province. It appointed commanders and one foot beyond the girdle of the bayonets of his soldiers. " No visible lines of intrenchment rose on the hills which surrounded Boston, but all the same the beleaguerment was there, ready at the first hostile movement to become manifest and impregnable. Like the fabled net of the magician, its meshes were so fine that the keenest eye could not see them; so strong that a giant's struggles could not break them."

The tumultuous events of the 19th of April, 1775, lie somewhat outside of the scope of this narrative, but both of the British columns that marched to Lexington on that momentous commissaries; it established military laws and regulations; it collected in depots provisions, clothing, tents, and military supplies of all sorts; and it purchased powder, muskets and cannon." It is obvious that the siege of Boston was really a much longer affair than the eleven months of actual investment. It began long before those April days when the farmers from all the New England states came hurrying to Cambridge, and with little or no plan of action, encamped upon the encircling hills, and with military instinct began to intrench themselves. It would be nearer the truth to say that the siege began on the day that General Gage landed, for never was he governor in Massachusetts day trod our Cambridge soil. The first expedition was ferried over the river in the boats of the fleet, landed at Phips' Farm or Lechmere's Point, filed in the darkness along the causeway which crossed the marshes and so went on its way to destroy the stores at Concord. The supporting column under Lord Percy left Boston about nine in the morning and marched by the way of the highway over the neck. Before noon Lord Percy came to the " Great Bridge, " at the foot of what is now Boylston Street. The Cambridge folk had been warned of his coming. Hastily they tore up the planking of the Bridge, but frugally piled the planks on the Cambridge side of the river. The delay was therefore but slight for Percy's vanguard crossed on the string pieces of the bridge and quickly put the planks again in place so that the infantry could march over them. The wagon train was delayed until the planks could be more firmly secured. The many tracks crossing Cambridge Common are said to have confused Lord Percy, and he was at no small trouble before he could find anyone to tell him which road would lead him to Menotomy and Lexington. His column finally met the troops, returning from Concord, just east of Lexington, and history records that the relief came "just in time."

On his retreat from Lexington Lord Percy did not pass through Harvard Square, for he realized that this time the "Great Bridge" would undoubtedly be so dismantled as to be impassable. He therefore directed his march to Charlestown Neck, and the running battle ebbed and .flowed through Menotomy, which was still a part of Cambridge, and along the base of the. SiDmerville hills to Charlestown. Percy was right, for the planking of the bridge had again been torn up and this time built into a strong redoubt on the Cambridge side, which was held by the militia arriving from the towns to the south and which would have completely blocked the progress of the British column.

The Cambridge Trainband had been mustered before daybreak on that fateful day and apparently followed the first of the British detachments nearly all the way to Concord and then joined in the running battle home again. Thomas Gardner had succeeded General Brattle as the Colonel of the First Middlesex Regiment, and Samuel Thatcher had succeeded Gardner as the Captain of the Cambridge Company, with John and Jotham Walton as his lieutenants. Seventy-seven men were enrolled in the company, Wyeths, Warlands, Reeds, Frosts, Prentices, Coxes, Hastings, Goddards, Boardmans, Bradishes, Moores and Hancocks. There was another company in that part of the town which is now Arlington commanded by Captain Benjamin Locke, and it, too, was actively engaged all day. It was in Menotomy that Percy's wagon train, which had been detained at the Great Bridge, and which was hurrying to overtake the marching column, was set upon by the older men who remained in the village and captured with its guard. It was in Menotomy and North Cambridge that the hottest fighting of that sultrj' April day took place. More than half of those on both sides who fell in the fighting were killed within what were then the boundaries of Cambridge. All of the Cambridge men who fell were killed near Menotomy. Jason Winship and Jabez Wyman were two of the band of veterans who at midday had waylaid and captured the British wagon train. They were caught by the returning British in Cooper's Tavern at Menotomy Centre and killed. Benjamin and Rachel Cooper escaped into the cellar and hid till the troops had passed. Jason Russell, another old man and substantial farmer, lived just to the west of Menotomy village. The Danvers company came up just as the British approached and took post in Mr. Russell's house. There a number of them were caught between the main column marching down the road and a flanking party that came across the fields. Nine of the Danvers company were killed in the house and Mr. Russell was shot as he stood in his own doorway. Three of the men from Cambridge village were killed on Massachusetts Avenue just north of Spruce Street. John Hicks was one of an old Cambridge family and lived at the comer of Dunster and Winthrop Streets. He had been an active patriot, and tradition says that he was one of the Boston Tea Party. Moses Richardson was a carpenter who lived where the Law School (Austin Hall) now stands. His military spirit was reborn in his great grandson, James P. Richardson, who organized and led the first company that enlisted for the Civil War. Both Hicks and Richardson were beyond the age of military service, so they had not marched with the j^ounger men of the trainband, but they had taken their guns and followed. The third victim, William Marcy, was killed at the same time and place. He was apparently sitting on the fence looking on when he was shot. Hicks' son, a boy of fourteen, found the three bodies in the evening, and, procuring a wagon, brought them to the village graveyard for burial at the place where the monument to their honor now stands.

There was no sleep in Cambridge or anywhere else in Massachusetts that night. North, west and south the messengers rode furiously spreading the news. Every village green saw the muster of the trainbands. Seizing their muskets and their powder horns the minutemen, without waiting for anything else, started for Cambridge. When the alarm reached Connecticut old Israel Putnam left his plow in the furrow and rode on one horse one hundred miles in eighteen hours. The New Hampshire companies were crossing the Merrimac on the evening of the twentieth, having run rather than marched for twenty-seven miles. They halted at Andover only long enough for a bit of bread and cheese, and, having traversed fifty-seven miles in less than twenty hours, at sunrise on the twenty -first they paraded o n Cambridge Common. Within two days ten thousand men came pouring into Cambridge, and for weeks afterwards the numbers were augmented. General Heath, who had been conspicuous among the leaders on the 19th, directed them where to go, and made a general disposition of this loosely organized and primitive army. On the morning after the battle it was his foresight that provided for the needs of the men who came rushing in from every Massachusetts town and hamlet. Later he wrote in his Memoirs, "All the eatables in the town of Cambridge which could be spared, were collected for breakfast and the college kitchen and utensils procured for cooking. Some carcasses of beef, and pork, prepared for the Boston market, were obtained and a large quantity of ship bread, said to belong to the British navy, was taken." The college buildings were at once occupied as barracks, and the college kitchen continued to be the center of the rude commissariat. The towns hastened to send ample supplies after their men, and there was never a time when this hastily improvised New England army was not abundantly fed. The flight of the Cambridge Tories made their houses and estates available for quarters. General Putnam got as near to the enemies' lines as he could by living at the Inman house. John Stark made a headquarters for the New Hampshire men at the Royall house in Medford. John Glover and his Essex Regiment occupied the Vassall house and grounds. The Committee of Safety and the Senior of the Massachusetts Major- Generals, Artemas Ward, accepted the hospitality of the Hastings house. With extraordinary rapidity the beleaguering lines were drawn about Boston. 1 1 was fifteen months after Concord and Lexington before a British army again took the open field.

Sad was the fate that thus overtook with appalling suddenness the loyalist families of Cambridge. The booming of the guns at Lexington meant for them the signal to fly from their pleasant homes and seek safety behind the Boston lines. Practically the entire congregation of Christ Church departed, and, save for a few lay services held while Mrs. Washington was in Cambridge, the sound of prayer and praise was unheard within its walls for fifteen years. For a time it served as- a barracks and then for years it stood deserted, its doors shattered and its windows broken, exposed to wind and rain and every sort of depredation. Most of the Tory magnates never saw their homes again. The Brattle house became the quarters of Major Thomas Mifflin, afterwards the President of Congress, while General Brattle accompanied the British army when they sailed away and died a broken-hearted old man at Halifax in the fall of 1776. His son, Thomas Brattle, was in Europe when the war broke out and was proscribed as an absentee. Later he returned to America, and in 1784 was finally permitted to come back to Cambridge and rehabilitate the old estate. He made the place the most beautiful for miles around and lived a quiet life among his flowers and his friends. .He died unmarried in 1801, and with him ended the Brattle line. Thomas Oliver, the one-time Lieutenant-Governor, left Cambridge immediatel)^ after the uprising which had forced his resignation on September 2d, 1774, and never returned. H e h a d never, indeed, been an active opponent of the patriotic sentiment, for he was of mild and inoffensive temperament, but all his social connections were with the Tories. He went to England and died there in 1815. His beautiful house at Elmwood was first occupied by Benedict Arnold and a Connecticut company, and later became a hospital for the besieging army, and the wounded were brought there from Bunker Hill. Those who died were buried across the road opposite the house. Colonel David Phips also went to England and died there in 1811. His estate was confiscated and his house later became the residence of Professor John Winthrop. John Borland went into Boston as soon as the troubles began and was killed by accident there on the 5th of June,

1775. One of his sons entered the British army. His house, the "Bishop's Palace," was later used as a residence for General Burgoyne when he came as a prisoner to Cambridge, and was then for many years the homestead of Dr. Plympton.

Judge Danforth and Judge Lee, the two Mandamus Councillors who resigned at the behest of the people on September 2, 1774, were, like Oliver, Tories by social connection rather than by conviction. Judge Danforth was an old and respected citizen who had been a member of the Council by the choice of the Provincial Assembly for thirty-six }'ears, and who made no greater mistake than to continue in his office when appointed by the King mstead of elected by the representatives of the people. He stayed m his house on the eastern side of Dunster Street, and, though understood to have royalist sympathies, was undisturbed. Judge Lee went with his neighbors to Boston during the siege, but afterwards returned and took up his residence again in the old house on Brattle Street o\ ELM which is still known by his name. Ralph Inman also came back to his place after the evacuation of Boston and was unmolested, though both of his sons went to England and his daughter married Captain Linzee, who had commanded the frigate Falcon on the day of Bunker Hill. The Lechmere-Sewall estate and both the Vassall estates were confiscated after the hurried flight of their owners. Colonel John Vassall had no choice but to cross the seas with his friends, and his mansion-house became the headquarters of the American army. Mrs. Henry Vassall went to Antigua, where the family still possessed considerable property, but returned to die in Boston in ISOO. Even her father, Isaac Royall, to whom hospitality was a passion, and who had won the affection of all around him, did not escape banishment and proscription. The Committee of Safety provided for the care and occupation of the confiscated estates, though not always without difficulty, for "the honest man's scythe refused to cut Tory grass, and his oxen to turn a Tory furrow." Isaac Royall's cherished wish was to be buried in Massachusetts; but even that boon was denied him. He died in England before the war was over, bequeathing two thousand acres of his neglected soil to endow a Chair of Law at Harvard.

The besieging force which made its center at Cambridge was a heterogeneous gathering. The militia of the various provinces served under their own officers, but the different commanders speedily agreed to subordinate themselves to General Artemas Ward, as the head of the largest body of troops. He, however, had no organized staff and very inadequate means of communicating orders and receiving reports. If Gage had attacked he could have been opposed only by scattered regiments, and not by a united force.

The size of the army was variable and uncertain. On paper there were more than twenty thousand men; as a matter of fact there can seldom have been more than three quarters of that number. It was, further, an army of volunteers where every man owned his musket and cartridge box, clothed himself, and considered himself still, to a large extent, his own master. The men, who sprang to arms on the 19th of April, had not prepared themselves for a long campaign. They had left home on the run and in the next few days many of these men went back for the necessary arrangement of their affairs and for more clothing. The larger number of them returned to camp immediately, but others stayed away for a considerable time. Even those who joined the army after more preparation often had business that called them home, in which case they considered it a hardship to be denied, "especially when that business was haying." Nearly two months went by without any more active fighting than occasional skirmishes as foraging parties met, or when American detachments successfully carried off the sheep and stock from the islands in the harbor.

By the 16th of June the time had come for an aggressive move. The Committee of Safety, consulting with the more prominent officers, decided to occupy the heights of Charlestown. Ward issued the necessary orders and in the dusk of evening fifteen hundred men under command of Colonel William Prescott paraded opposite the western door of the Hastings House. From the door, in his academic gown, came President Langdon of the college, and the prayer he offered stirred the hearts of all who listened. What Prescott and his men did that night and the next day on Bimker Hill is written large in American history. Nathanael Greene was right when he said that the colonists were ready to sell King George another hill at the same price. To Cambridge the chief event of that momentous day was the loss of its military chief and first patriot citizen. Colonel Thomas Gardner. This able, zealous and courageous man had been the leader of the sentiment of the community throughout the years that foretokened the Revolution. He lived on the southern side of the river in what is now Allston. From 1769 until his death he was both selectman and the representative of Cambridge in the General Court and in the Provincial Congress. He served on both the local Committee of Correspondence and on the Provincial Committee of Safety. He had been the captain of the Cambridge Company and was promoted to be Colonel when General Brattle adhered to the loyalist side. His high character, his popularity, the military skill which he had already displayed, his patriotic ardor, all promised for him a most distinguished career. It is probable that, had he lived, he would have ranked among the most conspicuous of the patriot soldiers of the Revolution. He led his regiment to Bunker Hill and was just entering the engagement when he fell mortall}' wounded. He was borne back to Cambridge, where he lingered for two weeks and died on the 3d of July, just as Washington was crossing the Common to take command of the army.

The selection by the Continental Congress of a general-in-chief was an epoch-making act. John Hancock, the President of the Congress, was ambitious to secure this difficult and dangerous post, but John Adams was keen enough to perceive that the New England army could be knit together and its jealousies appeased only by the appointment of a general from another section. In militar}- experience and ability, in strength and purity of character, there was no American then living to be compared with George Washington of Virginia.

While others had been discussing and hesitating, Washington had long ago made up his mind that the quarrel with the king must come to violent disruption. At the second Continental Congress to which he was a delegate it was noticed that he attended the sittings in his uniform of a Virginia colonel. Though he took no part in the debates, he made himself felt, and his colleague, Patrick Henry, said of him: "If you speak of solid information and sound judgment. Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man on the floor." Debate ran high, but finally the Congress adopted the militia at Cambridge as a "Continental Army," appointed four major-generals: Lee, Schuyler, Ward and Putnam, and eight brigadiers; and on the 15th of June, two days before the Bunker Hill battle, chose Washington to be the commander-in-chief.

Washington himself knew better than any man the consequences of the momentous step. On the 16th of June he accepted his commission, but added: "Lest some unlucky event should happen, unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it to be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I, this day, declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. As to pay. Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress, that, as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment, at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it. I will keep an exact account of my expenses. These, I doubt not, they will discharge; and that is all I desire."

On the 3d of July, a year and a day before the Declaration of Independence, Washington reached Cambridge and under the great elm still standing by the common, he took command of the army. He made his headquarters at first in the house of the president of the college (Wads worth House), but after a few weeks took possession of the beautiful mansion of Colonel Vassall. That house had always been the home of generous and gracious hospitality, an association which it has never lost. Washington brought with him to Cambridge the Virginia traditions of ample living. He was himself a plain soldier, and a man, besides, of remarkable self-restraint. His moderation was seen in his early and regular hours and in his simple diet, which was sometimes nothing, we are told, but baked apples or berries with milk. It was, however, his habit to gather about him, at his headquarters, the officers of the army and the prominent visitors who for public or personal reasons made their way to the Cambridge camp. In December he was joined by Mrs. Washington and the two had here their last experience of home life for many long years. They maintained at the Vassall house a style of living which comported with the General's position.

Almost all of the leaders of the Revolution who later won renown or shame were in Cambridge during the siege and constant visitors at headquarters. Hither from his vagrant wanderings over half the earth came Charles Lee, the second in command of the army. He was grotesque in appearance, satirical of speech and repulsive of countenance, but the people believed in his ability and sincerity until he had proved both his incompetency and treachery. He came to Cambridge heralded as a military prodigy, and though his insubordination brought his boastful career to an end long before the war was over, the blackness of his treason was not known until after he and those he had tried to betray had long been dead. That other conspicuous traitor, Benedict Arnold, was daily at the Vassall house before he started on his Quebec expedition. His ability and reckless courage commended him to Washington. Had he only been so fortunate as to fall in his desperate charge at Stillwater he would have ranked among the most valorous of our patriot heroes. Horatio Gates, the vain, weak man who later tried to push Washington from his command, was the Adjutant-General of the army at Cambridge, and in constant contact with his chief. The laurels he wore, but did not win, at Saratoga, faded

A History Of Cambridge, Massachusetts

How marked was the contrast between these vainglorious but treacherous soldiers and the honest virtues of comrades in arms like Heath and Thomas of Massachusetts, Sullivan and Stark of New Hampshire, Richard Gridley and Rufus Putnam, the engineers. At the Vassall house Washington first met those tried and true companions of all his after career, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox and Benjamin Lincoln. Greene led the Rhode Island troops. He was Quaker bred, thoughtful, resourceful and judicious. He had none of the meretricious brilliancy of men like Lee and Arnold, but he was able, loyal and reliable, and became his chief's right arm. Knox was a Boston bookseller who made himself an expert artillerist and was later Washington's first Secretary of War. It was Knox who, with dauntless perseverance, in the depth of the New England winter, dragged to Cambridge the cannon captured at Ticonderoga, and so made possible the occupation of Dorchester Heights and the consequent evacuation of Boston. Two of those cannon now stand on Cambridge Common in front of the Soldiers' Monument. Benjamin Lincoln had been the secretary of the Massachusetts Provincial He was sound in judgment, in- and faithful. To him at Charleston it was given to win one of the noblest of achievements, the preservation in defeat of the respect and confidence of all good men. Twent}' years later, when Washington was asked to describe the characteristics of the then living officers who might be considered for commander-in-chief in case of war, it was to Lincoln that he gave the highest praise, saying that he was "sensible, brave and honest."

There were not lacking picturesque figures among the guests at headquarters. Israel Putnam was a better Indian fighter than he was disciplinarian, but his bluff, hearty ways and his resistless enthusiasm appealed to his men and he was easily the most popular leader in Cambridge. His manners and his vehement speech ma}'' not have always approved themselves at the General's table, but Washington Ifhe'w a inan when he saw him and gave to the Veteran" his respect and confidence. Daniel

Morgan, the stalwart Virginia wagoner, and his riflemen clad in fringed hunting shirts, lent a dramatic aspect to the camp, and Colonel Glover and his Marblehead fishermen had been at home at the Vassall house before it became the headquarters. Those same fishermen a few months later ferried the army over the East River after the disastrous battle on Long Island, and it was they who rowed and pushed through the floating ice in the Delaware the boats that bore Washington and his freezing regiments to the victory of Trenton.

But it was not only the soldiers who walked the broad pathway to the door of the Vassall house. Hither, too, came the public men of the Colony, the members of the Committee of Safety, and of the Provincial Congress sitting hard by in Watertown. The most noted company, however, that sat at Washington's table was when in October a committee of Congress, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Lynch of Carolina, and Colonel Harrison of Virginia, arrived to confer with the generals and with the New England leaders. We have a glimpse of a dinner party given to them, afforded by Dr. Belknap, who was a guest, and who wrote: "Lynch, Harrison, and Wales wished to see Boston in flames, but Lee told them it was impossible to bum it unless the}' sent men in with bundles of straw on their backs to do it." Dr. Franklin apparently took no part in the debate, but we can imagine that no visitor would attract more attention than this renowned man, who sat and listened to whether his native town should be destroyed. He was sixty-nine years old at this time, twentysix years older than the commanding general, and he was the most distinguished American then living. He had foreseen the impending conflict years before, and was able now to write to his friend Priestly in England, " Enough has happened, one would think, to convince your ministers that the Americans will fight, and that this is a harder nut to crack than they imagined."

There was plent}' of work to do inside and outside of headquarters. The raw militiamen were to be made into efficient soldiers. In the very face of the enemy an army had to be created and supplied, fortifications built, discipline enforced. "There is great overturning in camp," wrote the Reverend William Emerson. "New lords, new laws. The Generals Washington and Lee are upon the lines every day. New orders from his Excellency are read to the respective regiments every morning after prayers. The strictest government is taking place, and great distinction is made between officers and soldiers. Every one is made to know his place, and keep in it. . . . Thousands are at work every day from four till eleven o'clock in the morning."

Frye, Bridge, Sargeant and Woodbridge, and General Heath's brigade, consisting of his own regiment and those of Colonels Prescott, Patterson, Scammon, Gerrish and Phinney. The intrenchments began at the River at the foot of Putnam Avenue, or about where the Riverside Press now stands, and ran along the brow of Dana Hill until they connected with the redoubts on Prospect Hill in Somerville. Fort No. 1 was at the southern end of this line. Fort No. 2 was at what is now the corner of Putnam Avenue and Franklin Street.

fully planned. The right wing of the army under General Ward, with General Spencer, and the best of the Massachusetts brigadiers, John Thomas, blocked the neck of the Boston peninsula and held the Roxbury forts. The lines stretched from Brookline to Dorchester. The left wing under General Lee was intrenched on the Somerville hills and along the Mystic with its outposts far out to the east. His two brigades were led by Greene and Sullivan. The center at Cambridge was commanded by General Putnam with his own brigade, consisting of the regiments of Colonels Glover,

Fort No. 3 was at Union Square in Somerville Roughly estimated, there were some 4,000 men on the Roxbury lines, 7,000 more on Prospect, Winter, Plowed and Cobble Hills and north of the Mystic, and about 6,000 on the Cambridge lines. Of these a thousand or more found what must have been very close quarters in the college buildings. Many were in rude shelters on the Common or along the line of the intrenchments, and the rest found shelter in the houses and bams of the village or in tents in the pastures between the college and the low crest of Dana Hill. Two small batteries, one at Captain's Island and one at the next angle of the river commanded the approach to Cambridge by water. The latter of these was long preserved by the Dana family, and in 1858 it was restored at the joint expense of the City and the State and named Fort Washington. It stands as an interesting memorial of the siege and a curious reminder of the time when the Charles River was navigable by war vessels.

Powder was fearfully scarce in the Cambridge camps. Very little of it was made in the colonies, and none at all in the neighborhood of Boston. More than once the army had but nine rounds to a man. On the twenty-fourth of August Washington wrote: "We have been in a terrible situation, occasioned by a mistake in a return: we reckoned upon three hundred quarter casks, and had but thirty-two barrels." Good muskets, too, were hard to get. The gunsmiths of Philadelphia, who had been expected speedily to equip the army, were not able to supply guns with any rapidity, and Washington had to pick them up, good, bad or indifferent, wherever he could.

The progress of the siege of Boston was thus evidently predetermined by other causes than the courage of the soldiers or the skill of the opposing generals. General Gage did not dare make an aggressive campaign and General Washington could not. General Howe, on assuming the command of the troops in Boston early in October, wrote to the Earl of Dartmouth: "The opening of a campaign from this quarter would be attended with great hazard, as well from the strength of the country as from the intrenched position which the rebels have taken, and from which they could not be forced without considerable loss on our part; and from the difficulty of access farther into the country they would have every advantage in the defence of it on their side, being indefatigable in raising field-works, which they judiciously suppose must wear us down by repeated onsets, whereas they are so numerous in this part of the country that they would not feel the loss they might sustain." These were very different \'iews from those expressed in a letter wn^tten by a British officer eight months before: "What you hear about the rebels taking up arms is merely bullying. Whenever it comes to blows, he that runs the fastest wiU think himself best of?. Believe me, any two regiments here ought to be decimated if they did not beat the whole force of Massachusetts Province." Hard experience had taught the British commanders the conviction that offensive operations in Massachusetts were hopeless. This alone accounts for the fact that ten thousand British soldiers, admirably equipped and led, permitted fifteen thousand raw militia, without artillery- or sufficient ammunition, to draw a net of intrenchments around them without making an effort to break through the toils.

On the other hand, it was impossible for Washington to make any assault. His soldiers were intelligent and full of faith in their cause ; but they were not so much soldiers as the material out of which soldiers should be made. The term of enlistment was so brief that the army was perpetually changing, and was never aU ready at one time. As Washington declared, never before had a siege like this been maintained, when one army had been disbanded and another recruited within musket-shot of the enemy. As for cannon, not until Knox, with incredible labor, had dragged them from the shores of Lake George, and Captain Manly had captured the transport Nancy, filled with the guns and ammunition which the Americans needed, could there be said to be any proper train of artiUerj'.

Meanwhile, impatient patriots all over the country were wondering and complaining that Boston was not stormed or the commanding points about the town occupied. Criticism of the commander-in-chief was severe in Congress and in the newspapers. " I cannot stand justified," wrote Washington, "without exposing my own weakness, and injuring the cause by exposing my wants. If I did not consult the public good more than my own tranquillity, I should long ere this have put everything on the cast of a die." Twice during the siege he proposed to a council of generals, to attempt to take the towTi by assault, - once in September by boats, and once in February over the ice - but his owti better judgment must have agreed with his officers that the feat was impossible. So, with the whole country full of great expectations, with his own impetu-

The chief event of the early winter was the discovery of the treason of Dr. Benjamin Church, formerly a leader of the Boston patriots and now the chief medical officer of the army, with his quarters at the Henrj^ Vassall house. From Newport there was brought by an American patriot to whom it had been given by a woman from Cambridge, a letter which he had been requested to deliver to some officer of a British man-of-war stationed in Narragansett Bay. The American had opened the letter, and found it to be in cipher. This was suspicious, and so he brought the letter to General Putnam who caused the woman to be arrested, and mounting her behind him on his horse, carried her to headquarters, where she named Dr. Church as the wTiter. The letter, when deciphered, proved to give information about the numbers and disposition of the American forces.

The army and country, as Washington wrote, were "exceedingly irritated" at this revelation of treachery in a trusted leader. Abigail Adams was probably right when she wrote, "If he is set at liberty, even after he has received a severe punishment, I do not think he will be safe." Church was brought before the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and allowed to defend himself. He did not deny the authorship of the letter, but insisted that he was writing to his brother, and that he meant no harm. He was not believed, and was expelled from the Congress and the army. Later the Continental Congress ordered him to be imprisoned. Released later, on account of his health, he was

As the winter passed, the pressing needs of the army were gradually supplied. "Officers" wrote the historian of the siege, "were slowly learning their duty; discipline was growing more firm and stead3% and the whole army was settling down into the habits of military life. Every hill and projecting point from the Mystic River to Dorchester Neck had been made impregnable, stretching around Boston in a vast semicircle of redoubts and breastworks of fifteen or twenty miles in length, until at last - Knox's precious convoy of cannon and mortar arrived, the almost priceless stores of Manly's fortunate capture transported to camp, and a moderate supply of powder gathered up - the decisive move was made." The first step was to plant a battery on Lechmere's Point (East Cambridge). This was accomplished by General Heath under a heavy cannonade. Guns were planted which not only commanded the shipping in the river, but which threw their shells into Boston. "Then one moonlight, hazy night in March, while all along the line the artillery thundered to drown the noise of the movement, three thousand men, and three hundred ox-carts laden with bales of pressed hay, quietly stole across Dorchester Neck, and climbed the heights. All night, while the enemy slept, the men labored. General Howe woke to find the town, the harbor, the fleet, commanded by his adversary's guns." A few futile plans of attack, a few days of uncertainty, and then the hurried embarkation of the British and the siege was over. On the 17th of March the Americans marched in over the Neck and others, crossing by boats from Cambridge, landed at the foot of the Common.

The Town

TH E tides of war ebbed away from Cambridge. The college teachers and students who had continued their work, first at Andover and then at Concord, returned. There was a great cleaning out of the college buildings and of the village houses so long occupied by the soldiers. The community did not, however, at once settle down into the old ways, for practically all the men of the town who were of mihtary age were serving at one time or another in the Revolutionary army. Their leader was Captain Samuel Thatcher, who lived on the farm which had been tilled by three generations of his family, at what is now the comer of Mt. Auburn Street and Coolidge Avenue, and who succeeded Colonel Gardner in the command of the regiment in which most of the Cambridge men were enlisted. After the war Colonel Thatcher sold his farm and lived for the remainder of his life at the eastern corner of Mt. Auburn and Boylston Streets. He was selectman and representative, and a useful citizen. His son, Samuel, married the daughter of General Knox and went to Maine. He was a member of Congress and Uved to be ninety-six years old, being at the time of his death the oldest graduate of Harvard. Another noteworthy Revolutionary officer was Dr. Abraham Watson, Jr., the surgeon of Colonel Thatcher's regiment. He came of a family that had Uved for four generations on a farm in North Cambridge, covering all the region from about where the railroad now runs northerly to Spruce Street. After the war Dr. Watson went to live in Littleton. His father was a tanner as well as a farmer, and began the tanning business which was long continued in North Cambridge. Many of the Watson stock were tanners, curriers, cordwainers, or followed other branches of the leather business.

five Cutters, four Danas, seven Frosts, three Hastingses, five Prentices, three Reads, three Russells, and foiu" Whittemores. These are all family stocks that are well represented in Cambridge today. The Boardmans, Cooks, Danas and Hastingses have already been mentioned. The Adamses were one of the leading families in Menotomy. The Barretts were mechanics and lived on the east side of Dunster Street. The Champneys Hved on the south side of the river where they had long been large landholders. The Coolidges were primarily a Watertown family, but a good many of them lived then, as now, within the boundaries of Cambridge. The Cutters were a very numerous clan, centering about Cutters Mill in Menotomy. On the gravestone of John Cutter, who was a farmer and deacon of the Menotomy Church, and died in 1776, it is recorded that he was survived bj' eight children, sixty-eight grandchildren, and one hundred and fifteen great-grandchildren. The Frosts were another very large family. The homestead was on the Charlestown road, which is now Kirkland Street, but different branches of the family had spread to North Cambridge and Menotomy. At the time of the Revolution the chief man of the family was Gideon Frost, the blacksmith and deacon of the Cambridge Church, who lived in the old house which is still standing on Linnaean Street. The Prentices were even more numerous in Cambridge than the Cutters. The original homestead was on the eastern side of the Common, about where the Methodist Church now stands, and that place long remained in the family. Spreading from that homestead some of the Prentices established themselves on the Menotomy road, just above the present railroad bridge, others built on the westerly side of the Common, along what is now Mason Street; another branch took root in a farm adjoining the Oliver and the Thatcher places, or about at the jtmction of Mt. Aubum Street and Elmwood Avenue. Still another group of Prentices acquired the lands on what is now Garden Street toward Fresh Pond, and developed the brickmaking business, which has been carried on in that section ever since. These Prentices built their houses on Garden Street, where the Botanic Garden now is, and on the slope of the observatory hill opposite. The Reads established themselves in Cambridge early in the eighteenth century, and for three generations dealt in leather. The homestead was on the south side of Brattle Street, between the estate of General Brattle and the Henry Vassall place. In the third generation the family spread into houses on the opposite side of Brattle Street. One of them is the house still standing at the comer of Brattle and Church Streets. In the fifth generation William Read acquired the large estate through which Appleton Street and Highland Street now run, and where the descendants of this serviceable family still live. The Russells were early settlers, for, in 1635, John Russell was living at the corner of Holyoke and Mt. Auburn Streets, and it was his son. Rev. John Russell, who was the protector of the Regicides in his parsonage at Hadley. In the later generations the Russells were chiefly identified with Menotomy and with Lexington, and we have seen how Jason Russell was killed on the 19th of April, 1775. The Whittemores were also chiefly connected with Menotomy and Lexington. The Whittemore farms were along Alewife Brook and the road that now runs from Winter Hill to Arlington. Captain Samuel Whittemore was the chief revolutionary representative of the family. He had been for sixteen years a selectman of Cambridge, and when the war broke out was nearly eighty years old. With the utmost enthusiasm he joined in the Lexington battle. He was desperately wounded and left for dead, but recovered and lived to be ninety-six, with living descendants to the fifth generation and numbering nearly two hundred. His nephew, another Samuel Whittemore, lived in Cambridge village on Boylston Street, and was for forty years deacon of the church. It shows the typically close connection of these old Cambridge families, when we read that the children of this Samuel Whittemore married respectively a Watson, an Angier, a Prentice and a Hastings.

A curious episode of the Revolutionary time was the occupation of Cambridge by the troops that surrendered with General Burgoyne at Saratoga on October 17, 1777. Cambridge was selected as the place of their detention. Fortunately the district was under the command of General Heath, and that efficient officer had sufficient notice to prepare for the coming of these unexpected visitors. The old barracks on the Somerville hills were put in order for the troops, and such quarters as could be obtained were provided for the officers in the Cambridge houses. General Burgoyne occupied the Borland house (the Bishop's Palace) and Baron Riedesel and his accomplished wife lived in the Lechmere-Sewall house, whence the Baroness wrote the charming letters and the journal which are the best original account of the northern campaign, and which contain pleasant descriptions of Cambridge and the life of the village. Burgoyne left Cambridge in April, 1778, but some of the prisoners stayed imtil November, when they departed to Virginia to complete a chapter of our military annals which is by no means creditable to American good faith.

The next visitors were of a very different kind. On September 1, 1779, there convened in the Cambridge meeting-house the delegates of all the Massachusetts towns who had gathered to frame a constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. All the patriot leaders, save those who were serving in the Continental Congress or in the army, were there. The Cambridge representatives were Abraham Watson, Benjamin Cooper and Stephen Dana. The Convention remained in session all winter, and finally adjourned in May, 1780. On May 20th, the Cambridge town meeting ratified the Constitution.

The next visitor was even more distinguished. On October 27, 1789, President Washington revisited the scenes of his first successes in command of the army, and was given an honorary degree by the College. Dr. Joseph Willard had succeeded President Langdon in 1781, and it fell to him to express in the meeting-house the greeting of the CoUege and the community. The style of his academic welcome was somewhat more elaborate than would suit the taste of a later day, -but it certainly lacked nothing

A History Of Cambridge, Massachusetts

"When you took the command of the troops of your country, you saw the University in a state of depression - its members dispersed - its Hteran,^ treasures removed - and the Muses fled from the din of arms then heard within its walls. Happily restored, in the course of a few months, by your glorious successes, to its former pri\-ileges, and to a state of tranquillity, it received its returning members, and oirr j'outh have since pursued without interruption their literarj' courses, and fitted themselves for usefulness in church and state. The public rooms, which j^ou formerly saw empty, are now replenished with the necessarv' means of improving the human mind in literature and science; and everj-thing within these walls wears the aspect of peace, so necessary to the cultivation of the liberal arts. While we exert ourselves, in our corporate capacity, to promote the great objects of this institution, we rest assured of your protection and patronage."

Washington's reply was in a similar though simpler style. He entreated the President and Fellows to be persuaded of the respectful and affectionate consideration with which he received his degree.

"Unacquainted," he said, "with the expression of sentiments which I do not feel, you will do me justice by believing confidently in my disposition to promote the interests of science and true religion.

"It gives me sincere satisfaction to learn the flourishing state of your literary republic - assured of its efficiency in the past events of oiu- political system, and of its further influence on those means which make the best support of good government, I rejoice that the direction of its measures is lodged with men whose approved knowledge, integrity and patriotism give an unquestionable assurance of their success."

The next visitor came from over seas, but he found here the memories of his generous and ardent youth. Lafayette came in August, 1824, and the scene is presented for us by the accounts of many enthusiastic witnesses. He rode to Cambridge through cheering throngs, and President Kirkland, who excelled in just such functions, welcomed him on the steps of Uni\'ersity Hall. Edward Everett was the orator of the day, and the splendid peroration of his speech has rolled from the lips of schoolboy declaimers ever since. "Above all, the first of heroes and of men, the friend of your youth, the more than friend of his country, rests in the bosom of the soil he redeemed. On the banks of the Potomac he lies in glory and peace. You will revisit the hospitable shades of Mount Vernon, but him whom you venerated, as we did, you will not meet at its door. His voice of consolation, which reached you in the Austrian dungeons, cannot break its silence to bid you welcome to his own roof; but the grateful children of America will bid you welcome in his name. Welcome, thrice welcome to our shores; and withersoever, throughout the limits of the continent, yovu" course shall take j'ou, the ear that hears j^ou shall bless you, the eye that sees you shall bear witness to you, and every tongue exclaim, with heartfelt joy, 'Welcome, welcome, Lafayette.' "

For many years after the exciting times of the Revolutionary epoch, Cambridge was a town with no especial distinction, save the scholastic atmosphere that hung about the College. The chief event of the closing years of the eighteenth and the opening years of the nineteenth centuries was the development of two new and almost distinct villages in the eastern part of the town. We have seen that the inhabited part of the town ended at Dana Hill. East of Judge Dana's house on the crest of the hill there were only the Inman house, near the present City Hall, and the old Phips farmhouse on the upland of Lechmere's Point. All else was pasture, swamp and salt marsh. The building of the West Boston Bridge altered the whole topography of the town. These changes were brought about chiefly through some interesting real estate speculations, in which certain new-comers to Cambridge were particularly active. When the estates of the departing Tories were sold, thej- were purchased by some men of large means and active minds, who were drawn to Cambridge, both by its attractions as a place of residence, and by the opportunity the place afforded for judicious investment. The Lechmere and Oliver estates were bought by Andrew Cabot of Salem, and the Vassal estates by Nathanael Tracy of Newburyport. The John Vassal house, which had been Washington's headquarters, passed, in 1792, into the possession of Andrew Craigie, and in the same year the heirs of Ralph Inman conveyed his estate to Leonard Jands. Meanwhile, Chief-Justice Francis Dana had acquired very large holdings of land and marsh along the Charles River, from the village to where the river widened into the Back Bay. His estate and the estate of Mr. Jarvis covered practically all of what became Cambridgeport . In like manner, what is now East Cambridge came into the hands of two owners. The Phips fann had been divided among the children of Lieutenant- Governor Phips; but before the war David Lechmere, the husband of one of the daughters, had bought the shares of the others, with the exception of that owned by Mrs. Andrew Boardman. The Boardmans were patriots, but the

Lechmeres, like all the rest of the Phips connection, were Tories. The Lechmere estate was confiscated and was bought, as we have seen, by Andrew Cabot. Through several transfprs it passed Andrew igie, who thus owned about fivesixths of the w hole region known as Lechmere's Point, while the Boardmans retained title to the southw esterly part of the old Phips farm, w hich reached to the boundaries of the Jarvis estate. It was natural that these gentlemen, Messrs. Dana, Jarvis, Craigie and Boardman, should thus become much interested in the development of the eastern part ot the town.

For a hundred and thirty \ears the ' Great Bridge" at the foot of Boylston Street had been the only means of gc tting across the river, except by boat. On March 9, 1792, Judge Dana and sundry associates were incorporated as the "Proprietors of West Boston Bridge," with authority to build a toll bridge from the westerly part of Boston to Pelham's Island in the town of Cambridge. The toll franchise was to run for forty years, and from the tolls the proprietors were required to pay three hundred pounds a year to Harvard College. The bridge was at once constructed, together with a causeway over the marshes, as far as the present Lafayette Square, where it connected with the slightly higher ground known as Pelham's Island. The bridge was opened for travel on November 23, 1793. It required a complete readjustment of the roads. Until this time the later extended it from the Common to the new bridge, along what is now Broadway. The other built the Middlesex turnpike, of which the eastern end leading to the bridge is the present Hampshire Street. Houses, stores and taverns began to spring up along the causeway and on the streets, as they were laid out below Central Square. The big estates were gradually divided off into lots ; and Judge Dana and Mr. Jan.-is built a substantial dike along the marshes where the river bent to the northeast, thus reclaiming a considerable section of low-hang land. Ambitious plans were made old roads, one running from Charlestown Neck to Watertown, and the other from the Great Bridge to Menotomy and crossing on the Common, had remained the highways. Now a new set of roads came into being. Main Street and Massachusetts Avenue continued the new causeway- to Harvard Square; and radiating from this highway were River Street and Westem Avenue to the southwest, and Hampshire Street and Medford Street (now Webster Avenue) to the northwest. Two turnpike companies were incorporated. One built the road to Concord, which is now Concord Avenue, and for transforming the river-bank into a commercial port. Docks and canals were dug out of the salt marsh, and, in 1805, Cambridge was made a port of entry. Then came reverses. Mr. Jarvis became financially involved, and his property was long in Htigation, so that it had to be withdrawn from sale. Mr. Boardman, however, in 1801, brought his large holdings into the market by laying out Windsor Street through his land, thus gi^'ing it a connection \\ath the bridge and the fast-growang village of Cambridgeport. The Jan-is estate was sold at auction, and Mr. Jonathan L.

Austin, who bought the old Inman mansion, opened Austin Street. From this time the building went on rapidly, though Judge Dana retained all the older part of his estate, so that between Hancock Street and the College Yard there remained a large district without houses, and Cambridgeport was a distinct and separate village. The effort to make it a commercial center ran against the Embargo Act of 1808 and the War of 1812. The commerce of the whole country was paralyzed, and most of the promoters of the port of Cambridge were brought to bankruptcy. Of all the docks constructed be genuine, must have in it some sentiment of the sea, - it was this instinct that printed the device of the pine-tree on the old money and the old flag, - and these periodic ventures of the sloop Harvard made the old Viking fibre vibrate in the hearts of all the village boys. . . . All our shingle vessels were shaped and rigged by her, who was our glass of naval fashion and our motild of aquatic form. We had a secret and wild delight in believing that she carried a gun, and imagined her sending , grape and canister among the treacherous savages of Oldtown. Inspired by her were those first

"Cambridge," wrote Lowell of the town as it was in 1824, "has long had its port, but the greater part of its maritime trade was, thirty years ago, intrusted to a single Argo, the sloop Harvard, which belonged to the College, and made annual voyages to that vague Orient known as Down East, bringing back the wood that, in those days, gave to winter life at Harvard a crackle and a cheerfulness, for the loss of which the greater warmth of anthracite hardly compensates. New England life, to

"The greater part of what is now Cambridgeport was then (in the native dialect) a 'huckleberry pastur.' Woods were not wanting on its outskirts, of pine, and oak, and maple, and the rarer tupelo with downward limbs. Its veins did not draw their blood from the quiet old heart of the village, but it had a distinct being of its own, and was rather a great caravansary than a suburb. The chief featiire of the place was its inns, of which there were five, with vast barns and court-yards, which the railroad was to make as silent and deserted as the palaces of Nimroud. Great white-topped wagons, each drawn by double files of six or eight horses, with its dusty bucket swinging from the hinder axle, and its grim bull-dog trotting silent underneath, or in midsummer panting on the lofty perch beside the driver (how elevated thither baffled conjecture), brought all the wares and products of the country to their mart and seaport in Bo6ton. These filled the inn-yards, or were ranged side by side under broad-roofed sheds, and far into the night the mirth of their lusty drivers clamored from the red-curtained bar-room, while the single lantern, swaying to and fro in the black cavern of the stables, made a Rembrandt of the group of ostlers and horses below. There were, besides the taverns, some huge square stores where groceries were sold, some houses, by whom or why inhabited was to us boys a problem, and, on the edge of the marsh, a ciurier's shop, where, at high tide, on a floating platform, men were always beating skins in a way to remind one of Don Quixote's fulling mills."

The development of East Cambridge was chiefly the work of Mr. Andrew Craigie, who for ten or twelve years was most assiduous and successful in securing title to large tracts, and obtaining from the General Coturt the authority to build another bridge. His speculation turned out very well. It has been estimated that the land and franchises, which were quietly secured, and often in the names of relatives or associates, did not cost Mr. Craigie more than twenty thousand dollars. In 1808 he organized a stock company, and, reserving enough land for the bridge, its approaches and toll house, he disposed of the rest of the estate at a price of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. The next year the Craigie Bridge was built, and roads and approaches constructed, of which the chief was the present Cambridge Street, which connected the bridge with Cambridge Common and the coiontry beyond. In 1810 the stock company was incorporated as the Lechmere Point Corporation, lots were surveyed and the streets of East Cambridge laid out. The sales were, however, unsatisfactory, and in the first three years only ten lots were sold. Then the Corporation offered to give to Middlesex Coimty a whole square and a half of land, and to build a County Courthouse and jail at an expense of twenty-four thousand dollars, if the count}' would use and occupy the buildings. The town of Cambridge protested against the removal of the courthouse from Harvard Square, but the offer was too munificent a one to be resisted. The buildings were erected, and the courts began to be held in East Cambridge in 1816. This ingenious plan worked well for the company, and when the Boston Porcelain and Glass Company bought another large tract and built its factories, the success of the speculation was assured. Other industries followed, and the population of East Cambridge rapidly increased. The proprietors of the two new bridges entered into a lively competition. Each party endeavored to seciu-e the opening of streets which would serve as approaches to its own bridge, and to block the similar efforts of the other party. These rivalries kept the town meetings in a turmoil for a score of years.

Meanwhile the older part of the town saw but little change. The Cambridge of the first half of the nineteenth century was a good place to be bom in, as Lowell and Holmes and Dana and Higginson have testified; and it was surely good to live in the place where Kirkland and Everett and Quincy ruled the academic world, where Longfellow came to write his poetry, and Palfrey his history, and Sparks his biographies; where Washington Allston painted and Margaret Fuller dreamed.

"Cambridge," wrote Lowell in his Fireside Travels, "was still (1824) a country village with its own habits and traditions, not yet feehng too strongly the force of suburban gravitation. Approaching it from the west, by what was then called the New Road (Mt. Auburn Street), you would pause on the brow of Symond's Hill to enjoy a view sing\ilarly soothing and placid. In front of you lay the town, tufted with elms, lindens and horse-chestnuts, which had seen Massachusetts a colony, and were fortunately unable to emigrate with Tories, by whom, or by whose fathers, they were planted. Over it rose the noisy belfry of the College, the square, brown tower of the Episcopal Church, and the slim, yellow spire of the parish meeting-house. On your right, the Charles slipped smoothly through green and purple salt meadows, darkened here and there with the blossoming black grass as with a stranded cloud-shadow. To your left upon the Old Road (Brattle Street) you saw some half-dozen dignified old houses of the colonial time, all comfortably fronting southward. . . . We called it 'The Village' then, and it was essentially an English village - quiet, unspeculative, without enterprise, sufficing to itself, and only showing such differences from the original types as the public school and the system of town government might superinduce. A few houses, chiefly old, stood around the bare common, with ample elbow-room; and old women, capped and spectacled, still peered through the same windows from which they had watched Lord Percy's artillery rumble by to Lexington, or caught a glimpse of the handsome Virginia general who had come to wield our homespun Saxon chivalry. The hooks were to be seen from which had swung the hammocks of Burgoyne's captive red-coats. If memory does not deceive me, women still washed clothes in the town spring, clear as that of Bandalusia. One coach sufficed for all the travel to the metropolis."

Lowell saw the development of Cambridge from the idyllic village of his boyhood into a great suburban city bustling with many activities. So rapid was the change that Lowell, on his return from Eurpoe in 1889, wrote:

"I feel somehow as if Charon had ferried me the wrong way, and yet it is into a world of ghosts that he has brought me. I hardly know the old road, a street now, that I have paced so many years, for the new houses. My old homestead seems to have a puzzled look in its eyes as it looks down - a trifle superciliously me thinks - on these upstarts."