And now — the answers! Scroll below each image for the big reveal.
Question: The Fresh Pond Hotel opened in 1796 and quickly became a favorite venue for parties and celebrations. Cambridge residents and their friends and Harvard students enjoyed good food, choice wines, and dancing—until 1886 when Cambridge voters passed the No-license law, meaning no liquor licenses. The new regulation put the hotel out of business. The Sisters of St. Joseph ran an orphans’ home there until 1888. That year the city began to clear the site and sold the hotel to a private owner, who moved the building and converted it into apartments. Where is the former Fresh Pond Hotel today?
L. Williard became the new proprietor ca. 1848. The hotel is at the peak of the hill. Guests could row or sail around the pond in rented boats, go fishing, and bowl in an outdoor alley.Answer: The former hotel now stands at 234 Lakeview Avenue, with its original wood siding covered beneath stucco. On June 11, 1892, the Cambridge Chronicle reported, “Alderman Parry is to move the old Fresh Pond hotel, which he recently bought from the city, to Lake View Avenue, where it will be made into an apartment house.” In August 1893 the paper announced, “Parties desiring fine suites of room in a most delightful vicinity, cannot do better than to examine the suites offered … in the Lakeview. … Train service consists of 37 trains a day. [Each suite] contains six rooms and bath, and rent for the very reasonable sum of $12.50 per month.”
Question: George Washington, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental army, arrived in Cambridge on June 2, 1775. Two days later he moved out of the first house prepared for him and relocated to more spacious quarters. Where was his original headquarters?
Answer: The town had readied Wadsworth House, then home to Harvard College presidents. Harper’s, vol. 52 (1875-1876)
Question: Fountain Terrace in North Cambridge is named for a real fountain. Where was the fountain?
Answer: The fountain was a feature of Fresh Pond and marked the spot where the Stony Brook supply pipe entered the pond. Fountain Terrace, originally a carriage drive, passed over the pipe and into the landscaped park, giving an immediate view of the fountain.
Question: Lechmere Station — Lechmere Canal – Lechmere Sales. Who the heck was Lechmere?
Answer: All the Lechmeres sites are named for Richard Lechmere, a wealthy loyalist who lived in a handsome Brattle Street mansion. Through his wife, Mary Phips, Richard was related to a number of prominent Tory families: her sister Elizabeth was married to John Vassall Sr. and Rebecca to Joseph Lee. Their father, Spencer Phips, served as the colony’s lieutenant governor from 1732 to his death in 1757; he owned over 300 acres of rich marshland in East Cambridge, which he left to his to his children. (See map below.)
Life got too hot in patriot Cambridge for the Brattle Street loyalists, and in 1774 Lechmere sold the house and moved his family to British-occupied Boston. They fled to Nova Scotia in 1776, at the end of the Siege of Boston, and later removed to England.
Bonus questions: On the night of September 20, 1848, Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in Cambridge City Hall championing General Zachary Taylor for president and Millard Fillmore for vice president. The congressman from Illinois had had a busy week: on the 13th he had been in Worcester at the party’s state convention, then traveled eastward, campaigning in Lowell, Dorchester, and Chelsea. He had been in Dedham only that morning. Cambridge’s present City Hall was not built until 1888-89, so where did Lincoln’s speak? (Hint: today there is a Catholic church on the site.) Who won the 1848 election? Answers: Follow this link.
