Demolished - The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

The Story of an Ordinary House: 91-93 Windsor Street

Posted on May 19, 2026May 18, 2026 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

91-93 Windsor St in December 1937. Cambridge Historical Commission photo. Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection.

*Detail of Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts* (Philadelphia : G.W. Bromley & Co., 1894) showing the location of 91-93 Windsor St.

This is the story of an ordinary house that was demolished. For 59 of the 105 years that this house stood at 91-93 Windsor Street on the corner of School Street, it was owned and lived in by Richard Beckett and/or his descendants. His is an interesting immigrant story…but let’s start at the beginning:

The land on which 91-93 Windsor Street was built in 1836 was originally part of the estate of Spencer Phipps (1635-1757), who was Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chief “in and over his Majesty’s Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New-England” from 1732 to his death in 1757.

In 1793, Andrew Boardman IV (1745-1817) (later known as Bordman) inherited a portion of the Phipps estate upon the death of his mother, Sarah Phipps. In 1801, he and others laid out Windsor Street through his estate. This was followed in 1803 by surveying building lots in the area west of Windsor St and south Harvard St. (Andrew Bordman also donated the land for the school named after him, located on the opposite corner of School and Windsor Streets. The name of the street was originally spelled “Winsor;” it was not until around 1841 that the spelling changed to Windsor.)

View of the Boardman School building (built 1868) at 105 Windsor Street as photographed by Richard CHeek in July 1968. Cambridge Historical Commission photo.

Subsequently, Josiah Wellington Cook (1805-1891) acquired the land, and in 1836 built this house. Meant as an investment rental property, it was a simple vernacular wood frame double house, with two front doors centered, and a side gable roof with slight returning eves. At the time of its construction, the house was in a working-class neighborhood.

Josiah Cook was in the grocery business until he was elected a director and secretary of the Cambridge Mutual Fire Insurance Company, later becoming president. (The Cambridge Mutual Fire Insurance Company building, built in 1888, still stands in Central Square on the corner of Mass Ave and Inman St.) Cook was a member of the Cambridge Anti-Slavery Society, served as Deputy Sheriff, City Marshall, Assessor of Cambridge, and was a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County. He is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Lot #2050 Honeysuckle Path.

Cook owned the building at 91-93 Windsor St until at least 1847. By 1852, it was owned by Charles Hancock, a carpenter who was later partner in the Hancock & Greeley Company, lumber dealers and carpenters. Hancock later dissolved his relationship with Greeley and by 1879 was in the real estate and insurance business, providing “special attention…to collecting rents and the care of Real Estate.” (The Cambridge Chronicle September 10, 1881)

In 1873, the double house was owned by Daniel Gregory Stone, a box-maker who died in 1876 at the age of 55. His wife, Lucy A. (Parker) Stone, was the administrator for her husband’s estate. Following Lucy’s death in 1882, Richard Beckett purchased the property from George A. Parker for $1400 (George’s relation to Lucy A. Parker is unclear). Beckett’s life is interesting as it exemplifies the classic entrepreneurial immigrant success story.

Richard Beckett was born in Tyrone County Ireland in 1833. He was just 18 when he emigrated to the U. S. in 1851. In 1853, he married Ann McClean (1830 Ire. – 1891 Cambridge). Just six years later in 1857 at the age of 24, he became a naturalized citizen and bought his first property at the corner of Eliot Street and Brighton Ave (now called JFK Street) near Harvard Square. Beckett is listed on the deed as a “laborer.” He and his family lived there from 1875-1877. The building was originally a schoolhouse on Garden Street, subsequently moved to Eliot St. Beckett built a brick foundation and added a second story with a French roof.

Detail: *Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts* (G.M. Hopkins & Co., 1873) showing the location of Richard Beckett’s property near Harvard Square

Beckett worked at the Cambridge Gas Co. for 40 years – rising to the rank of “supervisory foreman” by 1880. Just nine years after arriving in the U. S., the census of 1860 lists Beckett’s worth as $1000, and by 1870 it was $2800. By 1886, he owned a total of four adjoining buildings along Brighton Ave.

Detail: *Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts* (G.M. Hopkins & Co., 1886) showing the location of Richard Beckett’s property near Harvard Square

Beckett’s next purchase, in 1875, was a brick townhouse at 11 Broadway. Moving in with his family in 1878, he lived there until his wife’s death and his own, both occurring in 1891. In addition to working for the gas company, the City Directory of 1885 listed Beckett as a purveyor of “liquors, Wines, Etc.”

11 Broadway storefront at center as photographed on December 10, 1899. These buildings were razed in 1935. Cambridge Historical Commission photo.

Detail of *Atlas of the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts* (Philadelphia : G.W. Bromley & Co., 1894) showing Richard Beckett’s property at 11 Broadway

At his death, Beckett’s three properties (28 Boylston, 11 Broadway, and 91-93 Windsor St) were bequeathed to his heirs. His daughter Annie Maria (1859-1936) lived at 91-93 for 30 years, from 1916 until her death in 1936. In 1879, she married cabinet maker James Edwin Stewart Sr. (1862 Canada -1910 Worcester, MA). Edwin emigrated from New Brunswick, Canada in 1872 and petitioned for citizenship in 1888. The couple lived at Annie’s father’s property at 11 Broadway, where the Stewarts raised their four daughters and two boys until James’s Stewart’s Sr. death in 1910. Both are buried in the Cambridge Cemetery.

Portrait of Anne Maria “Annie” (Beckett) Stewart via FindAGrave. Photo added by David M. Carrig.

Portrait of James Edwin Stewart via Ancestry. Photo uploaded by user cw_cook.

James Stewart appears in an amusing anecdote in The Cambridge Chronicle (January 14, 1905) about the thousands of households permitted to raise chickens in Cambridge. He was listed as having 12 chickens on his property at 11 Broadway.

James Stewart died in 1910 and was only 48 years old at the time. His death may have occurred under tragic circumstances, as it was recorded at the state hospital in Worcester, known as the Worcester Asylum for the mentally ill. Their eldest son was by that time out of the house, but Annie was left to raise the remaining children on her own.

Two years after her husband’s death in 1912, a notice ran in The Cambridge Tribune advertising a public auction of the “Stewart Estate,” comprised of the three properties owned by Richard Beckett. The lots were referred to as the Stewart Estate because they had been passed down to Anna Marie Stewart, daughter of Richard Beckett. In the notice, 91-93 Windsor St is described as a “Double frame dwelling with small barn in rear, about 3,274 feet of land; Assessed Valuation, $3,000.”

*The Cambridge Chronicle* April 27, 1912

The 1920 Census shows Annie carried a mortgage on 91-93 Windsor; by 1930 she owned it free and clear. Annie’s daughter Ruth lived in the building from 1914-1915, and again after her marriage to Herbert E. Adams, a Chauffer, from 1928-1941.

Others who had lived at #91 included:
1904-1912: Joseph and Helen Marsh. Joseph was foundryman/mechanic
1910: Charles E. Kelley, building mover
1913: Edward A. Gorvina, Driver
1918-21: Mrs. Helen Blanche

Occupants at #93 next door included:
1905 -1906: John W. Green, Tailor
1907 -1911: Mrs. Margaret Gunning, groceries
1911 – 1917: Bernard T. Phelan, Teamster and Mrs. Isabella Phelan, Grocer
1913: Charles H. Burns, Clerk and William J. Burns, laborer
1913: Mr. John C. Phelan, clerk, and Mrs. C. Shaughnessy, Baker
1915-1916: Edward L. Powers, Clerk
1918 -1920: Frank (a driver) and Hattie Fleet
1921: Thomas S. Graney, Laborer, and his wife Sarah.
1925-: Paterson, John (a painter) and Agnes Paterson, along with George K. Paterson, a coremaker
1930: Arthur Villemaire, Chauffer

The Final Act

In 1941, Annie Stewart’s heirs sold the property to Paul Rudak, who razed it, and built a new store on the property. In 1950, Paul Gauthier opened “Paul’s Grocery” on the corner. In 1979, the Gauthier family bought the property, and it became the famed Newtowne Variety until it closed in 2016.

*The Cambridge Chronicle* March 16, 1950

David Gauthier, Burt Gauthier, and John Gauthier, pictured left to right, are the three brothers who ran Newtowne Variety in The Port. Photo courtesy of Wicked Local

In 2004, the Cambridge Historical Commission awarded the Newtowne Variety store a Certificate of Merit “for their contribution to the streetscape and respectful treatment of historic aspects of the building.” After the Newtowne Variety store closed, the property was purchased by “Windsor Ninety Three LLC” and later occupied for a short time by cafe Brew on the Grid. By 2025, the property sold again to Windsor Units LLC for $1,270,000. As of December 2025, 93 Windsor Street is an empty storefront.

Then…and now…

Exterior of a closed coffee shop 'brew on the grid' with brown awning, windows covered in paper, and a parking meter out front.

Today’s post was written by Kathleen M. Fox

Sources
Ancestry.com
Bunting, Bainbridge and Robert Nylander Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Old Cambridge (1973).
Cambridge City Directories
Cambridge Historical Commission
Cambridge Public Library’s Historic Cambridge Newspaper Collection
Hail, Christopher. Buildings and Architects of Cambridge
Library of Congress
Paige Lucius R. History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a Genealogical Register
Boston 1877, H. O. Houghton and company; New York, Hurd and Houghton
Middlesex South Registry of Deeds
Wikitree

“The Magic Incubator”: MIT Building 20 (1943-1998)

Posted on March 24, 2026March 23, 2026 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Building 20 – MIT – from blimp – Aug. 1945. Courtesy MIT Museum.

MIT’s Building 20 was built at 18 Vassar Street in 1943 as part of the war effort to improve existing radar capabilities. In 1940, the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) appointed the president of MIT, Karl T. Compton, to head up special research projects to advance the development of what turned out to be “micro-wave” radar. Given the size of the project, Compton quickly realized MIT needed a new building to accommodate the task at hand—hence: Building 20. The administration and business affairs of the work done there were handled by MIT, but its funding and research agenda were determined by the NDRC.

Building 20 was erected in only six months. Since war-time steel production was limited to use for armaments, the building was constructed of wood and built like a three-story barracks. It had five wings: the “B” wing was parallel to Vassar Street, while the A, C, D and E wings extended perpendicularly towards the central MIT campus. The roof was flat, the shingles were asbestos (a product not yet firmly considered toxic), and the windows were stacked hoppers. Because it was considered a temporary building, Building 20 was also built without the need to adhere to some of the usual building constraints of the time, like prevailing fire codes. After the war, the MIT Acoustics Lab was attached to the C wing. At the time of its demolition in 1998, Building 20 and its additions had a combined floor area of approximately 222,000 square feet.

Detail of *Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts*. 1950. Sanborn Map Company via Library of Congress. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3764cm.g03701195001.

The main event when the building was completed was housing the “Radiation Laboratory” or “Rad Lab,” a somewhat vague name intentionally chosen to conceal its true operations: developing microwave radar to improve the accuracy of bombing. Once this new technology was ready for action, the urgency of this need caused the Rad Lab to start manually building “blind bombing sets” in Building 20 until industrial manufactures could gear up to produce them in large quantities.

Radio Frequency (Group 53), MIT Radiation Laboratory. Image courtesy Jewish Women’s Archive via Wikimedia Commons.

Other inventions included “… airborne bombing radars, shipboard search radars, harbor and coastal defense radars, gun-laying radars, ground-controlled approach radars for aircraft blind landing, interrogate-friend-or-foe beacon systems, and the long-range navigation (LORAN) system. Some of the most critical contributions of the Radiation Laboratory were the microwave early-warning (MEW) radars, which effectively nullified the V-1 threat to London, and air-to-surface vessel (ASV) radars, which turned the tide on the U-boat threat.” (MIT Radiation Laboratory)

According to The Cambridge Chronicle (August 16, 1945) the real purpose of Building 20 was made public just a half hour after Truman announced the surrender of Japan:

In 1998, the year the building was to be demolished, The New York Times ran an article called “Last Rites for a ‘Plywood Palace’ That Was a Rock of Science,” which stated that the building was home “for almost 4,000 researchers in 20 disciplines. At one time, more than 20 percent of the physicists in the United States (including nine Nobel Prize winners) had worked in that building.”

What made Building 20 such a hotbed of creative innovation?

It all had to do with what biologist Stuart Kauffman [not at MIT] called “the adjacent possible.” His description of the term perfectly describes Building 20: “…its physical and social environment continually expanded the realm of what was thinkable and doable. Its open, makeshift design and its mix of disciplines made it easier for researchers to stumble upon the next possible thing that hadn’t yet been imagined. The proximity of minds from different domains allowed ideas to leap boundaries and merge into novel possibilities, showing that innovation is less a flash of genius and more a product of evolving connections in the right conditions.”

Those who worked in Building 20 agreed:

“It turned out to be absolutely perfect for research…you can knock down a wall, you can punch out a ceiling, and you could get space. In academics, space is everything.” (Morris Halle, Professor of Linguistics in “A Building with Soul” by Alex Beam, The Boston Globe, June 29, 1988).

Interior image of Building 20. Courtesy MIT Museum.

“Life in Building 20 was homey with a family-like atmosphere. Any excuse would serve for having a party. People ignored the shabbiness and dirt because the atmosphere encouraged creativity and the exchange of ideas.” (RLE Undercurrents, Vol. 9, no. 2, Fall 1997)

“People got together and shared ideas without worrying who you were.”

“It was so informal nobody considered rank or previous training.”

“…it was so easy to build experiments there – pull wires, bolt things to walls, come and go at any hour.”

It was unpretentious in all aspects.

A hallway in Building 20. Courtesy MIT Museum.

A 1945 statement by the Department of Defense noted that the research in the Rad Lab “pushed research in this field ahead by at least 25 normal peacetime years.” (“Building 20: What Made It So Special and Why It Will (probably) Never Exist Again.”)

Among those working in the building during the war years were:

Jerome Wiesner: worked on microwave radar, later at Los Alamos National Laboratory, later chairman of President Kennedy’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), and later President of MIT
Amar Bose: his invention of improved loudspeakers led to the founding of the Bose company
Leo Beranek: an acoustical engineer, who went on to found Bolt, Beranek & Newman

Site visit to Building 20, MIT. Photographed by Charles M. Sullivan. 1998. https://cdash.cambridgema.gov/s/cdash/item/136333.

Building 20 After the War

After WWII some programs closed down, opening up space for other projects. While scientific research continued, over time a myriad of “non science” programs like linguistics, history, arts, music, and student affairs also occupied space in the building, further adding to its quirky allure. The list below is far from inclusive but serves to convey the range of programs that shared the space.

Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. In 1976, Morris Halle and Noam Chomsky, pioneers in linguistics research, together founded the MIT Linguistics program
Jerome Lettvin, cognitive scientist and Professor of Electrical and Bioengineering and Communications Physiology
MIT Dean of Humanities Office
History of Science and Technology Program, including Elting Morrison, historian of technology, and founder of the Science, Technology, and Society program
Anthropology section of the Humanities Department
Music Department
MIT Electronic Research Society (MITRE)
Research Lab of Electronics Photography: Harold “Doc” Edgerton who developed stroboscopic, stop-action photography, including the famous milk drop “Considered one of the most important photographs of all time.”

Milk Drop Coronet, photographed by Harold Eugene Edgerton. 1957. Courtesy MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/object/HEE-NC-57001.

MIT Council on Arts
The Atomic Energy Commission, Cambridge Office
MIT-Wellesley Upward Bound Program
Model Railroad Club
ROTC: Army, Air Force, Navy
Biotechnology Process Engineering Center
Center for Space Research, Gravity & Cosmology
The Institute for Learning and Teaching
Graphic Arts
Biologic Process Engineering Center
Center for Materials Research in Anthropology & Ethnology
Center for Environmental Health Sciences

The Denouement of Building 20

Building 20 finally reached the end of the road in 1998. Having outlived its original planned lifespan by decades, by any standard Building 20 was a ramshackle place. The Cambridge Historical Commission initially advocated for giving the building protected status. However, after hearings on the subject, the Commission, noting the comprehensive history of the building maintained by MIT and the fact that it no longer could support “modern science and engineering,” gave MIT permission to raze the building.

MIT Building 20 being demolished. Courtesy City of Sound blog. https://cityofsound.com/2004/06/23/designing-adaptability-into-mit/.

Building 20 was replaced by the Ray and Maria Stata Center (Building 32), designed by Frank Ghery. It opened in 2004.

MIT’s Stata Center photographed July 31, 2004 by User:Raul654 via Wikimedia Commons.

Building 20 along Vassar Street framed with wood recovered from flooring of the demolished building. Private collection.

The frame for the photo above was made with wood of floorboards from Building 20. The name carved into the bottom of the frame, Parker & Stearns, was a lumber company in Johnson, VT and is presumed to have provided lumber for the building’s construction.

The MIT Building 20 Time Capsule is located the Stata Center, part of an exhibit dedicated to Building 20 and the Rad Lab. The capsule is to be opened in 2053, 55 years after Building 20 was demolished. Perched on top of the box holding the time capsule is another relic from the war research: a SCR-615B Radar Antenna.

Designers and builders of the Building 20 Time Capsule (left to right): Tanisha Lloyd, Sonia Tulyani, and their UROP supervisor, Professor J. Francis Reinties, 1999. Courtesy MIT Museum.

Rad Lab Exhibit, Stata Center, MIT. Image courtesy S. N. Johnson-Roehr. https://astronomy.snjr.net/blog/?p=559.

Today’s post was written by Kathleen Fox

Sources

Adams, Steve. “The Hottest Property: MIT’s Building 20.” Banker & Tradesman. Sept 11, 2022. https://bankerandtradesman.com/the-hottest-property-mits-building-20/.

Beam, Alex. “A Building with Soul.” The Boston Globe. June 29, 1988.

“Building 20 at MIT Innovation Story: A humble wartime lab that sparked a legacy of innovation and collaboration.” https://conversational-leadership.net/mit-building-20/.

“Building 20: The Magical Incubator 1943 – 1998.” https://web.mit.edu/fnl/vol/104/Bldg20.html.

Cambridge Historical Commission Architectural Survey file for Building 20: https://cdash.cambridgema.gov/s/cdash/item/136317.

Campbell, Robert. “The End of the ‘Magic Incubator’.” The Boston Globe. June 5, 1998.

“Celebrating the History of Building 20.” https://wayback.archive-it.org/7963/20190701202448/https://libraries.mit.edu/archives/mithistory/building20/.

Garfinkel, Simson. “Building 20: A Survey.” https://ic.media.mit.edu/projects/JBW/ARTICLES/SIMSONG.HTM.

Halle, Morris. “Rooms to Grow In.” Preservation, Vol. 51 No. 5, September-October, 1999. https://web.mit.edu/morrishalle/pubworks/papers/1999_Halle_Rooms_to_grow_in.pdf.

MIT Distinctive Collections. https://libraries.mit.edu/distinctive-collections/.

“MIT Radiation Laboratory.” Lincoln Laboratory, MIT. https://www.ll.mit.edu/about/history/mit-radiation-laboratory.

Subject summary for objects: Building 20. MIT Museum. https://mitmuseum.mit.edu/collections/subject/building-20-37.

Real Estate Revelations, Part 2: 3000 Pounds of Clay?

Posted on November 3, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Oh, the sorts of properties real estate agents are asked to find!

In 1893, Ellis & Melledge received a request from sculptor George Thomas Brewster. Brewster wrote from the Mechanics Building in Boston, looking for studio space in Cambridge. His discussions about taking a studio owned by “Mr. Newell” didn’t work out because “the floor supports will not be strong enough to stand the weight of some large work that I shall want to commence soon…”

Image of George T. Brewster as it appeared in *Empire State Notables, 1914*.

Brewster goes on to explain: “the clay alone will weigh from 3 to 4 tons and when the plaster mould [sic] is added it will make from 1 ½ to 2 tons extra.” About Mr. Newell’s studio, he “noticed that the supports for floor at the stairs are only nailed. Even if the cross beams were set into the sils [sic] they would not be heavy enough to support my work…”

Brewster finally settled on the studio of Cambridge sculptor William Clark Noble (1858-1938) at 46 North Ave, a building that is now demolished, but would be located at present-day 1607 Mass Ave at the intersection of Everett Street. The two sculptors undoubtedly knew each other and one another’s work as they were contemporaries. Both had worked in New York and specialized in monumental bronze memorial sculpture.

Detail of 1894 G.W. Bromley and Co. Bromley Atlas showing 46 North Ave

George T. Brewster

George T. Brewster was born in Kingston, Mass and was a descendent of William Brewster, after whom Brewster, Massachusetts is named. George studied at the Normal Art School in Boston and the Ecole des Beaux in Paris, and later taught life drawing classes at the Art Students League in New York and at the Cowles Art School in Boston. Brewster was a prolific sculptor of war memorials, cemetery memorials, and portraits.

In late 1893, Brewster entered a competition to design a Civil War monument in the Forest Dale Cemetery in Malden. He won the commission, and it is likely that this was the reason he was looking for studio space in Cambridge. His winning design was of “an heroic figure of a woman who will stand as a symbol of the valor by women during the struggle for freedom.”

“…the left hand grasps the now useless sword, the right holds the laurel crown ready to be set upon the head of the victors. A spiked cannon is under her left foot, a soldier’s cap and other accessories strewn about signify that war is over, that no more will the rampant hand of bitterness and death sweep over our land, that the armies have disbanded and that the spirit of woman, so sincere and earnest in the success of the sacred cause, now just as earnestly proclaims that peace is on earth and that good will must prevail towards men.”
Monumental News, July 1895

The dedication took place in Malden on Labor Day, 1894. The following year, Brewster’s plaster casts of five American poets were on display in J. F. Olsson’s art supply store in Harvard Square:

Other images of Brewster’s work include:

The Greek Law Giver. Image: Columbia University, Libraries Digital Collections

Close up of the top of the Fountain of Nature, Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, NY 1901. Image: https://www.tottenvillehistory.com/

William Clark Noble

Sculptor W. Clark Noble with his Lincoln the Candidate bust, August 30, 1924. Cropped from negative. National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress.

William Clark Noble was born in Maine in 1858. Legend has it that he was inspired to become a sculptor at the age of eight after reading the life story of the Danish sculptor Berthel Thorvaldsen.[ii] Noble studied under Richard Greenough, and by 1879, when he was only 21, he had relocated in Newport, Rhode Island. There, Noble designed a statue of William Ellery Channing and the Soldier’s and Sailor’s monument. He was a busy man! In 1892, Noble opened a studio in New York.[iii] At the same time, he had a studio in Cambridge at 46 North St. In 1893, when Brewster was trying to locate studio space, Noble’s statue of Robert Burns (destined for Rhode Island) was still at his studio on North Avenue.

From “Paper on ‘Cambridge Artists’” by Miss Almira L. Hayward as published in the Cambridge Chronicle November 4, 1893

Governor Andrew Curtin (1911-13), Pennsylvania State Memorial, Gettysburg Battlefield. W. Clark Noble, Sculptor. Photographed 1914. Image: Wikipedia.

Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Congdon Park, Newport, Rhode Island. W. Clark Noble, Sculptor. Photographed ca 2004. Image: http://www.geocities.ws/leokennedy/congdon.html.

Among Noble’s most famous monumental sculptures are the Phillips Brooks Monument in New York, the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Congdon Park, Newport, Rhode Island, the portrait bust of Revolutionary General Potter, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Noble also took on smaller commissions, one example being a portrait bust of George Washington Carver:

Patinated Copper-clad Bust of George Washington Carver, after William Clark Noble. Image: https://www.invaluable.com/

Current building at 1607 Mass Ave. Image: https://hls.harvard.edu/

Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.

SOURCES

Catalogue of an exhibition of contemporary American sculpture held under the auspices of the National Sculpture Society; June 17-October 2, 1916. via HathiTrust.

Empire State Notables, 1914 New York, N.Y. : H. Stafford, [c1914]. Electronic reproduction. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Libraries, 2008.

Forest Dale Cemetery GAR Monument, Massachusetts Civil War Monuments Project. https://macivilwarmonuments.com/tag/forest-dale-cemetery-gar-monument/.

Letter from George T. Brewster letter To Ellis/Melledge August 18, 1893. Ellis and Andrews Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission.

Monumental News, Vol. 7 No., 7, July 1895, pp. 419 http://quariesandbeyond.org/

Soldiers’ Monument, Malden, Massachusetts. George T. Brewster, Sculptor. In The Monumental News, vol. 7, no.7 July 1895, pp. 419. Lehman College Art Gallery.

“William Clark Noble” Invaluable. https://www.invaluable.com/artist/noble-william-clark-zueyvesacu/.

[i] https://macivilwarmonuments.com/tag/forest-dale-cemetery-gar-monument/

[ii] Lehman College Art Gallery: https://www.lehman.edu/vpadvance/artgallery/publicart/bio/noble.html

[iii] Lehman College Art Gallery: https://www.lehman.edu/vpadvance/artgallery/publicart/bio/noble.html

Torn Down Tuesday: 188 Prospect Street

Posted on March 22, 2022March 22, 2022 by Meta Partenheimer

188 Prospect Street, photographed by CHC staff (2006)

The one-story commercial building that once stood at 188 Prospect Street was designed in 1912 by the architect Nathan Douglas and constructed by its owner Thomas A. Gannon. Douglas was a prolific local architect with an office on Harvard Street, who designed dozens of three-deckers, apartment houses, and stores between 1901 and 1927. His larger commissions included the Beth Israel Synagogue at 238 Columbia Street (1901) and the Swedish Evangelical Church at 146 Hampshire Street (1902). The façade of 188 was arranged as a single storefront, with a recessed center entrance and two large plate glass windows that angled in to meet the entry door. The façade was detailed with ornamental rafter tails and dentils across the front that wrapped around the corners. A large quarter-round molding decorated the cornice. In 1946 red asphalt shingle siding was added , covering the original clapboards.

Notice of building permit for Gannon’s store, as it appeared in *The Cambridge Sentinel* (6 April 1912)

The first business to occupy the building was Thomas A. Gannon’s ice cream shop. Gannon manufactured his ice cream in the basement of the house at #190 and sold it at the store next door. Gannon died in 1914 and was succeeded by H.L. Fowler. His advertisement in the 1914 city directory includes offerings of ice cream, baked goods, and homemade candies. Fowler kept the store until 1918 and was followed by the Cambridge Funeral Company operated by Daniel L. Shea, a Somerville resident. (There must have been a good freezer in the building.) Later shops included another confectionery, furniture sales and refinishing, tire sales and service, bicycle seat covers and upholstery, and a photographic gallery.

Detail of Fowler’s advertisement in the 1914 Cambridge City Directory

Infill development on Prospect Street related to garaging and repair of automobiles began in the 1920s and 1930s. Even 188 Prospect Street had an automobile related use for a time: a Sanborn atlas lists a tire sales and service business there in the late 1940s or early 1950s. Occupants in the 1960s included Hamilton Television Service and New England Bicycle Cover Co.

188 Prospect photographed by Edward Jacoby (November 1969)

In 1969, the storefront became the first home of a school called Trout Fishing in America, which took its name from Richard Brautigan’s 1967 best-selling countercultural novel. William Hjortsberg wrote in his 2012 biography of Brautigan, Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan, that the school comprised eight different storefronts. For a fee of $10, students could enroll in courses such as English, theories of revolution, math, science, and motorcycle repair. Trout Fishing in America served as both an educational space and a gathering spot for those who wished to listen, socialize, and plan their peaceful revolutionary future.

Richard Brautigan in 1959. Collection: California Faces: Selections from The Bancroft Library Portrait Collection at UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library. via https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/tf9v19p3wd/

In 1969, Brautigan came to the Boston area to promote the release of a collection of three works, Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar, and visited the Prospect Street school. With him was the reporter John Stickney, who was on assignment for LIFE magazine; his piece, “A Gentle Poet of the Young”, appeared in the August 14, 1970, issue. (Stickney later volunteered as the school’s journalism teacher.) The LIFE photographer Steve Hansen captured this image of Brautigan seated on the curb in front of the school surrounded by teachers and students. During his visit to Cambridge, Brautigan also participated in a Trout Fishing for America parade that began at 188 Prospect and wound through Central and Harvard squares to the northern end of Cambridge Common.

Richard Brautigan and the Trout Fishing in America School at 188 Prospect St, photographed by Steve Hansen (1969)

The Trout Fishing in America was based at 188 Prospect only for a short time before moving to 353 Broadway where it shared space with the Cambridge chapter of Vocations for Social Change.

188 Prospect St in 1978 (Community Development Department sign survey)

By 1971 The People’s Gallery, a photographers collective, occupied the space at 188 with a storefront gallery and dark room below. They soon shared space with Boston Area Ecology Action, an organic bulk foods store, and another photography studio came in the 1980s. Eventually the building fell into disuse. An application to demolish the commercial building and garage at 188 Prospect Street was filed in early July 2006, and the building was razed later that month. Today, the site is occupied by condominiums.

View of former location of 188 Prospect St via Google Street View (2007)

Sources

brautigan.net

Cambridge Public Library historic newspaper database

CHC architectural survey files

Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan by William Hjortsberg (2012)

“Mapping Out Utopia, Vol. 1: Cambridge” by Tim Devin (2017)

Torn Down Tuesday: 42 & 48 Quincy Street

Posted on August 24, 2021August 24, 2021 by Brittany F.

It’s #TornDownTuesday (or is it #TransferredTuesday)! Today’s Gund Hall is located on the site of multiple buildings on Quincy Street, with the original 48 Quincy Street structure being relocated in 1968.

Images from Dudley Borland Card Collection, no date

42 Quincy Street

To start, 42 Quincy Street was a wood-shingled square house with a rear ell that was built in 1844. In July 1844, the President and Fellows of Harvard College granted Henry Greenough the land known as the “Delta”.

Daniel Reiff image, before fire, ca. 1968

Henry Greenough of Boston (1807-1883) was a merchant and amateur architect who was brother to Horatio and Richard Saltonstall Greenough, both sculptors. Henry attended Harvard from 1823-1826 and then studied architecture in Italy. 42 Quincy St, also known as the Greenough House, was built by Greenough for his mother, Mrs. David Greenough (Eliza Ingersoll). This pattern-book Italianate style house is the earliest known house designed by Greenough. He also designed the First Church in Cambridge (1830) and the Cambridge Athenaeum (1851). After his Italianate on Quincy St, he made houses in 1854-1856 with low mansard roofs. Greenough designed his mother’s home with a brick basement, 4 wooden risers for the front stoop, and an unusual canopy with arched openings. It was originally painted brown.

Daniel Reiff images, 42 Quincy Street after fire and demolition, ca. 1968

Greenough House was passed down through the family until 1891 when it was sold to the Corporation of the New Church Theological School, who used it as offices. In 1966 it was obtained by Harvard for its Economics Department offices. Unfortunately, on January 8, 1968 the house was destroyed by a major fire likely caused by a defective boiler. The house was scheduled for demolition later that year to make way for Gund Hall.

48 Quincy Street

Next door was 48 Quincy Street, which has a more pleasant conclusion. Built in 1838 by William Saunders for Prof Daniel Tredwell, 48 Quincy was a Regency Greek Revival style house. It featured wide, flat pilasters on flush boarded walls and a square, hip roof. In 1847, it was bought by Jared Sparks who started living at the address in 1849 when he became president of Harvard. Sparks is considered one of the earliest modern historians. Subsequently known as the Jared Sparks House, it was purchased by the New Church Theological School and in 1901 was moved on the site to make room for the Swedenborg Chapel. However, in October 1968 it was again moved, but around the corner to 21 Kirkland Street, to make way for Gund Hall. You can still see the home today at its new address!

Many of the images from this post come from our newly available Dudley Borland Card Collection. Keep an eye out for future posts featuring this collection! Would you like us to make it a weekly or biweekly feature?

For more information on these buildings, email us at histcomm@cambridgema.gov.

Torn Down Tuesday: Newtowne Club

Posted on March 9, 2021March 9, 2021 by Meta Partenheimer

Formed on December 6, 1893, the Rindge Club, named for real estate developer and major City benefactor Frederick H. Rindge, first met in the Odd Fellows Hall building in North Cambridge on December 27, 1893. To accommodate the club’s athletic classes and activities, leaders leased a gymnasium building at 9 Beech Street (now the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses) from Samuel F. Woodbridge. At the behest of Mr. Rindge, the group changed its name to the Newtowne Club in June 1895.

Exterior of the Rindge Club House when located at the Samuel Woodbridge gym, 9 Beech Street. *Cambridge Chronicle*, 20 January 1894

Earlier that year, plans for a new and larger clubhouse were prepared by Boston-based architect J. Chandler Fowler. In June, Mr. Adams, a member of the club’s governing board, purchased land for the purpose of erecting the new building at the corner of Davenport Street and Massachusetts Avenue, about one block southeast of the Woodbridge gym. With a bid of around $30,000, a contract to construct the building was awarded to Wellington Fillmore & Co. and ground was broken towards the end of June.

Drawing of Newtowne Club by architect J. Chandler Fowler, published in the *Cambridge Chronicle*, 19 January 1895

The club officially opened on January 29, 1896 and nearly 2,000 invitations to the open house were distributed to the community. The new club house was described as “one of the handsomest and most substantial buildings in ward 5.”

Exterior of the Newtowne Club, ca. 1895. Historic New England

Designed in the colonial style, the building was “square and grand, with a wide porch, generous windows and dormers on the roof.” The exterior was painted bright red and finished with white trimmings and green blinds. (Semi-Centennial)

A corner of the library and glimpses of front hall and ladies parlor, drawn by L.F. Grant for the *Cambridge Chronicle*, 1 February 1896

“The house contains a fine gymnasium, with stage, six of the best bowling alleys in the state, shower baths, billiard and pool room, ladies parlor, lounging room, ample lockers for a 500 [person] membership, and, all the appurtenance to a first class clubhouse.” (Semi-Centennial)

Detail of the corner of Davenport St and Mass Ave from Cambridge Bromley Atlases, 1903 and 1930

Over the years, the parlors, gymnasium, and other facilities were rented by area groups, clubs, and committees for events ranging from charity parties to film screenings. In 1916, the Newtowne Theatre opened as a tenant of the club on the north end of the building, offering matinee picture shows and small concerts.

Clipping from the *Cambridge Chronicle*, 9 December 1916

Although the Newtowne Club had been prosperous for many years, it soon found difficulty maintaining memberships and meeting the expenses of the building. In 1917, the building was purchased by the Ozanam Council, Knights of Columbus through a foreclosure sale. The K of C also purchased the club’s furnishings and acquired the moving picture accoutrements for the club’s private use. The club was then renamed Newtowne Hall. In 1924, the Mass Ave frontage was sold and a block of stores were built on the clubhouse lawn. The building was subsequently divided and rented to local organizations.

5 Davenport St, ca. 1975. CHC staff photo

In 1960, Stephen and James Zaglakas remodeled Newtowne Hall and opened Stephen James House, an 800-seat function hall and restaurant that was a popular site for social and political functions until it closed in 1991. Several rounds of interior and exterior repairs, alterations, and additions throughout the mid-twentieth century left the building nearly unrecognizable. By the 1970s, the only features from the original 1896 building were the the hip roof and right side dormer. The building was sold and demolished in 1994 to make way for a condominium development.

Sources
Cambridge Chronicle, 19 January 1895
The Cambridge Chronicle Semi-Centennial Souvenir, 1 February 1896
CHC survey files
“Newtowne Club” by the Cambridge Historical Commission and North Cambridge Neighborhood Stabilization Committee, 2000

Torn Down Tuesday: 71 Amherst Street

Posted on January 26, 2021January 28, 2021 by Meta Partenheimer

It must be time for … Torn Down Tuesday! Today’s feature is a two-story garage that once stood at 71 Amherst Street.

Drawing of 71 Amherst by Francis W. Wilson. MIT.

Completed in 1909 for Fred Smith, the utilitarian structure was built of poured-in-place reinforced concrete. The design included a long span for the upper floor combined with a low-pitched roof carried by metal trusses. The building was set at an oblique angle to the street, and the second floor was reached by a concrete ramp leading up to a door large enough to admit automobiles and trucks.

The Cambridge Auto Body Shop as featured in the *Cambridge Tribune*, 3 July 1925

The building was later occupied by the Daggett Chocolate Company, which commissioned an addition in 1947. When this addition was demolished in 1981, much of the original design was again visible. The building was purchased from the Daggett Trust by MIT in 1961 and renamed Building E20. In 1972-73 the first floor was reconfigured by the architect Bernard Awtry to accommodate the institute’s newly established Department of Psychology. By that time the industrial sash bays had been largely filled in by concrete block panels pierced by small punched windows.

71 Amherst Street photographed by Robert Rettig, May 1969

The Frederick Smith Garage at 71 Amherst Street was of a typical, but relatively minor, use in the newly developed Cambridge riverfront lands. As the automobile became popular in the first decade of the 20th century, residents of the densely settled areas of Boston’s Beacon Hill and Back Bay needed storage and service facilities that could not be provided in their neighborhoods. Just as Bostonian’s stored their household goods at the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse on Massachusetts Avenue, so they brought their automobiles to be serviced in the Cambridge garages of Mr. Smith and others.

Detail of 1916 Cambridge Bromley Atlas showing Fred S. Smith’s garage.

This building and 79 Amherst Street (Building E10) were demolished in 2000 and replaced by an addition to the neighboring MIT Media Lab.

Sources:
CHC demolition memo, cases D-811 and D-812
MIT report: Proposed Demolition of Buildings E10 and E20

Torn Down Tuesday: 329 Harvard Street

Posted on November 24, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Welcome back to our Torn Down Tuesday series! Today, we are featuring the house that once stood at 329 Harvard Street in Mid-Cambridge.

In December 1848, George Washington Whittemore (1812-1870) purchased a lot from the Francis Dana estate. The lot was situated on the north side of Harvard Street between Cotton (now Hancock) and Dana Streets and backed on Hastings (now Chatham) street. The Whittemore family was prominent in the business and cultural life of Boston and Cambridge: George W. had many business ventures and was most notably a Boston hotel proprietor. After the home was finished, George W. moved in with his wife, Synia H. (Richardson), on July 8, 1850.

Photograph c. 1865 showing house, stable, and grounds

Originally richly ornamented, this suburban house blended Italianate, Greek Revival, and Gothic details in an eclectic but picturesque and singularly harmonious manner. The house typified a trend away from the strict neo-classicism of around 1850. The house was originally remarkable for extensive use of exterior papier mâché ornament. The front and side eaves of the main block, and the cupola (measuring 8′ in diameter) were trimmed with molded papier mâché “gingerbread” mounted on wooden barge boards, until they were destroyed in an accidental fire from painter’s blow-torch in 1931. The cupola retained its trim at least as late as 1951. In its eclectic design, the house was typical of suburban residences built on Dana Hill c. 1850, when formal Greek Revival tradition was yielding to freer Italianate forms and more picturesque massing.

329 Harvard St photographed by Walker Evans, ca. 1930-31. © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

To enter the home from Harvard Street, one would approach the front steps: five granite risers flanked by granite plinths led to a granite stoop recessed within an open rectangular front entrance. A round-arched front doorway was deeply recessed within the stoop and sheltered by a balcony.

Entrance photographed by Jack E. Baucher (August 1964)

Inside, single-paneled pilasters with 1′-high plinths and gessoed papier mâché Greek Corinthian capitals flanked all drawing room openings and “supported” plaster entabulature.

Interior pilaster detail photographed by Jack E. Baucher (August 1964)

The original interior of the home was highly lavish and Victorian. Red flocked drawing room wallpaper with cream and gilt ground dated from 1850 and remained to the end of the Whittemore occupancy. The drawing room also had original richly-colored imported carpet, red velvet lambrequins with gilded cornices, and a set of very elaborate neo-rococo furniture inspired by Louis XV forms.

Interior of 329 Harvard St photographed by Richard Ruggles, 1937 (for D.P. Myer)

The set included two white marble-topped tables, a mirrored étagère with a low marble-topped console, and chairs, sofa and footstool upholstered in original red velvet. According to family records, the curtain cornices and furniture were made by a group of travelling Swiss artisans skilled in comp work and frame making.

Marble busts of Hiram Powers’ Persephone and the Apollo Belvedere, a plaster bust of Washington, two oval family portraits of young girls ca. 1850, an oil copy of Guido Reni’s Aurora, alabaster vases, parian ware figurines, and a multitude of bibelots (a small, decorative ornament or trinket) completed the lavish drawing room ensemble, which remained intact until 1949.

A significant modernization of the house was undertaken in 1922-23 where a coal-fired hot air heating replaced the oil-fired steam system, the flooring was updated, electric lights and a laundry room were installed, among many other amenities. The home continued to be passed down to successive Whittemores until is was sold out of family in June 1951. The house changed hands several times from 1962-1964, by which time the structure had badly deteriorated. Finally, the house was demolished in 1965 to clear site for the Dana Hill Apartments. To learn more about this building, check out yesterday’s Modern Monday Instagram post!

329 Harvard St photographed by Roger Gilman, ca. 1930s

Source: Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) report by Dr. Bainbridge Bunting (1964)

Torn Down Tuesday: 17 Frost Street

Posted on June 9, 2020 by Meta Partenheimer

Welcome back to Torn Down Tuesday! Today’s feature is the house that once stood at 17 Frost Street in Mid Cambridge. Known as the Ward-Lovell house, the 2½-story home was built in 1886 by Sylvester L. Ward, a Roxbury oil merchant, for his daughter Mary when she married Frederick Lovell, a North Cambridge grocer.

Frost St 17_survey — 17 Frost Street, CHC survey photo (1965)

The house was designed by architectural firm Rand and Taylor in the Queen Anne Style. In contrast to East Cambridge, where the buildings of the nineteenth century had to be crowded between and behind older structures, there was room in Mid Cambridge for large buildings and for new streets and subdivisions. Sixty percent of the area’s houses were built after 1873. While there are larger and more important Queen Anne houses in other parts of Cambridge, nowhere in the city is there such a range in scale and importance, in type and development, as in Mid Cambridge.

PanasonicMECH=KV-S7075C SIDE=F — 17 Frost Street, B. Orr photograph (ca. 1967)

As described in the CHC’s Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Vol. 2: Mid Cambridge, “The most exuberant manifestations of Queen Anne style were dying down by the end of the 1880’s, and in the last decade of the nineteenth century two trends appeared. One, the shingle style, with its continuous surfaces and curvilinear shapes, had originated a decade earlier in the work of H. H. Richardson and other architects but made its first appearance in Mid Cambridge at this time.” A late shingle style house, 17 Frost exhibits a continuous surface of shingles sweeps lightly over the house, and the shapes melt into each other, emphasizing the generous ornament on the porch gable.

1930Bromley — Detail of 1930 Cambridge Bromley Atlas

By 1906, the home was owned by Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews (1854-1938), artist and author of several field books describing the flowers, trees, and wildlife of the eastern United States.

Biblio — Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden by F. Schuyler Mathews, biblio.com (1897 edition)

In 1913, the Cambridge Tribune described Schuyler as follows:

“…the artist, is equally well known as an ornithologist, although he insists that the latter study is merely a hobby. Mr. Mathews, however, has become an authority on birds and their music. His stories of the feathered tribe and his imitations of their notes are always a source of much delight to his hearers. He interprets the bird’s songs and is responsible for the assertion that the oriole is a first-rate ragtime whistler.–Globe”

fieldbookofwildb00math_0057_BobWhite — Page from *Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music* by F. Schuyler Mathews, Biodiversity Heritage Library (© 1904, 1921)

For decades, Mathews worked to transpose bird songs into notes, and published his work in a guide titled Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music, A Description of the Character and Music of Birds, Intended to Assist in the Identification of Species Common in the United States East of the Rocky Mountains (1904; expanded and reprinted in 1921). Ferdinand was not the only person in his family pursuing the sciences. After receiving her A.B. from Radcliffe in 1912, Mathews’s daughter, Genevieve, worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a computer where she studied new and variable stars.

457622027 — Harvard University Archives: Harvard College Observatory. [Observatory Data Analysis by Women Computers], 1890.

The house remained in the Mathews family until the late 1930s, and was later purchased by Harry P. Frost, who rented out the home. Known as “Doc Frost”, he was a well-known trainer of boxers and worked with such greats as Harry Wills and Maxie Rosenbloom. In the 1940s, Frost worked for the City of Cambridge park department running a youth boxing program and trained the youths at the Rindge Field Playground. Frost’s widow, Sally, owned 17 Frost until the late 1960s. The home was demolished in November 1967 for a parking lot, and in 1988 a series of five pastel-colored houses were built on the lot. These homes stand today.

7-17_Frost_March2016_Googleims — 7-17 Frost Street, Google Street View (March 2016)

Never want to miss a Torn Down Tuesday or our other historical posts? Make sure to follow us here and on Instagram!

Sources:
Cambridge Chronicle, 19 February 1942
Cambridge Tribune, 20 December 1913
Maycock, Susan E., and Charles Sullivan. Building Old Cambridge: Architecture and Development. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016.
Cambridge Historical Commission, Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Vol. 2: Mid Cambridge. Cambridge, MA: Charles River Press, 1967.

Torn Down Tuesday: 280 Harvard Street

Posted on April 21, 2020April 21, 2020 by Meta Partenheimer

Happy Torn Down Tuesday! As a follow up to our Modern Monday Instagram post yesterday, today we are featuring the house that once stood at 280 Harvard Street in Mid-Cambridge.

The February 19^th, 1887 edition of the Cambridge Tribune stated that the home was commissioned by Mrs. Caroline Marshall, wife of Boston merchant Moses M. Marshall for their son, Moses Sylvester. The article included a detailed description of the house and it’s building materials:

The house is set slightly back from Harvard Street and the exterior is very handsome; a piazza extends around two sides with a tower at the corner. The brick chimney is outside and is decorated with terra cotta panels. The house is clapboard, with the exception of the tower, which is singled, and the roof is covered with Brownville slate. The windows are of plate glass, while the front door has stained glass. This front door is of cherry, which is the main material used for finish the other outside doors, however, being of pine, with five panels and raised mouldings. From the vestibule one enters a hall measuring 16×9. On the right of this hall is the parlor, finished in cherry, with a large bay window formed by the tower. Back of the parlor is the library, also finished in cherry, from which opens a well arranged conservatory.

On the left of the ball, through an arch, one enters the reception hall, with stairs, the latter of cherry, with a find landing measuring 11×9. Back of the reception hall is the dining-room, while in the rear of the house are the kitchen and pantries. A pleasing feature of this house is that almost every room in it contains a bay window. On the second floor are five chambers, bath-rooms, cedar closer for furs, and on the third story two chambers, a store-room and large billiard room, measuring 32×23. The house will be tastefully furnished and will have elaborate mantels.

It will be completed about the end of March. The architect is Mr. G. J. Williams of Boston, and the builders, Messrs. Mead, Mason & Co. of Boston.

280 Harvard was the first residence in Cambridge designed by architect. G.J. Williams. This was one of Williams’s only single-family projects in the city, and is more stylized compared to his simpler multiple-occupancy dwellings at 86-88 Webster Ave or 62-68 Plymouth Street, designed the same year as 280 Harvard. However, the house’s design was echoed in others built in the following years on Harvard Street, such as those at 284 and 298.

According to a piece highlighting Boston markets and their proprietors, Moses S. Marshall began working for his father’s meat market in 1878 at age 18 and by 1893 was a senior member of the firm. The company, Marshall and Taylor, operated from 28 North Faneuil Hall Market in Boston.

commonwealth_xp68kn03q_accessFull — Faneuil Hall, ca. 1860s (Boston Pictorial Archive, Boston Public Library)

Moses S. Married Grace Clark on June 18, 1884 and the couple had a daughter, Dorothy Frances, on February 8, 1889. The family attended the Austin Street Unitarian Church (demolished in 1949), and Mrs. Marshall held church sewing meetings at the family residence. After a long illness, Grace Marshall died June 26, 1903 at 42 years old. Moses Sylvester Marshall died of a cerebral hemorrhage on October 24, 1909, at 49 years old. Caroline Marshall became head of the family after the death of her son, and continued to live at 280 Harvard Street with her daughter, Ella Stimson, and three granddaughters, including Dorothy.

1888_Sanborn — Detail, 1888 Sanborn Atlas (mapjunction.com)

The house was later occupied by Suffragette Mabel A. Jones, and for many years was home to members of the Manning family. The house continued as a single-occupant dwelling, and for decades saw many residents come and go. The house was demolished in 1971 to make way for the 18-story apartment building that stands a 280 Harvard Street today. For more information on the current building, see our Instagram post from Monday, April 20^th.