CDASH, the digital version of the Cambridge Historical Commission’s architectural survey, documents the built environment of the city through newspaper clippings, articles, photographs, atlas details, ephemera, correspondence, and much more. The CDASH user interface has been upgraded for enhanced use on your mobile device as well as an improved desktop experience. One useful feature lets you explore buildings and historical resources near your current location.
Experience history in the field: 📍 On your GPS-enabled device, tap the Find My Location cross hatch (𖦏) and allow the site location permissions to zoom to your location on the map. 🗺️ The blue location marker then dynamically traces your point of view and orientation on any of the antique or contemporary base maps available in the Layers menu. 🕵️♀️ Tap a marker, and you’re ready to delve into Cambridge history on location!
Unearth bygone landscapes, peruse the history of your house, and examine the evolution of our streets, all from your phone. Visit https://cdash.cambridgema.gov/ to learn more and start exploring today.
In April 2023, a devastating fire enveloped the Faith Lutheran Church at 311 Broadway. Unfortunately, the damage was so severe that the building was later demolished. Congregation members are currently determining how they will carry a little of the old church forward.
Faith Lutheran Church at 311 Broadway as photographed by CHC staff on April 10, 2023
After their formation in Cambridge in 1892, the Swedish Evangelical Lutherans began plans for a new church to house their congregation. Previously, worship and meetings took place at several temporary spaces, including St. George’s Hall on Mass Ave, Raymond Hall, and the East End Union Hall. Although unrest and failed plans to acquire property plagued the congregation for several years, fundraising was underway. Finally, in 1906, the property at 313 Broadway—a 12-room house on a large lot—was purchased. In 1907, architects Newhall and Blevins presented plans for a church in the “old Gothic” style to be built there with a modified design later accepted by the church’s building committee. The cornerstone was laid on December 20, 1908, and the building was dedicated in 1909. The original house at 313 was demolished in 1930.
Faith Lutheran Church at 311 Broadway as photographed by CHC staff on November 12, 1969
The church’s building style evoked a simplified, Scandinavian version of early German medieval work, with an emphasis on the “westwerk” of the Ottoman period. These forms and modest surface treatment are typical of smaller churches throughout Sweden and Denmark. The steeple was central, set in a projecting block and serving as the center of the forward transept. Two small towers flanked an entry porch in front of this massive tower. Furnishing the church was a true community effort: the pulpit, altar and altar rail were constructed by the Swedish workers of Irving & Casson Co. with materials donated by the company; the altar mural was the work and gift of Carl G.T. Olson, a member; the rugs were donated by John A. Hedin, furniture store; and four chandeliers were donated by the employees of Union Glass Company.
Rendering of the proposed new church building, courtesy SMMA Architects
As part of their rebuilding efforts, congregation members have produced a video highlighting the history of the church and their future plans. View that video here: Faith After the Fire: Building a Space for Grace.
“In presenting to the citizens of Cambridge the first number of the CAMBRIDGE DIRECTORY, the publisher believes that an object, long desired, has been attained.”
This quote is from one John Ford, the Directory author and publisher (beginning in 1847) of The Cambridge Chronicle which was first published in 1846. This first city directory for Cambridge appeared on January 11, 1848 and outlined information for the previous year. John Ford published seven more directories, the last in 1857.
As a directory, the text’s primary purpose is to list the names of people and organizations that make up the city. However, the directory also published many facts about the Cambridge of 179 years ago.
A suburban scene at Porter’s Station in North Cambridge, ca. 1856–69. Image: Boston Athenæum. [Porter’s Station, Cambridge, Mass.], hand-colored lithograph, n.d
Population of Cambridge in 1845: 12,490
Wards:
Ward 1, Old Cambridge Ward 2, Cambridge Port Ward 3, Lechmere Point and East Cambridge
1854 Map of Cambridge, Massachusetts by Henry Francis Walling
Officers of the City of Cambridge, with published salaries, 1847-1848:
Mayor, $600 Aldermen, 6 Common Councilmen, 19 City Clerk, $500 and Fees Clerk Common Council, $100 City Messenger, 1, $200 City Treasurer, 1, $150 Assessors, 3, $500 each Collector of Taxes, 1, $500 City Marshall, 1 Assistant City Marshall, 2 Constables, 9 Police Officer, 1 Overseers of the Poor, 6 Warden of Almshouse, 1, $400 Almshouse Physician, 1, $50 Ward Officers, 15 Board of Health, 2, Mayor and Aldermen Watchmen, 7
Cordwood on a cart passing Cambridge Common, ca. 1850. Daguerreotype courtesy of Matthew R. Isenburg.
Other City Positions:
Surveyors of Lumber, 12 Fence Viewers, 3 Sealers of Leather, 4 Weighers of Hay, 5 Measurers of Wood and Bark, 5 Surveyors of Highways, 7 Field Drivers, 7 Sealers of Weights and Measures, 2 Pound Keeper, 1 Auctioneers, 6 Justices of the Peace and the Quorum, 5 Justices of the Peace, 30
Church Street looking east, ca. 1857–64. The town’s Cambridge 1 fire house (1834) is in the center. Image: Harvard University Archives, HUV 2010 (BP51).
Fire Department:
7 companies
Location of Reservoirs, “where Water may be obtained in case of fire”:
Alphabet: 5 schools, 5 teachers Primary: 7 schools, 8 teachers Middle: 7 schools, 10 teachers Grammar: 6 schools, 13 teachers High School: 1 school “open to pupils from all parts of the City who are able to pass a satisfactory examination”
Original North School building at 2 Russell St, originally located at 10 Russell St. Built 1841-5 and demolished in 1975. The Greek Revival building served as a school house and as a meeting house for the North Cambridge Baptist Society from 1846-1852. Photographed by Richard Cheek, 1974.
Harvard University:
270 Undergraduate students 325 Graduate students
Law, 121
Theology, 23
Medical, 165
Special students in Chemistry, 6
Harvard Bicentennial Celebration on Sept 9, 1836, engraved by George Girdler Smith and published in The History of Harvard University by Josiah Quincy (1840).
View of Christ Church at 0 Garden St as published in the 1862 Harvard College Class Album.
Post Offices:
One in each ward, 3
Businesses:
The 1848 Directory lists 69 businesses in the city. What follows are the largest, revealing the types which were the most important to the city residents. They also reveal a look into the lives of its residents, i.e. the large number of blacksmiths shows the importance of horses in the lives of Cambridge residents.
Advertisement for Joel Robinson, black and white smith of East Cambridge, as it appeared in the 1848 directory.
Manufactories:
Car Manufactory, 1: Davenport & Bridges manufacturing railroad cars, 150 persons and 40 horses (largest in the country) Brush Manufactory, 2 companies Cordage Manufactory, 1 person and 8 horses New England Glass Company, 200 persons and 60 horses
View of New England Glass Works from from the Miller’s River, 1851.
Today’s post was written by guest contributor Ted Hansen
Washtub Square before 1894. Image: History Cambridge
Do you know where this picture was taken? It is at the intersection of Craigie and Brattle Streets, where the circular fountain in the center of the picture was placed in 1889. The house in the background is 27 Craigie St, built in 1854. After the installation of the fountain, the intersection was often referred to as “Washtub Square.” It appears to have gotten that sobriquet the same year it was erected:
The Cambridge Chronicle November 9, 1889
The nickname may have derived from its shape, which resembled a washtub, or it may have been because it was planted smack in the middle of the busy intersection, causing a jumble of traffic jams – as though caught in a “washtub.” More on that below.
How did this come about? In 1889, Mary Edgcumbe Blatchford (1838-1931) of 156 Brattle St got permission from the City Committee on Water Supply and Drainage to erect what she called a “fountain” to commemorate her friend Abby Williams May who had died in 1888.
Mary E. Blatchford was born in New York City in 1838 to New York lawyer Hedgecumbe (frequently misspelled Edgecombe) Heath Blatchford and Mary Ann Hubbard, who hailed from Boston. Daughter Mary grew up in New York and was sent to Switzerland for her education. Her father died in 1853, and by 1860 she and her mother had moved to Craigie Street in Cambridge. (A note of interest is that she was a cousin of Mable Hubbard, who married Alexander Graham Bell.)
Blatchford was an author of children’s books including the two pictured below. More importantly, she was deeply interested in education. It was that interest that drew her to the circle of Miss Abby W. May (1829-1888).
Cover of The Story of Little Jane and Me by Mary G. Blatchford (1898). Image via Internet Archive
Cover of Polly and the Aunt by Mary E. Blatchford (1906). Image via Internet Archive
Abigail Williams May was born and raised in Boston, the daughter of Samuel May and Mary May Goddard. Her father was a hardware merchant active in a variety of social causes including the anti-slavery and temperance movements.
Portrait of Abby W. May (1829-1888). Image via Boston Women’s Heritage Trail
Portrait of Abby W. May (1829-1888). Image via FindAGrave added by user Jen Snoots
In Abby’s case, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. She was also a social reformer, suffragist, and advocate for women’s education. Her list of accomplishments is lengthy: founder of the Horticultural School for Women, Vice-president of the New England Women’s Club, President of the Massachusetts School Suffrage Association, and Vice-president of the Association for the Advancement of Women. She worked to form the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War and later became a trustee of the Tuskegee Institute. In 1874 she was appointed to the Massachusetts State Board of Education. (Another interesting tidbit: her first cousin was author Louisa May Alcott.)
A year after Abby May’s death in 1888, Mary Blatchford commissioned an architect to design a memorial to her. At the time, Blatchford was living with her sister and brother-in-law Samuel H. Scudder at 156 Brattle Street, corner of Lowell and Brattle. She later purchased the house in 1903.
156 Brattle Street photographed by B. Orr, 1968. Cambridge Historical Commission
Blatchford submitted a formal request to the Cambridge Committee on Water Supply and Drainage for permission to erect the fountain:
The Cambridge Chronicle April 6, 1889
As described in The Cambridge Tribune of November 2, 1889, the fountain consisted of “two granite blocks 9 x 9, each being 2 ½ feet thick. The bottom one is solid and the upper is hollowed, forming a basin. The following inscription encircles the basin; ‘Abigail Williams May, born April 21, 1829, died Nov. 30, 1888,’ the fountain being erected in honor of the deceased. Two sprays of wheat are cut in the space beneath the names in the inscription. It is said that the fountain stands rather high, but this objection may be offset by grading.”
Although Blatchford referred to it as a fountain, it was primarily a watering trough for horses with an accessory water fountain for humans. This was not unusual. Watering troughs were common, and many included drinking fountains. The costs were frequently paid by private citizens. They could be found in Harvard, Lechmere, and Porter squares, and major street junctions throughout the city: Cambridge and Bridge St, Main and Broadway, and Broadway and Hampshire, to name just a few.
A horse drinks from the fountain in Washtub Square while a horsecar bound for Bowdoin Square in Boston passes by. Photo ca. 1889.
(An article in the August 14, 1909 edition of The Cambridge Chronicle titled “Thirsty Horses Can Now Drink” reminds us of the need for a horse trough in Central Square: “…During the recent hot spell, the need of a watering place for horses in the square became very apparent, for hundreds [bold added] of them pass this point daily en route to Somerville, Brighton, and to different sections of the city…”) For more on the number of horses in Cambridge, see our blog Clip Clop: Urban Life with 4,000 Horses.
On the map below you can barely make out the circle in the middle of the Craigie/Brattle St intersection that indicated the location of the fountain.
Detail: Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts (Philadelphia : G.W. Bromley & Co., 1916)
Ms. Blatchford’s fountain was well received. The April 6, 1889 edition of The Cambridge Press declared “… Possibly no prettier tribute could be paid to the memory of a departed friend than to erect a structure in granite from which man and beast may quench their thirst on a hot summer’s day…It will not only be ornamental in a conspicuous place, but it will be decidedly useful.” Cambridge Aldermen agreed:
The Cambridge Chronicle May 24, 1890
Others, however, felt it was practical, but rather plain-looking:
The Cambridge Tribune May 17, 1890
On a related note, a writer for the Tribune made a connection with a similar water source: “Speaking of fountains, the pigeons, the robins, and especially the dogs (who have been overlooked in the Craigie Street watering trough in “Wash-tub square,” as it has been facetiously called by Cambridgeport people), take great delight this hot weather in this little fountain in the yard of the Ross house.” (The Cambridge Tribune) August 5, 1893. Be sure to stay tuned for more on the Ross house fountain in a later post.
In 1922 the city abandoned the water trough and instead planted flowers in the basin. But by 1923, with the increase in automobile traffic, the structure was deemed a traffic hazard. The City Council voted to have it removed. So, in January of 1925, 36 years after its inception, it was demolished. Miss Blatchford, now age 87 and still in residence at 156 Brattle Street, generously agreed. Even without the fountain, the intersection continued to be referred to as Washtub Square.
The Cambridge Chronicle January 28, 1927
Washtub square in 2026. Image: Kathleen Fox
Mary E. Blatchford passed away in 1931, outliving her friend by 43 years. She is buried in lot #4260 Myrtle Path, Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Abby Williams May is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery.
Today would have marked the 85th birthday of Saundra M. Graham, Cambridge community activist and politician.
Saundra was born in Cambridge on September 5, 1941 and attended public schools here, later going on to the University of Massachusetts and Harvard University Extension. Saundra moved to Boston after marrying Carl Graham, Sr. in 1958. Following the couple’s divorce, Saundra returned to Cambridge in 1968 to raise her five children, settling in the Riverside neighborhood.
Cambridge City Council, Police Brutality Hearings, Civil Rights lawyer William Homans (top left), Saundra Graham (bottom left), and Joanne Pelham (bottom right), January 1971. Photographed by Olive Pierce. Cambridge Room, Cambridge Public Library Archives and Special Collections
That year, Saundra joined the Board of Directors of the Cambridge Community Center. In 1971, she helped found and became president of the Riverside Cambridgeport Community Development Corporation, which provided and upgraded low- and moderate-income housing for Cambridge residents. During the 1970 Harvard commencement, Saundra led a protest against the university’s expansion into and eviction of long-time Riverside residents. The protest succeeded in compelling the university to construct inclusive housing complexes over the next ten years.
In 1971, Saundra became the first woman of color to be elected to the Cambridge City Council. As City Councilor, Vice Mayor, and later State Representative, she played a key role in obtaining federal housing dollars for Cambridge that resulted in rehabilitation and modernization of public housing. In 1976, Saundra was elected as State Representative, a seat she held for twelve years, becoming the first black woman representative from Cambridge to the State House. She continued to work for fair housing in the legislature and was dedicated to obtaining economic justice for the poor, elderly, unemployed, minorities and women.
New City Council – Members of the Cambridge City Council are posed here following inaugural ceremony at City Hall. Front, from left, Out-going Mayor Walter J. Sullivan, Saundra Graham, Alfred E. Vellucci, senior councilor in 12th term; Barbara Ackermann and Thomas W. Danehy. Rear, Joseph Connarton, deputy city clerk; Leonard J. Russell, Daniel J. Clinton, David E. Clem, new councilor; Francis H. Duehay and City Clerk Paul Healy. Photographed by Ed Pacheco, 1976.
Saundra passed away on June 23, 2023. Though her accomplishments are too numerous to list here, a portion of her obituary emphasizes her dedication to public service: “Saundra was a stalwart of her community. She was a champion for all and spent her lifework ensuring that family, neighbors, the community, and the people of the State of Massachusetts were seen, heard, valued, and uplifted. She was the voice of the people and a beacon of change.”
Come meet the archivists, historians, and organizations preserving Cambridge’s history. Explore collections, discover stories, and chat with the people who help keep our local history alive!
Joan Lorentz Park September 12, 2026 Free & open to all ages!
The 2½-story Gothic Revival house that first stood at 64 Highland Street, situated across the street from the Highland Street Reservoir, was constructed in 1860 for owner Charles Coffin Little, co-founder of the publishing firm Little, Brown and Company.
64 Highland Street photographed by Bertram Adams on March 13, 1963. CHC collections.
The most romantic of the picturesque styles and the one that first attracted American architects and builders was the Gothic Revival. The style first appeared in the United States in churches and was not widely adopted for houses until well into the 19th century as prospective owners looked to a romanticized past for design inspiration.
64 Highland Street photographed by Ed James in April 1949. CHC collections.
While the Greek Revival style was much more popular due to American desires to separate from British-influenced types, a few commissions were inspired by British Gothic buildings. The Gothic Revival style in America was advanced by architects Alexander Jackson Davis and Andrew Jackson Downing, authors of influential house plan books, which promoted appropriate designs for rural settings. Houses in this style are often designed with complex and irregular shapes and forms fitting well into the natural landscape.
64 Highland Street photographed by Roger Gilman. Date unknown. CHC collections.
In 1863, Little sold the handsome house to Professor Charles Franklin Dunbar, a historian and the first Chair of Political Economy at Harvard. Dunbar was Dean of Harvard College from 1876 to 1882 and Dean of the reorganized Faculty of Arts and Sciences from 1890 to 1895. Professor Dunbar died in his home on January 29, 1900. The house was then owned by his son William H. Dunbar, who died in the house in August 1935 at age 72.
Katherine Copeland Dunbar (Mrs. William H. Dunbar) on Highland Street with the Highland Street Reservoir at left. Source: Charles W. Eliot II.
64 Highland St was set to be sold the following spring. Newspaper clippings note a wide array of tenants at the property in the following decades until it was purchased by Alan and Claire Steinert in the early 1960s. Finding the house too large and outdated for their tastes, the couple demolished the building to make way for a new modern residence to be designed by architect F.F. Bruck.
Check out yesterday’s Modern Monday post to learn more about the house that replaced this Gothic Revival building and still stands on the lot today.
In the early 1960s, architect Ferdinand Friedrich (Frederick) Adrian Bruck, known professionally as F.F. Bruck, was commissioned by Alan and Claire Steinert to design a new residence in the Reservoir Hill area of West Cambridge. Bruck was a Harvard GSD graduate who studied under Walter Gropius, a pioneer of modernist architecture.
64 Highland Street photographed by CHC staff in 1968
Bruck later apprenticed at the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, designing power plants, dams, and similar structures. Following his graduation, Bruck taught at the GSD part time as an Associate Professor, a position he held from 1952-1963. Concurrently, he was hired by The Architects Collaborative (TAC) under Gropius and assisted in designs with the firm as well as accepting independent commissions under his company, F. Frederick Bruck, Architect and Associates.
64 Highland Street photographed by CHC staff in 1968
At the time of Bruck’s commission, Alan, a member of the Steinert Piano family, and his wife Claire were in their sixties. When they purchased the former Charles C. Little House on Highland St, they decided it was too large and dated for their tastes. The large Gothic Revival house was demolished and Bruck was tasked with designing a one-story modern home to allow the couple to age in place, display their art collection, and accommodate social gatherings.
64 Highland Street photographed by CHC staff in 1967
The couple insisted on incorporating the latest technologies, including central air conditioning, radiant heating, and low voltage lighting to illuminate their artworks. The design was featured in the 1965 edition of Architectural Record’s annual Record Houses publication, highlighting the best residential project designs of the past year.
64 Highland Street photographed by CHC staff in 1968
Describing the construction of the house, Bruck noted that “the house is wood frame with dark brick veneer. Brick was chosen to blend with the substantial character of the surrounding houses, to reduce maintenance, and because it is a material which could meet the sloping terrain. Wood frame was chosen for economy and to facilitate construction during the winter months.” The building remains one of the best examples of 1960s residential designs in Cambridge.
Today marks the 121st birthday of Helen M. Thomas!
Portrait of Helen Meriwether Lewis (1923). Image courtesy Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Born Helen Meriwether Lewis on August 21, 1905 in New York, she began her early education in the city and continued her high school years at St. Catherine’s School in Richmond, VA. Helen earned her AB from Radcliffe College in 1928 in government, but her interest in astronomy was inspired by undergraduate work at the Harvard College Observatory (HCO), where she assisted Professor Willem Luyten in identifying white dwarf stars.
Entry for Helen Meriwether Lewis, The Year Book of 1928, Radcliffe College. Image courtesy Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Helen married Frederick M. Thomas shortly after her graduation and they had one son. The marriage ended and Helen found employment in many organizations. She worked for three years as secretary to Leon Campbell, head of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), then affiliated with the HCO. She joined the Observatory staff under the remarkable astronomer Cecelia Payne-Goposchkin. During the late 1930s, Helen began work towards a PhD in the History of Science under supervision of Harvard professor George Sarton, preparing a thesis on the history of variable star observations from the 2nd century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. At the beginning of World War II, her graduate work was interrupted by war work, and her degree was not awarded until 1948.
Group portrait of Helen Lewis Thomas and her staff at MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (1968). Image courtesy Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.
Helen was “drafted” first into the Harvard Radio Research Laboratory and, shortly after, into the MIT Radiation Laboratory, where she worked with science historian Henry Guerlac, preparing a history of the laboratory. In 1947 she was named a senior engineer at Raytheon Manufacturing Co, where she remained until 1954, working on guidance systems.
Exterior view of apartment building at 55 Langdon St, Cambridge. Image via Google Street View (June 2018).
Helen lived for a time at 55 Langdon Street in Cambridge. She returned to MIT as an editor and head of publications at the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics until her retirement in 1971.
Entry for “Closest Prediction” in the 1987 Guinness Book of World Records, edited by Alan Russell.
In 1986, she was awarded a $50K prize by Trans World Airlines (TWA) for accurately predicting, thirty years before, the range, cruising speed, passenger capacity, and use of jet engines by commercial airlines (earning a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records). She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, and a memorial service was held at Christ Church, Cambridge.
To learn the stories of more trailblazing women like Helen Meriwether Thomas, visit the Cambridge Women’s Heritage Project database: https://cwhp.cambridgema.gov/
Laughing men in sodden bathing costumes on a dock, photographed ca. 1895-1905 by Ralph N. Smith. Cambridge Historical Commission, Ralph N. Smith collection.
Did you know that what we today call “swimming,” in the 19th century, was generally referred to as “bathing?” Hence, today we still use the terms “bathhouses,” (sometimes spelled as two separate words) and “bathing suits.” The early 1800s had already seen private bathhouses along the Cambridge shoreline – Harvard had one in 1810 and 1841 near Hawthorne and Bath streets, and in 1830 the Cambridge Humane Society had built one near today’s Anderson Bridge. This post, however, focuses on the history of 19th century municipal swimming places on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, beginning upstream at Gerry’s Landing and moving downstream to the floating bathhouse at River Street, and finally to Captains Island – now called Magazine Beach.
First, a little history. The latter half of the 1800s saw a strong movement extolling the health benefits of bathing, especially for those without access to private swimming pools—or even a bathtub in their own home. This movement was one of the driving forces behind developing public bathing spots and “bathhouses” along the Charles.
By 1867 the Cambridge Alderman’s Committee on Health advocated for five free public bathing places. Decisions about the development of the beaches, including bathhouses, concessions, floats, and changes in location were entangled in complicated governmental structures created by the State legislature (creating the Metropolitan District Commission, and Parks Commission), and by Cambridge‘s own Aldermen and Parks Department. Even after the City of Cambridge conveyed responsibility for the entire Charles River Park system to the Metropolitan District Commission in 1921, there continued to be tussles and renegotiations.
Gerry’s Landing, pronounced with the hard “g” sound and not to be confused with “Jerry’s (soft “g”) Pit” in North Cambridge, was located at the same bend near what is now the intersection of Memorial Drive, Mount Auburn Street, Alewife Brook Parkway, and Greenough Boulevard.
Aerial view of the intersection of Memorial Drive, Mt. Auburn St, and Greenough Blvd. adjacent to the Browne & Nichols school. The Eliot Bridge is at the bottom of the photograph. This area is still referred to as Gerry’s Landing. Image: NearMap MapBrowser imagery captured 9 April 2026.
Before it became Gerry’s Landing, this bend in the river was called “Sir Richard’s Landing” after the leader of the first European settlers who settled in Watertown in 1603. It is also well known because of Harvard Professor Eben Norton Horsford’s (debunked) theory that Leif Erikson traveled up the Charles and landed there in the year 1000.
Gerry’s Landing was named after Elbridge Gerry (1744-1824), signer of the Declaration of Independence, Congressman, Governor of Massachusetts, co-author of the Bill of Rights, and Vice President under James Madison. These days, he is most well-known for his eponymous voter redistricting map in Massachusetts, whipped up in order to further his political interests. Called “gerrymandering” (erroneously with a soft g), political cartoonists made the plan to resemble a salamander, and as such it has passed down to us today.
Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) by Nathaniel Jocelyn, c. 1845-1847. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Louise E. Bettens Fund.
“The Gerry-mander” as printed in Magazine of American History, 1872. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library.
Detail: Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts (G.M. Hopkins & Co., 1886) showing “The Ancient Road to Gerry’s Landing.”
Pinpointing who exactly was responsible for maintaining the Gerry’s Landing beach during the 19th century was complicated. The question arose in 1883 when the Cambridge Hospital was considering building the hospital on Mt. Auburn St., but wanted to assurance that that the landing was “secured for the city” so that their contagious disease patients, brought upriver on boats, could disembark without objection. Eventually, the Alderman agreed to take possession of the landing, and the hospital was built the following year.
In 1918, the city provided men and boys with a bathhouse; but it was not until 1920 that women were accommodated (sort of), with a portable iron voting booth for changing. This was rectified by 1934 when men and women each had seperate bathhouses, which the city provided until WWII.
“Beach Scene at Gerry’s Landing” as published in the Park Commissioners report in The Annual Reports Made to the City Council for the Year Ending March 31, 1925. Note the float on the river.
The demise of the original Gerry’s Landing beach arrived in 1947 with the extension of Memorial Drive westward to the intersection the Alewife Brook Parkway and Mt. Auburn St. In anticipation of this, the MDC committed to creating a “new” Gerry’s Landing beach a couple of hundred yards further up the river in the vicinity of the Browne and Nichols boathouse. This move involved a certain amount of excavating and constructing of a beachfront. On July 4, 1930, The Cambridge Chronicle reported that “The new beach, which has been covered with tons of sand by the Metropolitan district commission, is already proving popular with the patrons of the old Gerry’s landing beach.” By 1941, a bathhouse had been built at the new site.
The new Gerry’s Landing swimming beach also met its demise (along with all other beaches on the Charles) in 1949 when the Metropolitan District Commission closed all beaches due to pollution.
Gerry’s Landing today, with sculls of the Cambridge Boat Club. Image: Kathleen Fox, July 2026
The River Street Floating Bathhouse
This floating bathhouse actually began its life in 1888 at the foot of the Western Avenue bridge. Shortly after its installation, effluent from a nearby sewer was discovered. Consequently, the bathhouse was moved downstream to a mooring on the right-hand side of the River St. Bridge.
Floating bathhouses were popular in the 19th century. By 1897, Boston had about six of them on its various waterfronts, including one on the Charles River at Craigie’s Bridge, which Cantabrigians often used. These were generally wood frame enclosures with gaps that allowed the river to run through them while at the same time providing a sort of designated swimming pool area to secure bathers from the current. The bathhouses might be open to the sky or enclosed, providing deck space and even changing rooms. While to date we don’t have an illustration of the River Street bathhouse, it may have borne some resemblance to this bathhouse in New York City:
Interior of a Swimming Bath drawn by Stanley Fox and as published in Harper’s Weekly (August 20, 1870). Image courtesy New York Historical Society.
The overall dimensions of the River Street bathhouse were 70 feet long by 28 feet wide, with the swimming tank being about 35 by 18 feet. It featured a safety rope “so that small boys who cannot swim can enter the tank in perfect safety.”
The July 28, 1888 edition of The Cambridge Chronicle described it: “On the left of the entrance is the keeper’s office while on the righthand of the house and in the rear are closets….It is boarded on all sides, although small openings allow the water to have a splendid circulation. The water is 4 feet deep and there is one pair of stairs that lead down into the water. The plans were drawn by City Engineer Barbour. In order to give flotation to the building and have enough water in the tank, eight oil casks with a capacity of 120 gallons have been used. There are also several ships’ spars on which the house floats…”
It cost only three cents for boys and men (judging from the newspapers, women and girls didn’t have use of the bathhouse) to pick up a clean towel and a key to one of the closets. After changing in the closet and locking it, the customer returned the key to the manager, who took his name and address and gave him the number to wear around his neck. At the end of the swim, the swimmer handed in the number and received the key to fetch his clothes, Generally, order was well maintained: “…though this is no easy thing to accomplish when the tank is as full of boys as it is possible to fill it, and the rest of the house is filled with others who are waiting their turn to get into the water. The utmost good nature generally prevails…the benefit this public bath is to the youth of the city cannot be estimated…There should be several more of them…” (The Cambridge Chronicle 14 June 1890)
Today we forget that the Charles was a tidal river as far up as the falls (now a dam) at Watertown. Tides, and the smelly mud flats they created, also played a significant role in how, when, and where to construct beaches and bathhouses. This quote the explains the situation: “There are times when the tide is not right when he is obliged to close the door [to the River St. bathhouse] to prevent the boys from bathing in a bath of mud.” (The Cambridge Chronicle, 14 June 1890)
Around the mid-1890s, The Cambridge Chronicle regularly ran a high tide chart to enable bathers to schedule their dip:
The Cambridge Chronicle August 26, 1899
The floating bathhouse was a huge hit: “The River St. Bath house now going fully blast …Often on a hot summer morning when Mr. Clover arrives at the house, he finds a crowd of boys roosted upon the fences and railings of the bridge, some nearly stripped, ready to plunge into the tank as soon as the door is opened…A visit to this one public bath house in the city is interesting and very amusing. In the big tank will be seen boys of every size, nationality and color, reminding one in their evolution of a big pond full of eels.” (The Cambridge Chronicle, 14 June 1890)
After the season closed, the bathhouse was towed to its winter quarters at the rear of the Holmes & Rugg coal wharf, as seen below:
Detail: Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts (G.M. Hopkins & Co., 1886) showing location of the winter mooring for the River St. Bathhouse
Sadly, the River St. bathhouse met its end when it was destroyed by fire in April 1899. Moves to build a replacement facility stalled with city government.
Captain’s Island, aka Magazine Beach
Detail: Map of Cambridge by W. A. Mason (1866)
Magazine Beach, originally called “Captain’s Island,” was developed on a small island in Cambridgeport surrounded by marshes. It was named after Captain Daniel Patrick (1605 England-1643 Connecticut) who emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. He gained the title “Captain” after the Bay Colony enlisted him to build forts and monitor security. He was given a parcel of land in which included a hill surrounded by marsh, which for centuries was referred to as “Captain’s Island.”
After the Revolution, the property was owned by private families until, in 1817, it was sold to the Commonwealth for the purpose of building a defensive powder magazine (1818). Below is a photograph depicting the state of the powder house in 1890 after it was no longer in use.
“The Old Magazine” – ruins of the Magazine Beach Powder House, 1892. Image courtesy The Cambridge Room.
Later, the powder house was successfully converted into a bathhouse.
During the late 19th century, as the need for more residential space in Cambridge increased, the surrounding marshes began to be filled. At the same time, citizens were lobbying for more public bathing places in addition to Gerry’s Landing and the River Street bathhouse. The city paid attention and in 1894 took the land by eminent domain. This effort was part of a larger project to renovate the Charles River waterfront all the way up to Gerry’s Landing.
In 1899, the city engaged the Olmsted Brothers to draw up plans for landscaping, a new bathing beach, and bathhouse for women.
Cambridge River Parkway Section D – “Captains Island” by H.H. Batchelder. Annual Report of the Park Commissioners, 1899.
The city then renovated the old powder magazine to outfit it as a bathhouse for men and boys. Before the women’s bathhouse was built, as at Gerry’s Landing, a couple of iron voting booths were installed at one end of the beach. The beach itself was improved with river gravel along 430 feet of waterfront.
The Cambridge Chronicle 15 July 1899
The Cambridge Chronicle June 3, 1899
The June 3, 1899 edition of The Cambridge Chronicle outlined the new bathhouse protocol: “Bathers must provide their own suits, but the lockers are free. The man in charge will supply towels, if desired, at a small cost. … Mr. Joseph James, who formerly had supervision of the old city bath house at the foot of River Street is in charge of the present one, and will be assisted by a young man in a bathing suit…who will be on duty all the time, giving his special attention to guarding bathers against the danger from the strong current at this point.”
A month and a half later, on July 17, 1899, it was recorded that 750 bathers used the venue that day. In July, the city also acquired a row boat “for use in case of any danger to life in the water.” The Cambridge Chronicle remarked “the beach (how strange it seems to talk about a Cambridge ‘beach’) is thronged with observers, men, women and children, who go there for an airing and to see the bathers.” In January 1900, the paper reported that during the 1899 season “…about 30,500 people used the bathing beach.”
“Beach at Captains Island” Annual Report of the Park Commissioners by Cambridge Park Commissioners, 1899
In 1900, an extravagant proposal for a new bathhouse surfaced. It was designed by Architect George Moore but never built.
The Cambridge Chronicle February 17, 1900
By 1901, there were four bathhouses at Captain’s Island including a women’s bathhouse. The men’s facility featured four-foot-high lockers “to allow the men to hang their trousers full length without creasing them.” The new bathhouse use rates were slightly more than they had been at the floating River St bathhouse: “…Bathing suits and towels may be obtained from the attendant in charge of each bath house. The following prices will prevail: Suit, towel and locker accommodation, 10¢; suit, towel and dressing room, 15¢; dressing room, with towel, without suit, 10¢. extra towels, each 3¢…” (The Cambridge Chronicle June 15, 1901)
“Bathing Beach” [at Captain’s Island] Annual Report of the Park Commissioners by Cambridge Park Commissioners, 1901
Women’s bathing suits at the time would have looked something like those on these ladies at Long Beach California:
“Out for a Time, Long Beach. 661.” ca. 1898 by Shirley V. Bacon. SoCa Digitization Project, California State Library.
Bathers at Magazine Beach, 1906. Gas tanks of the Boston Consolidated Gas Company on Cambridge St can be seen across the river. Cambridge Historical Commission Collections, gift of Walter L. Colburn.
Swimming on Magazine Beach in 1935. Image courtesy MDC Archives/Boston Public Library
Pollution in the Charles had always closed beaches for days at a time. Much of the pollution arose from aging sewer systems that combined residential and industrial waste with storm water runoff. In 1949, pollution was so high it became a public health hazard and the MDC closed all beaches on the Charles permanently.
Two girls viewing the “No Bathing Beached Closed” sign at Magazine Beach in 1948, photographed by Kenneth J. Connant, Jr. for The Boston Globe.
In response to beach closures, the Metropolitan District Commission agreed to build a free public swimming pool at Magazine Beach. Designed by the John M. Gray Co., it opened in 1951. It is now the Veterans Memorial Swimming Pool and is still open and free to the public today.
MDC Bathhouse – 719 Memorial Drive photographed by Edward Jacoby ca. 1975. Cambridge Historical Commission collections.
Swimming pool at Magazine Beach. Image: Magazine Beach Partners.
The old Magazine Beach Powder House bathhouse was renovated in 2021 by the firms of Johnson Roberts Associates, Inc. and Clark and Green Architecture, who received a preservation award from the Cambridge Historical Commission.
The Magazine Beach Powder House won a Cambridge Historical Commission Preservation Award in 2022
Today, Magazine Beach includes a promenade, boat launch, and swimming pool. (The shoreline is currently under restoration.)
Magazine Beach Promenade and shoreline today. Images Kathleen Fox
The Clean Water Act of 1972 and the establishment of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority in 1985 went a long way to clean up the river. First organized in 2013, the Charles River Conservancy Swimming Initiative now holds “City Splash,” an annual event that allows people to take a dip in the Charles in a circumscribed area by the Fiedler Dock on the Boston Esplanade.
Cambridge Public Library’s Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection.
“Charles River Reservation, Boston, Cambridge, Newton, and Watertown” in Report of the Board of Metropolitan Park Commissioners, page 53, 1896, Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot (1895).
Historical sketches of Watertown, Massachusetts, compiled in part for history of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Pub by J. V. Lewis & Co, Philadelphia 1890, and by Solon F. Whitney of the Historical Society of Watertown, Massachusetts (1893).
History Cambridge (formerly the Cambridge Historical Society).
Mayor’s Address at the Organization of the City Government and Reports of the Committee on Finance, the Overseers of the Poor, the Chief Engineer, and the School Committee by City of Cambridge (various years).
Metropolitan District Commission Minutes by Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission (various years).
Origin, Development and Activities of the Metropolitan District Commission by Massachusetts Metropolitan District Commission (1964).
“Report of the Committee on Gerry’s Landing” in Mayor’s Address at the Organization of the City Government and Annual Reports Made to the City Council (1884).
Report of the Preliminary Commission of 1893 by Massachusetts Metropolitan Park Commissioners.
Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Volume 3: Cambridgeport by Cambridge Historical Commission (1971).
