Author: Emily M.

Part 1: Henry Oscar Houghton, the Riverside Press, and book publishing in Cambridge

Welcome back to Time Travel Tuesday, a series focusing on Cambridge history illustrated with objects in our collections. In this episode, we’ll be discussing the history of printing and publishing in Cambridge. Let’s dig in!

The story of the printing industry in Cambridge begins in the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. While printing in England was tightly controlled, New Englanders largely escaped the oversight of the English companies – at least in the beginning. Early printed volumes were primarily religious texts. The Bay Psalm Book contained the versions of the Psalms sung by the colonists. First and second editions of the Psalms were printed in Massachusetts, but later editions were printed back in England, due in part to a tightening of control over the Colonies by the English.

In addition to religious texts, early Massachusetts printers published almanacs, programs, and law texts. Later, especially the period leading up to and during the American Revolution, pamphlets were popular. As printing technology grew more sophisticated, so too did the materials that came off those presses. By the turn of the 19th century, an unprecedented number of people in the newly-formed United States had access to printed materials.

Henry Oscar Houghton

Born in Vermont in 1823, Henry Houghton got his start in publishing as an apprentice typesetter in a print shop. In a letter dated November 16, 1848, he wrote to his parents:

I have recently had and offer to go into business here which seems to me very favorable. Mr. Freeman, of the firm Freeman & Bolles, who are among the best printers in the city, if not the very best, has offered to sell me one half of the office… Messrs. Little & Brown, who are the most extensive publishers of law books in New England, if not in the United States, propose to make a contract with us to do all their printing that we can do… They are building a large office in Cambridge, the rent of which is to be about half Freeman & Bolles are now paying in the city.

This was a somewhat risky venture. Houghton required notes of credit to raise the funds to buy his half of the firm, with a down payment of $100 and yearly payments of $250 thereafter. Little and Brown purchased the old alms house along the river and converted it to a printing plant, adding a steam power plant and a store room.

Printing operations at the Riverside building began in 1852 and Houghton quickly gained a reputation as a “printer of discrimination.” The Press continued to grow through the Civil War with little negative effect from the conflict, as Houghton and Company already had an extensive client list. In 1867, Houghton purchased the building from Little and Brown and undertook extensive additions, doubling the size of the plant.

As printing technology continued to advance, the printing industry continued to grow. Offset printing, a process by which the image to be printed is transferred to a rubber blanket before printing on the final surface, was first developed for printing on tin in 1875 and adapted for printing on paper in 1904. Paper making technology also advanced throughout the Industrial Revolution, with machines like the cylinder making the process faster and cheaper.

The Riverside Press was by no means the only printing company in operation in Cambridge during this period. Other printing companies of the late 19th century represented in our collections include: John Ford & Son…

Thurston, Miles, and Pritchett…

…and publisher Moses King.

Publishing is still a major industry in Cambridge. Though Houghton Mifflin eventually moved across the river to Boston, several printing and publishing companies are headquartered in Cambridge, including MIT Press, Harvard University Press, and Barefoot Press, a publisher of books for children.

Join us next month for part 2, a look at newspapers in Cambridge!

Sources:

Amory, Hugh. First Impressions: Printing in Cambridge 1639-1989. Cambridge, Mass.:  Harvard University, 1989.

Ballou, Ellen B. The Building of the House: Houghton Mifflin’s Formative Years. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1970.

Cambridge Historical Commission. Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge Report Three: Cambridgeport. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge Historical Commission, 1971.

Scudder, Horace Elisha. Henry Oscar Houghton: a Biographical Outline. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1897.

Welcome back to Time Travel Tuesday, a series focusing on Cambridge history illustrated with objects in our collections. In this episode, we’ll be discussing a few of the more peculiar legends of Cambridge. Are these terrible tales pure fiction or are they based in historical fact? Read on to find out!

Settled in 1630, Cambridge has had nearly 400 years to accumulate ghosts, some of whom continue to haunt the residents of Cambridge to this very day. And some gruesome chapters in Cambridge history, while they did not result in any reported ghost sightings, are enough to give even the most dauntless among us the heebie-jeebies.

Gallows Lot

In the early days of what would become the City of Cambridge, the smaller population included its fair share of criminals, and the criteria for capital punishment was not quite so stringent as it is today. It is unsurprising then that Cambridge had its own plot of land dedicated to executions. In the early 18th century, Cambridge Common was much more expansive. It was described by Lucius R. Paige in 1877:

Until 1720, the ‘Common’ extended to Linnaean Street, and including also a few acres, lying in a nearly square form, at the northwesterly corner of Linnaen Street and North Avenue [now Massachusetts Avenue]. This extreme point of the Common was set apart as a ‘Place of Execution,’ or ‘Gallows Lot,’ as it was more familiarly called.

While the majority of executions carried out on this lot were by hanging, at least one execution by burning at the stake occurred there, that of an enslaved woman named Phillis, convicted of murdering her master, Captain Codman, with an enslaved man named Mark. The Boston Evening Post reported on the event on September 22, 1755:

…the fellow was hanged, and the woman burned at a stake about ten yards distant from the gallows. They both confessed themselves guilty of the crime for which they suffered, acknowledging the justice of their sentence and died very penitent.

Phillis was one of only a few people executed in that manner in Massachusetts history.

Christ Church

Several documented ghosts have taken up residence in Cambridge. Christ Church, founded in 1759, is home to the spirit of a British soldier who was buried under the church after he was thrown from a wagon and died.

The congregation of the Church was split between Patriots and Loyalists and dispersed during the Revolution. Said the Rector of the Church at the time, Rev. Winwood Sarjeant, “[p]erhaps no church in the country was more completely broken up. Of all the persons who took part in its concerns, including the sixty-eight original subscribers for the building… and twenty original purchasers of pews, not a name appears on the records after the Revolution but those of John Pigeon, Esq., and Judge Joseph Lee,” a Patriot and a Loyalist, respectively. The church building, badly damaged during the war,

…was left for many years in a melancholy and desecrated condition, the doors shattered and all the windows broken out, exposed to rain and storms and every sort of depredation, its beauty gone, its statuary defiled, the wind howling through its deserted aisles and about its stained and decaying walls….

No services were held again until 1790.

First Baptist Church

In the early days of the Massachusetts Colony, a young woman named Ann Hopkins waited for her lover to return from the French Indian War. He did not make it home. His rival brought the news of his untimely death to Ann, but she caught a glimpse of the ribbon she had given her lover as a token before he left for war. The truth of her lover’s death was brought shockingly into relief: the rival had murdered her lover and disguised the killing as a casualty of the war in the hope that Ann would instead choose him. Distraught and heartbroken, Ann scorned the company of men and grew old alone on the outskirts of town. When strange and supernatural events began to plague the town, Ann was accused of witchcraft, arrested, and burned at the stake. It is said that her final words as she succumbed to the flames was a curse. “The curse of fire shall be on this spot forever!”

Many years later, on that very plot of land, where Magazine Street meets Massachusetts Avenue, the First Baptist Church of Cambridge was founded. The church building was completed in December of 1817 and for nearly 50 years housed the congregation until in the early morning hours of January 22, 1866, the church burned to the ground. A new building was erected, completed in December of 1867, exactly 50 years since the first building was completed. This building burned in 1881. The Boston Globe reported on the ruins in March 27, 1881:

Strange sounds are heard at night by persons who pass the ruined building—low moans and cries of intense agony, that rise to weird shrieks and die away in long-drawn sighs.

These unearthly sounds increase in frequency as the work of clearing away the ruin progresses, and old residents remember that the same sounds were heard after the burning of the old church some sixteen years ago, beginning as soon as the work of rebuilding started, and increasing until the cornerstone was laid, when they ceased altogether.

Even stranger,

[a]s the stone was being lowered into place a spark of fire was struck out in some unaccountable way and communicated to the documents placed under the stone, but the block was quickly lowered to put the flames out. When the stone was raised the other day there was nothing under it but a little heap of ashes, and it is a curious coincidence that the same thing was noticed when the cornerstone of the old church was raised.

Could this have been the work of the ghost of Ann Hopkins? The author of this article hears the story from an old man, who heard the story from his grandfather, who heard the story from the generations before him. However, despite the few instances of executions by burning that occurred in the early days of the Massachusetts Colony, no accused witches were burned at the stake. This of course casts doubt on the rest of the story and the author of the Globe article expresses his own skepticism. “Do you think the ghost of Ann Hopkins stretched these telegraph wires overhead that are making all this weird moaning?” he asks the old man who related the tale of Ann Hopkins to him.      “[A]nd the old man arose and gazed upon me reproachfully.”

Sources:

Declaration of Faith and List of Members of the First Baptist Church, Cambridge. Cambridge: John Ford & Son, 1870. (CHC Research Library)

Lee, Wan. “A Haunted Church Site in Cambridge. An Old Man’s Story of the “Curse of Fire.” Strange Sounds by Night and Still Stranger Explanations,” Boston Globe (Boston, MA), March 27, 1881.

Paige, Lucius R., History of Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1630-1877. With a Genealogical Register. Boston: H. O. Houghton and Company, 1877. (CHC Research Library)

Postcards and Stereographs Collection. Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Survey Files. Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts.