Images – Page 3 – The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

OINK! OINK! National Bacon Day, December 30

Posted on December 30, 2021January 3, 2022 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

*Cambridge Chronicle* April 28, 1955. Excerpt from advert for Carl’s Super Market

Having earlier posted a piece on the Cambridge Cattle Market in North Cambridge for National Cow Day, we can’t resist writing this piece about a hog market at the opposite end of town, in East Cambridge, on National Bacon Day.

On Monday night October 5, 1891, Cantabrigians all over town could probably have smelled bacon cooking. It was the occasion of a gigantic fire at the J. P. Squire & Co. pork processing plant.

*Cambridge Chronicle* October 10, 1891 (excerpt)

1,500 hogs perished in the blaze, which started in the hog house. Though it was thought to have been started by sparks from a passing locomotive, no cause was ever firmly established. The fire also demolished the refrigerator building where the hogs were slaughtered and dressed. The main building of the complex survived.

JOHN P. SQUIRE (1819-1893)

Portrait of John P. Squire (image via Arlington Historical Society)

John Peter Squire, known as “the pioneer of the pork industry,” was born in Windsor Co., Vermont in 1819. In 1838 at the age of 19, he arrived in Boston and began working at the Faneuil Hall Market for Nathan Robbins, a poultry dealer from Arlington, Mass.

In 1842, Squire started his own firm, Russell & Squire, with partner Francis Russell. The pair continued as general provisions dealers at Faneuil Hall. When that partnership dissolved, Squire kept the business going on his own. Thirteen years later in 1855, he took on two new partners, Hiland Lockwood and Edward D. Kimball, to form the John. P. Squire & Co. Kimball had also been born in Windsor, VT or across the river in Cornish, NH. While still operating at the Faneuil Hall Market, the business expanded from general provisions to specialize in slaughtering and dressing hogs.

John P. Squire’s Faneuil Hall Market stall, ca. 1880s (Image via Picclick.com)

That same year, Squire bought the land in East Cambridge between Gore Street and the Miller’s River and built the J. P. Squire & Co. meat packing and processing plant. The plant ultimately covered 22 acres on either side of the Cambridge/Somerville line.

Detail of Ward 3 on G. M. Hopkins Map, 1873

In 1842, Squire’s operation processed one hog a day. By 1872-73, 394,000 hogs per annum were dispatched at the plant. In 1881, Squire built a large refrigerator with four cooling floors, which could hold 30,000 tons of ice, enabling him to increase production. By 1890, having weathered an employee strike, the plant employed 1,000 men and slaughtered approximately 5,000 hogs per day. The ice house could accommodate 42,000 tons of product. So many of the company’s employees were immigrants that the firm provided English lessons during lunch hours. Squire’s business that year was $15,000,000. It was ranked third in the world of the pork packing businesses. [i]

A chromolithographic view of the John P. Squire and Company’s meatpacking factory on Gore and Medford Streets in East Cambridge, Mass. From Collection of the Boston Athenaeum

The company suffered nearly fatal damage in a fire in 1891. Squire rebuilt it on a grander scale—the plant went through 300 tons of ice daily and had room to hang 10,000 hogs.

WHERE DID ALL THOSE PIGS COME FROM?

Squire’s advertisement for the Arlington brand. CHC collections

Rather than get his hogs from the local abattoirs in Brighton, Squire imported them from the Midwest, delivered to the plant via the Grand Junction Fitchburg Railroads. The Fitchburg railroad also shipped hogs to the “Cattle Market” at Porter Station in North Cambridge. After arriving at the plant on Gore Street, the hogs were housed in sheds until they were processed. By the mid 1870’s, the company was importing 60-120 Carloads of hogs per week. [ii]

Advertisement in Cambridge City Directory, 1890

POLLUTION: PEE-YEW!

Squire’s plant was not the only meatpacking business in the vicinity. Others in Cambridge were Nash, Spaulding & Co., Charles H. North & Co., and Joseph Boynton, with seven more upstream in Somerville.[iii] The amount of blood and offal produced by the slaughterhouses of these three companies was vast. Some of Squire’s offal was processed into fertilizer, but most of it, like the others, was dumped into the Miller’s River, leading to a variety of “pestiferous exhalations”:

“…When they slaughtered [the pigs], what an odor! It all depended on where the wind was blowing. We would say, ‘Oh, they’re killing the poor pigs’’ In those days we didn’[t know enough to complain to the city about the smell.”
—Jennie and Helen Iantosca”[iv]

The situation led to the Board of Selectman in Somerville and the Board of Health in Cambridge to call for hearings to remove the “lard factories and slaughter houses” in the area. Arguments about various solutions went back and forth for several years. Squire himself paid for the construction of a sewer through the Miller River channel, for which he was later reimbursed. Somerville, Cambridge, and the Massachusetts Board of Health finally decided that the best solution, in addition to the sewer, was to drain and fill in the Miller’s River basins.

FIRES

Squire’s plant suffered through no fewer than five significant fires: in 1878, 1891, 1893, 1963, and one hundred years after the first fire, in 1978. The 1891 fire was the most significant during the lifetime of the business. The fire of April 1963, one of the largest of fires in the history of Cambridge, broke out in the then-abandoned factory whose floors were saturated with flammable grease and lard. More than 300 firemen from surrounding communities battled the blaze for five hours before it was brought under control.

Left: billows of smoke pour from the John P. Squire Co. meat packing plant, as fireman battle to bring the blaze under control, (14 April 1963); Right: aftermath (16 April 1983). Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection, Cambridge Historical Commission.

PRIVATE LIFE

In 1843, Squire married Kate Green Orvis (1821-1901), the daughter of Gad Orvis, Squire’s first employer in Vermont in 1836. In 1848, the couple moved to Arlington (then West Cambridge) where they lived and raised their eleven children. John Peter Squire died in 1893. His home in Arlington, at #226 Massachusetts Avenue, still stands.

Squire’s home at 226 Mass Ave in Arlington, ca. 1910-1950 (via Arlington Historical Society)

After Squire’s death, management of the company devolved to his two sons, Frank O. and Fred F. Squire. In the mid-1930’s, Swift Co. (based in Chicago) bought the company and ran it until it closed in the mid-1950s.

J. P. Squire & Co. was an influential presence in the community of East Cambridge for over 100 years. Not only for the size of the physical plant and its odiferous-ness, but because they employed 1,000 local people. In 1867, the company built “Squire’s Court,” a complex of 19 housing units between Lambert and 7^th Streets, for rental by their employees. [v]

View of Squire’s Court, February 9, 1940. CHC collections

Their clock tower, built in 1873, was an iconic landmark in town:

Cupola and clock at Squire’s. CHC collections

*Cambridge Chronicle* October 1, 1953 noting “Squire’s Clock”

“Everybody who wanted a job worked at Squire’s, and they had to wear a white hat, coat, and apron. The men had to be there by 7:00 AM. …I worked in the cafeteria…They had a sliding window from the kitchen to this beautiful dining room for the bigshots…Twelve or fourteen bucks a week, that’s all they paid. The best waitresses in the cafeteria got sixteen dollars.”
—Mabel Mokaba Ruffing[vi]

THE LAST HURRAH: 1978

Even after the gigantic fire of 1963, one vacant, five story brick warehouse was left standing.

On September 1, 1978 it too went up in a blaze.

Image via Somerville Fire Department, Local 76 (http://www.somervillelocal76.org/)

SOURCES

All in the Same Boat: Twentieth-Century Stories of East Cambridge, by Sarah Boyer, Cambridge Historical Commission

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Comp. Under the supervision of D. Hamilton Hurd. (1890).

Cambridge Historical Commission

Cambridge Historical Society: https://historycambridge.org/industry/jpsquire.html

Cambridge Public Library historical newspaper database

Genealogybank.com

Newspapers.com

East Cambridge by Susan E. Maycock. The MIT Press, 1986.

“Tracking Progress: How Somerville Yards — Rail, Stock and Brick — Have Shaped Union Square” Walking Tour researched & led by Ed Gordon, President of the Victorian Society in America, New England Chapter Sunday, September 25, 2016 Co-sponsored by the Somerville Arts Council and the Somerville Historic Preservation Commission.

[i] History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. Compiled under the supervision of D. Hamilton Hurd. (1890

[ii] Cambridge Chronicle December 5, 1874

[iii] East Cambridge by Susan E. Maycock (The MIT Press, 1986).

[iv] All in the Same Boat: Twentieth-Century Stories of East Cambridge, by Sarah Boyer, Cambridge Historical Commission

[v] Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: East Cambridge. Revised edition by Susan E. Maycock.

[vi] All in the Same Boat: Twentieth-Century Stories of East Cambridge, by Sarah Boyer, Cambridge Historical Commission

A Pickle Post

Posted on November 14, 2021November 18, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

In Honor of National Pickle Day, established by the Pickle Packers Association in 1949

Final stanza: poem in *New England Farmer* May 8, 1824

The word “pickle” in English comes to us from the Dutch pekel or northern German pókel, meaning “salt” or “brine.” Pickles have been around for at least 4,000 years. Some accounts say they are native to India, others that they were invented in Mesopotamia. They made their debut in the Americas via Christopher Columbus. He (or someone) had figured out that brine-soaked pickles had the advantage of preventing scurvy on long voyages. Cleopatra liked them. So did Napoleon. So do we, if for no other reason than “pickle” is a fun word to say.

PICKLE FACTORIES IN CAMBRIDGE:

The Harvard Pickle Works, Inc., located at 172 Thorndike Street.

Harvard Brand Pure Cider Vinegar bottle, ca. 1930s. (Cambridge Historical Commission Objects Collection)

Detail: 1930 Cambridge Bromley Map showing Harvard Pickle Works

170-174 Thorndike Street at Eighth St. Photograph 1944. CHC collections.

Fickle Pickle fact: In 2020 Americans were eating 20 billion pickles a year.

H.J. Heinz & Co. Warehouse, located at 201 Vassar Street.

H.J. Heinz an Co. was founded in 1869 in Pittsburgh, PA by Henry John Heinz, the “Pickle King”. In 1915, the company built a plant at 201 Vassar Street in Cambridge. In 1968, the property was sold to MIT.

H. J. Heinz pickle lapel pin via Heinz History Center Shop

Detail: 1930 Cambridge Bromley Map showing 201 Vassar St. (Heinz Warehouse)

Exterior view of 201 Vassar Street, photographed by Christopher Hail (Sept 1984)

Fickle Pickle fact: In 2018 someone calculated if each pickle sold in America that year were about 6” long it would take 2.4 million pickles to get to the moon.

Advert from the *Cambridge Chronicle* January 21, 1954. Two jars for only 49 cents!

Sanborn, Parker & Co., a Boston pickle concern with a manufacturing plant in East Cambridge.

Fickle Pickle fact: During WWII 40% of all pickle production was allocated to the ration kits of the armed forces.

ADVICE FOR PICKLERS

*Cambridge Chronicle* September 30, 1847

Fickle Pickle fact: pickle crunches can be heard from ten paces away.

It wasn’t just cucumbers that were pickled. Here is a “Receipt” for pickled peaches:

*Cambridge Chronicle* September 16, 1847

“Receipts” for what we now call “recipes” was the usual term through much of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the term “recipes” outpaced “receipts” although both words can still be found in usage until the early 20th century.

NOT JUST FOR CRUNCHING: OTHER USES FOR PICKLES AND PICKLE JUICE

We now know that because of its high sodium content, sports players often drink pickle juice to replace what they used in sweating. Pickle juice also stimulates a “neurological reflex that prevents muscles from cramping.” But did you know that it is effective at putting out fires?

VINEGAR

Of course, you can’t talk about pickles without talking about vinegar. One of the largest purveyors of vinegar in Cambridge was Joseph A. Holmes & Co:

In the 1880s, vinegar became a hotter topic than you might imagine. In 1879, Congress passed the “Whiskey Vinegar Law.” While aimed at prohibiting the adulteration of foodstuffs (in part by stating that all vinegar had to contain at least 5% acidity), it also allowed whiskey distillers to use whiskey in the manufacture of alcoholic vapor vinegar, which they called “white wine vinegar.”

A big complicated hoo-ha ensued, involving charges of illicit distilling, food adulteration, tax avoidance and undercutting the apple cider market, and it all got tangled up with a regional Eastern vs Western issue. Most “whiskey vinegar” was produced in the west, and the “alcoholic vapor” process was cheaper. To combat what they saw as undercutting the market for their apple cider vinegar, the eastern apple growers focused on the idea that the law allowed anybody to open a “vinegar distillery” which, while cranking out vinegar, would also be able to crank out barrels of nefarious illicit whiskey without taxation.

The result of the controversy caused Cambridge (and other cities) to create the position of “Inspector of Vinegar,” a job often combined with the “Inspector of Milk.” It is not clear if the law was ever repealed.

THE MANY USES OF VINEGAR

Now that you know more about the vinegar crises than you ever thought you would need, here are some entertaining articles about the uses of vinegar.

To prevent smoking lamps…

As a teeth-cleaning solution…

As a wart remover…

As fascinating entertainment…

As a cure for poisonous wounds…

MORE FICKLE PICKLE FACTS FROM THE INTERNET

You want to avoid being in “de pekel zitten” (Dutch) if you can avoid it. It literally translates as sitting in the pickle, and has come to mean just plan ole drunk.

But you can also be “in a pickle” if you are in a quandary. Shakespeare used the phrase in The Tempest when Alsono asks: “How camest thou in this pickle?” and Trincuclo responds “I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones.” Poor Trinculo meant he had been drunk, but eventually the phrase came to mean being in a tricky situation, or a quandary.

Nutritional facts: Pickles provide 20% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin K, which helps your blood clot, 6% of the calcium adults need for strong bones, teeth and healthy nerves, and
6% of your daily requirement of potassium, which also helps your nervous system.

Pickleball, a sort of paddle tennis game, was founded in 1965. Its creators called it “pickleball” in recognition of the “pickle boat” – – a hodge-podge thrown together crew in in crew races. And that reference, in turn, was to the last boat in English yacht races which was called the “fisher,” because that boat, coming in last, would stop along the way to fish for herring which were then – – you’ve got it – – pickled.

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

Sources
https://www.history.com/news/pickles-history-timeline
https://www.mtolivepickles.com
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2010/06/09/snap-crunch-that-s-a-pickle/
Middlesex South Registry of Deeds
Cambridge Public Library: Digitized Newspapers
https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/health-benefits-pickles
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/408287/recipe-vs-receiptps:
https://medium.com/@specialisedgeneralist/
https: //www.mtolivepickles.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/G2-3-Pickles-Are-Popular.pdf
https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-pickles/

The Scottish Monument Maker and the Irish Mayor of Cambridge, William F. Brooks

Posted on October 28, 2021October 27, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

In the mid to late 19^th century, virtually all of the monument makers in Cambridge hailed from Scotland, Ireland, and England, as did virtually all of their employees. In 1855, 22% of Cambridge’s citizens were born in Ireland and by 1865 the number of Irish had increased by an additional 20%.[i] Of course it’s difficult to make assumptions about origins based on surnames, but some are pretty clear. In 1885 the City Directory listed approximately 1600 individuals with names beginning with “O’” or “Mc” or “Mac”. And that doesn’t even include all the other Irish and Scottish names that begin with other letters! 70 men identified themselves as working in the marble, granite and monument making businesses that year. One of the earliest, and the most nationally prominent, was Alexander McDonald (not to be confused with an earlier Alex McDonald, a stone worker on Western Ave in 1849.)

Alexander McDonald (1829-1906) was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the major exporter of granite world-wide—including to the United States. Young Aberdonian granite laborers would frequently work summers overseas, returning to Scotland in the winter to prepare granite for the next year’s export. Beginning around 1865, the shortage of skilled workers in the U. S. led to more and more of these young men emigrating permanently.[ii]

The exact date of McDonald’s arrival in the U.S. is unclear. His obituary states he arrived in New York in 1852, and subsequently moved to Albany, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Lyall. He appears to have arrived in Cambridge in 1856, apparently with enough capital, at age 27, to start his business.

McDonald proved to be an acute businessman. Given his almost immediate success in Cambridge, it is more than likely he worked as a stone cutter in Aberdeen. In 1867, ten years after starting his monument business, he purchased a granite quarry in Mason, N. H. This he ran “entirely by steam-power without the use of horses or oxen,” and where he put in action the “McDonald Stone Cutting Machine” which he had invented and patented.

From: *The collection of building and ornamental stones in the United States National museum*
by Merrill, George P. (George Perkins), 1854-1929, p.328.

McDonald’s first place of business was on Rice Place (later renamed Maynard Place). He built a wharf on the Charles River directly across from Rice Place—one of only two wharves this far upriver. McDonald’s advertisements first appeared in the Cambridge newspapers in 1857:

Detail: G. M. Hopkins Cambridge Atlas, 1873. McDonald’s Wharf across from Rice Place (later Maynard Place) can be seen bottom right

McDonald’s Wharf. Image: Historic New England

A team of 18 oxen moving a piece of marble for Alexander McDonald, date unknown. Image: Cambridge Historical Commission

Detail: the sign reads “Alexander McDonald Mount Auburn Marble & Granite Works Cambridge Mass.”

McDonald lived for a while further west, in the Jonas Wyeth homestead, and in 1868 purchased land from the Wyeth estate for $4,000.[iii] The land was strategically located across from the front gate to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and became the permanent location for his business at #583 Mt. Auburn Street, at the corner on what is now Aberdeen Avenue. On the atlas detail below you can see the Reception House belonging to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, just across from their main gate. In 1896 when the cemetery closed the reception house (in favor of one inside the cemetery gates), McDonald moved his office and “wareroom” into the building. It still bears the sign stating the date his business was established, “1856”.

Detail: G. M. Hopkins Cambridge Atlas, 1873

In 1873, a dead-end street called McDonald Street had been constructed through his property. In 1895, McDonald sold land to the town to enable extending it through to Huron Ave, thereby providing electric street cars a “turn around.” Thereafter it was renamed Aberdeen St, after the County in Scotland that McDonald was from.

An amusing notice appeared in the Cambridge Chronicle highlighting the use of his marble yard for target practice:

McDonald’s own house was at #643 Mt. Auburn Street. He had permission to raise cows on the premises and, it appears, advertised the services of his bull:

The house can be seen below, second building from the right. Also visible is the rectangular entrance sign for his marble yard along with a couple of monuments on display. The large building on the right is the Mt. Auburn Cemetery Reception House. The image is presumably of a ceremony at the cemetery. The building is now owned by W. C. Caniff and Sons, monument makers, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Parade on Mount Auburn St, ca. 1890 (Cambridge Historical Commission)

The Reception House yoday:

Alexander McDonald also provided a shed on his property to house sculptor Martin Milmore’s mammoth Sphinx monument for the Cemetery:

*Boston Evening Transcript* August 16, 1872

And now we get to the mayor…

WILLIAM FRANCIS BROOKS, LATER MAYOR OF CAMBRIDGE

The May 10, 1899 edition of Trenton Evening Times stated that McDonald had “some 40 artists in his employ.” Many of McDonald’s workers lived on McDonald Street, in the area called The Upper Marsh and across the street from the McDonald Wharf, or further west on Holworthy and Cushing Streets.

Granite workers went out on strike in 1892, but McDonald’s operation seems relatively immune to its effects:

William F. Brooks, future Mayor of Cambridge, was one of those workers, who, like his father, had a long association with the company. His father, Patrick Brooks, had emigrated from Ireland in 1851 at the age of 17, ending up in Cambridge 1852[iv]. The family lived at #35 McDonald Street. Patrick worked for McDonald’s Marble and Granite Works for 40 years, purchasing the business after McDonald’s death and passing it on to his son William. William Brooks worked at McDonald’s from 1885 to 1900 before leaving to found a real estate company (Brooks & Conley) and to dedicate more time to his political career. Active in Democratic politics, Brooks had been elected a City Councilman in 1896, President of the Common Council in 1899, Alderman, and Principal Assessor in 1902. In 1909, he was elected Mayor. Brooks held the position for two terms through 1911. William F. Brooks owned the Marble and Granite Works from 1916 until his death in 1925, after which his son, also William F. Brooks, was at the helm until sometime between 1938 and 1940.

Mayor William Francis Brooks Square: Brooks was a friend of MIT President Robert C. Maclaurin, and instrumental in bringing MIT from Boston to Cambridge. In honor of this (and his other achievements), in 2012 the Cambridge City Council dedicated the corner of Vassar St. and Massachusetts Avenue as Mayor William Francis Brooks Square.

MCDONALD’S MONUMENTS: FROM COAST TO COAST

Alexander McDonald & Sons, and his son Norman McDonald’s separate company, were responsible for approximately 850 monuments in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery between 1856 and 1900. The two monuments below to slain Civil War soldiers are good examples of his work:

Lieut. Edgar Newcomb, Battle of Fredricksburg. Image: Stone and Dust

Detail: Waldo Merriam, Battle of the Wilderness. Image via Mount Auburn Cemetery

Through his intricate work, McDonald gained a national reputation. At the end of the 19^th century, McDonald’s business occupied an office at the gates of Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey, and one in Paterson, North Carolina next to the Cedar Lawn Cemetery.

Many of his monuments were of truly monumental proportions. The 70 ft tall obelisk in commemoration of dentist H. D. Cogswell of San Francisco (designed by Cogswell himself) cost $100,000, weighed 400 tons and cost $5,000 to ship. The Oakland Tribune (July 15, 1887) declared it was “the largest shipment ever made across the continent.” A month later, the San Francisco Examiner ran an article (August 11, 1887) describing the monument:

“The mammoth monument of Dr. Cogswell recently arrived overland…laden upon twenty-one freight cars…The base block of stone, weighing twenty-five tons, was loaded upon a truck specially sent from the East to transport the heavy pieces. Eighteen horses were required to haul the base block. In loading it the streetcar rails were bent and the cross walks were broken by the great weight, and a tire ten inches wide came off one of the truck- wheels….the heaviest piece of stone is the shaft, thirty-three feet long and weighing over thirty tons. Thirty six horses will be required to pull the truck….In addition to the twenty-one carloads of stone (granite and marble) of the monument, ten more carloads of coping for the lot are on their way higher across the continent.”

The Mercer County Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Trenton, N. J., completed after McDonald’s death, was “the largest obelisk at that time ever manufactured in the United States” at 50 feet high.[v]

In Cambridge, McDonald and his then partner Jonathan Mann were the contractors for the Cambridge Soldier’s monument on the Cambridge Common. (Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sculptor.)

Civil War Monument on the Cambridge Common photographed by Richard Heath (April 17, 2014)

A side note: McDonald and Mann shared a patent on a thoroughly unlikely product: an improved hoop for ladies’ hoop skirts:

*Annual Report of the Commission of Patents*, Part I, Vol. I., 1866

In 1872, the partnership between McDonald and Mann was dissolved, although Mann continued to be active in the stone business with McDonald, remaining on the board of the McDonald Stone Cutting Machine Company.

PRIVATE LIFE and DEATH

Alexander McDonald married Elizabeth Lyall (of Albany, N. Y.) in 1859. They had two daughters and five sons.

Two of his sons followed in his footsteps. Frank, who was taken into partnership with his father in 1887, died in 1905 after complications from surgery. His father died Just a month later. Norman McDonald went out on his own the same year (1887) establishing his own company at 212-214 Brattle Street (the current location of Lowell Park on Fresh Pond Parkway). Just three years later, in 1890, his business failed.

After over half a century in business, Alexander McDonald died of pneumonia on January 11, 1906. By now his name had become a brand. Patrick Brooks took over the company, continuing to list it as Alexander McDonald & Sons. when his son William F. Brooks took over in 1916 the name was changed to the Mount Auburn Monumental Marble and Granite Works. Brooks’ son, also William F. Brooks, took over after his death. sold the business at some point between 1938 and 1940 to Nino P. Zapponi. In the late 1950’s the business was bought by William Canniff, whose family still owns the property at #583 Mt. Auburn St.

Alexander McDonald is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery on Angelica Path, Lot #3471.

Image via Mount Auburn Historical Collections

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

SOURCES

Ancestry

Cambridge Historical Commission architectural survey files

Cambridge Public Library historic newspapers database

The collection of building and ornamental stones in the United States National museum:
by Merrill, George P. (George Perkins), 1854-1929

Commissioner of Patents Annual Report, United States Patent Office, 1886

The Doric Columns blog: Granite Masons

Genealogy.com

Mindat.org – Mines, Minerals and More

Mount Auburn Cemetery Historical Collections

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Riverview Cemetery

Riverview Cemetery Historian’s Blog: Alexander McDonald Company

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Art Inventories Catalog

[i] Cambridge Historical Commission, draft of Maycock and Sullivan article.

[ii] History of Granite workers in Aberdeen

[iii] Middlesex South Registry of Deeds Bk. 1973,Pg. 168

[iv] Policy Order Resolution in City council, September 10, 2012, naming “ William F. Brooks” Square

[v] National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Riverview Cemetery

Historic Building: 299 Concord Avenue

Posted on August 13, 2021December 4, 2023 by Meta Partenheimer

It’s time for a historic building spotlight! We are featuring the former filling station at the corner of Concord Avenue and Walden Street in North Cambridge. Today, the building has a whole new look.

Concord Avenue near the corner of Walden Street, facing east. September 6, 1933.

In the early twentieth century, Concord Avenue served as a main transportation route, though the area had evolved from its early rural roots to a more suburban character. The advent of the automobile as a mode of transportation for the average person opened up this area to further residential development. Fresh Pond and Kingsley Park were also major draws for day-trippers taking a drive into the countryside. With people and cars came the need for fueling stations. The gasoline station at 299 Concord Avenue was one of 8 gas stations to be built along Concord Avenue between 1905 and 1930.

Rotogravure originally printed in the March 8, 1925 edition of the *Boston Traveler* as part of the series “Colonial Filling Stations of Boston.”

As an example of an early gas station, the Colonial Filling Station at 299 Concord Ave was built in 1924 for $7,000. The building was designed in the Colonial Revival style and executed by Boston-based consulting engineer Allen Hubbard. Born in 1860, Hubbard spent his early life in Westfield, Mass and later became the town’s first major league baseball player. Hubbard attended Yale to obtain an engineering degree and became the college’s baseball team captain. Soon after his graduation in 1883, Hubbard left his baseball career behind and worked as a bookkeeper and engineer for contractors in Boston before forming a business partnership with Hollis French in 1898. Throughout his career, Hubbard would consult on various large-scale engineering projects, including the Boston Public Library.

Allen Hubbard in his Yale catcher’s uniform (via adonisterry.tripod.com)

Hubbard’s design for the hip-roofed structure was elaborately detailed with dentil moldings, a Federal-style doorway with elliptical fan light and side lights, round-arched windows with lancet-arched muntins, red roofing shingles, and a wood balustrade at the roof peak. The masonry detail further embellished the station, with arched brickwork over the windows and a soldier course of bricks at the base, topped by a course of headers. A large sign band filled the space between the doorway and the cornice.

299 Concord Ave ca. 1973-74. Photograph by Richard Cheek.

The station went through a series of owners over the decades. A garage bay for automobile servicing was added in 1938. When the building was surveyed by the CHC in 1973, it was in nearly original condition and one of the oldest surviving of its kind in Cambridge. By 1978, gasoline services had ceased, and the building was converted to office use. Then-owner Cambridge Alternative Power Co., Inc. (CAPCO) undertook major alterations to and built an addition. Subsequent projects included the construction of a windmill and solar greenhouse.

299 Concord Ave in October 1982. Photograph by CHC staff.

In 2003, the CHC received an application to demolish the former gas station and its additions to make way for new construction. Rather than demolish the structure, an updated proposal was submitted in which the new design would preserve the original fabric of the façade to the fullest extent possible.

Today, the original filling station façade can be seen from Concord Ave.

View north from Concord Ave via Google Street View (October 2017)

SOURCES

“1883 Yale Baseball Captain Added to the Bulldog Club Posthumously” article by Dan Genovese
(The Yale Newsletter, Winter 2005)
Cambridge Public Library Online Newspaper Database
CHC survey files

Popular Photography in 19th-Century Cambridge

Posted on June 15, 2021June 28, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

“There are no bad images; that’s just how your face looks at times.”
-Henri Cartier-Bresson

Today it’s hard to imagine life without photography in all media, but the arrival of popular photography in the mid-19th century created a remarkable transformation in how we understood the world … something akin the arrival of telephones. Photography increased our vision and hence our perception of the world around us. Without photography, we wouldn’t talk about “snap-shots” (coined by Sir John Herschel in 1860), “photo,” “close-up,” “pin-hole,” flash bulb,” or “shutterbug.”

THE START OF IT ALL

Several inventors made advances towards photography in the 19th century, but Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) clinched it with his invention of the daguerreotype in France in 1829.

The first daguerreotype operation in Cambridge seems to have been Mr. Clark Moore’s mobile studio. Imagine the astonishment at the Cambridge Chronicle‘s office on Main Street when one December day in 1849 the editor looked out his window and saw this “Daguerreotype Saloon” pass by!

Cambridge Chronicle Building, 1855. Demolished by 1865 – Now 689 Mass Ave. Image: CHC

Mr. Moore went on to establish his permanent studio at the corner of Main and Essex streets.

*Cambridge Chronicle* September 20, 1851

Fast forward a decade and photography had really seized the public’s attention:

A search of the local newspapers reveals that in the decade 1850-1859 the word “daguerreotype” appeared 91 times. The word “camera” only six times and the word “photographic” nine times. By 1890-1899, “daguerreotype” appeared only 12 times, “camera” 317 times, and “photographic” 696 times.

Articles appeared coaching would-be photographers on how to take the best portrait photograph:

Next appeared witty descriptions of surviving the application of ice tongs during the process:

PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART

This technology opened a new way of creating the sort of dignified portraits that had been traditionally captured by trained portrait painters. In this vein, many photographers referred to themselves as artists.

*Cambridge Chronicle* September 16, 1899

G.W. PACH’s studio was founded by him and his brothers in New York City. Wildly successful, they subsequently opened branches in Cambridge, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. They advertised heavily in Cambridge. Note the reference to his “Art Studio” in the advertisement:

From Boston Elevated Railway Collection: Workers making borings near Harvard Square. The Pach Bros. building (demolished in 1916) can be seen in the background (August 17, 1906).

In 1880, the Pach Bros. published a pamphlet “devoted to the interests of the photographic art …”, to “the building up of the glorious cause of art, and to convey such information as will lead to a greater interest in artistic efforts.”

COMPETITION FOR THE TRADITIONAL ARTISTS IN PORTRAIT PAINTING

“From today, painting is dead!”
(Attributed to French artist Paul Delaroche commenting on daguerreotypes).

Most probably portrait photography substantially ate into traditional painters’ business. “By 1859, Charles Baudelaire was denouncing photography as ‘the mortal enemy of art.’ ‘If photography is allowed to stand in for art in some of its functions,’ Baudelaire fumed, ‘it will soon supplant or corrupt it completely.’” (Baltimore Sun)

But it may also have given artists a boost. Now they could advertise their skill at painting portraits from photographs. And, since photography had captured the “realism” market, painters had more freedom to use looser styles, emphasizing qualities of light, and creating more atmospheric portraits.

The fine print: “we are connected with one of the best-known Photographic Establishments in Boston, and parties desiring portraits or Colored Work will be furnished with sitting free of expense.”

AND THEN CAME GEORGE EASTMAN
“You press the button – we do the rest.”

Original Kodak camera. Image: *Time* Magazine

George Eastman launched the Kodak – the first successful roll-film camera – in 1888. “The camera was sold loaded with film, and both had to be sent back to the factory for processing. Over 13,000 cameras were sold in the first year. (http://www.alternativephotography.com/history-photographic-words/)

Other varieties of cameras soon hit the market:

*Cambridge Chronicle* April 23, 1887:
“the detective camera”

*Cambridge Chronicle* October 3, 1891:
“the Hawkeye camera”

*Cambridge Chronicle* May 22, 1897: “the Falcon camera”

*Cambridge Chronicle* May 7, 1898:
“the Munroe Camera”

*Cambridge Chronicle* January 13, 1894: “the Photoret Snap Shot and Time exposure camera”

Photographic equipment was frequently sold in hardware stores:

PHOTOGRAPHY CLUBS

The advent of Eastman’s Kodak camera advanced amateur photography substantially. Cambridge alone had seven different photographic clubs: The Old Cambridge Photographic Club (1892) was founded by Alice C. Allyn. Others included the YMCA Camera Club, Cambridge Camera Club (1888), Lechmere Camera Club (1896), Harvard Cambridge Club, the Tech. Camera Club, and Cambridge Heights Camera Club. Many of these clubs focused on landscape, or nature, photography.

Butterfield was known for his landscape photographs:

*Cambridge Chronicle* September 25, 1886

Many women also took up photography, including Alice M. Longfellow, a daughter of the poet, “whose pictures of nature are a cherished heritage of the whole American people. … Miss Longfellow’s landscape views are noted for delicacy of gradation, poetic feeling and beauty of sentiment.” (Cambridge Chronicle November 16, 1889). Others were Delia Stickney and Cornelia Horsford.

One post can’t do justice to the range of popular, nature, and scientific photography in Cambridge in the late 19th century. Many well-known names and institutions are missing from this account. For instance, George Kendall Warren, who photographed Harvard graduates; Augustus Story, who was the chief photographer on the 1882 scientific expedition to New Zealand to observe the Transit of Venus; and the Harvard Observatory collection.

BUT FOR AMATEURS….

Move over George Eastman…. Here comes Edwin Land!

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

SOURCES
Cambridge Public Library digital newspapers
Ancestry.com
Newspapers.com
Harvard University
Wikipedia
Wells, James A. A Short History of the Old Cambridge Photographic Club. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son Inc. Printers, 1905.
Merry A. Forest American Photographs: The First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art with the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.)
http://www.alternativephotography.com/history-photographic-words/Nelson Atkins Museum of Art https://art.nelson-atkins.org/
https://artsandculture.google.com/. From the J. Paul Getty Museum
http://www.alternativephotography.com/history-photographic-words/
McNatt, Glenn. “Photography and Painting Influence Each Other.” Baltimore Sun, February 15, 1998.

National Eyewear Day

Posted on June 6, 2021June 28, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Can you see this?

Today we are marking National Eyewear Day, June 6.

It is widely held that Italians invented eyeglasses as early as the 1200’s. What really launched popular demand for eye glasses – spectacles — was the invention of the printing press. More to read – more the need. By the 1700’s someone had invented an “over the ear” eyeglass, which was much easier to use than those pinched on the nose. Then Benjamin Franklin came along and invented the first pair of bifocal lenses, by cutting two different lenses in half and stacking them on the other in a frame. (Source: https://allabouteyes.com/see-past-fascinating-history-eyeglasses/)

A survey of Cambridge newspapers reveals that in the mid-1800’s most advertisements for spectacles and eyeglasses were for businesses in Boston, but one of the earliest in Cambridge was B. W. & J.N. Gibbs, jewelers on Main Street. A “periscopic” lens was good for both near and far sightedness. $1.37 1/2 per pair!

As shown above, most eyeglasses were sold at jeweler’s stores:

Over time many jewelers became opticians and/or included optical departments in their shops. In 1891, James Marshea advertised as a watch and clock maker also selling spectacles, assuring customers that eyes were examined by a trained lady optician. By 1900, Marshea was offering specialized services: not only were eyes examined professionally, but eyeglasses were fitted with lenses ground on site to individual specifications. And, the shop offered free scientific examinations.

But, especially among travelling salesmen, there were many quacks and fakes. Opticians were not regulated until well into the 20^th century.

*The Optical Journal and Review of Optometry*, Volume 27. March 23, 1911

Reflecting back on the bad old days, J. C. Bloom, who began his practice in 1889, wrote that in the days of the travelling salesman in the west, “When a person came in to get a pair of glasses, you would look him over, ask his age, and then reach into one of the boxes that had the mounted goods and you would reach from box to box until the patient said he could see. He would ask what the price was, and it was anywhere from $150 to $5.” (https://www.eyetoeyeoptical.net/AboutUs/eyeglasshistory/index.aspx)

Eventually opticians established their practices independent of jewelry stores:

FASHION IN EYEWEAR

In the beginning there were monocles, worn mostly by wealthy men; lorgnettes, used by the stylish; and pince-nez, all in frames of silver or gold. Then came celluloid eyeglass frames, developed in the 1860’s and 1870’s using a material invented by the English chemist Alexander Parkes in 1858. In 1870 the American inventor John Wesley Hyatt and his brother established Hyatt’s Celluloid Manufacturing Co. in New York where they produced, among many other things, commercially successful eyeglass frames, such as those offered by the jeweler A.J. Applegate in 1882. (https://www.britannica.com/technology/celluloid)

*https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:5712md32w*

Large round tortoise shell glasses became fashionable around 1914. The time had now come when “the average human disfigurement, often an injury, seldom a person, instead of being ashamed that his eyes are on the blink, actually seems to be proud of it.” (https://www.eyetoeyeoptical.net/AboutUs/eyeglasshistory/index.aspx)

Gold eye glass frames were still popular (look at the price!)

“Kryptok Lenses” were a type of round bifocal, which made the line between near and far lenses less obvious.

* * * *

Finally, this next advertisement is not only about eyeglasses but artificial eyes as well–it just seemed too good to leave out. The business was in Boston, but they advertised in Cambridge newspapers.

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

Sources:

Cambridge Public Library Newspapers online

Digital Commonwealth

https://allabouteyes.com/see-past-fascinating-history-eyeglasses/

https://www.eyetoeyeoptical.net/AboutUs/eyeglasshistory/index.aspx

https://www.britannica.com/technology/celluloid

https://services.nhslothian.scot/artificialeyes/

Before There Were Supermarkets: Part 2

Posted on May 26, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Arthur H. Smith (1861-1943)

With his acquisition of Fred Row’s Pleasant Street market in 1885, Arthur Smith became a giant in further revolutionizing grocery shopping in Cambridge.

Like Fred Row, Smith was an émigré from England. Born in London in 1861, he emigrated to the U. S. as a boy in 1870, the year before his fellow Englishman, the teenaged Row. Perhaps because of the “English connection,” Smith briefly worked for Row during the late 1870’s. He then went on to work at other grocers, and established himself well enough that in 1886, at the age of 25, he bought Row’s Pleasant Street Market. The gumption of these two emigres to have bought businesses before they were 25 years old is remarkable—and a familiar immigrant story.

Smith seems to have learned a few things about advertising from his previous employer, changing the name to the impressive Mammoth Market. He printed a proclamation supporting Massachusetts Governor designating November 27, 1890 as a Thanksgiving holiday.

In 1891, Smith sold the Mammoth Market and moved to a larger location on Main Street in Central Square. He intended to build a two-story building with a market on the ground floor and offices on the second floor. But plans were delayed and changed, and it wasn’t until 1895 that he opened “Smith’s Manhattan Market” at 602-614 Main Street. Story has it that It was named “the great Manhattan Market on 125th Street [in] Harlem” (Cambridge Chronicle, Jan. 31, 1891). His advertising emphasized modern conveniences such a big “hygenic” refrigerators, a long- distance telephone on the premises and a “neat little room for ladies to sit in…”

Manhattan Market 1909. (Cambridge Historical Commission)

Smith’s particular innovation in marketing was to include under one roof individual vendors for the usual grocery goods—meat, fruit & vegetables, canned goods, and baked goods. He also sold kitchen implements, and, believe it or not, music and musical instruments. There was even a piano available for “customers to try out the sheet music” before purchasing. An all-day lunch counter was an added attraction. The position of the individual vendors eventually morphed into departments under the same store management. The “Superb and Elegant” Manhattan Market was a big step toward the idea of what we today call a “Supermarket.”

Historically, the first supermarket as we know it today was the Piggly Wiggly, opened in Memphis, Tennessee in 1916. Customers were able to load items into their baskets (provided by the store) themselves and brought them to a central check-out counter. The Manhattan followed this and all subsequent trends in the management of grocery stores.

Excerpt: *Cambridge Tribune* August 31, 1895

The fine print:

After a very brilliant and successful reception, which was attended by thousands who spike in the highest terms of the beauty and completeness of its arrangements, has passed through a week of business which far exceeded our fondest hopes. It may be thought that because of its magnificence the prices may be on an equally magnificent scale. The Manhattan will entirely disabuse your mind of any such erroneous idea. The proof of the pudding is in the eating; so also the proof of the price is in the purchase…The Manhattan will give measure for measure and dollar for dollar as much as can be obtained anywhere.

Excerpt: *Cambridge Chronicle* September 11, 1897

Smith went on to open other stores in the Boston area, as well as a chain of “five and ten-cent” grocery stores. In 1929 the store became a part of Upham’s Corner Market. Smith soon stepped down from active management of the store in and went on to create United Markets, Inc.

Under changes in management and names, a grocery store remained at the site of the old Manhattan Market until at least 1999.

596-600 Mass. Ave. (left), 602-614 Mass. Ave. in 2019 (right) in 2019
(Google Street view)

Stay tuned for the final installment of our series on supermarkets!

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

Sources:

Cambridge City Directory and Newspapers

Wikipedia

Nationaldaycalendar.com

https://grocershall.co.uk/the-company/history/

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary

https://nationaldaycalendar.com/7-inventions-that-made-grocery-shopping-easier/

https://time.com/4480303/supermarkets-history/items at the checkout

Ada Louise Comstock: A Lasting Legacy in Women’s Education

Posted on March 3, 2021March 3, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Ada Louise Comstock, c.1897. Harvard University Archives.

Ada Louise Comstock (1876-1973) was born in the prairie city of Moorhead, Minnesota, and from a young age, excelled in education. She graduated from her local high school at 15 and the next year began undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota. After two years, she transferred to Smith College, a women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1897. After, she went to Columbia University for graduate work in English, History, and Education, and earned a master’s degree in 1899. She returned to the University of Minnesota to work as an instructor and was appointed the school’s first dean of women in 1907. In that role, she was instrumental in improving the quality of life for the women of the college, arguing persistently that a college was responsible for one’s physical and intellectual well-being, something she believed had not been offered equally to the men and women at the university. From 1921 to 1923, she served as president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, now known as the American Association of University Women, and became known nationally as a pioneer in women’s education.

Ada Louise Comstock at her 25th reunion at Smith College in 1922.
Faculty Biographical Files, Ada Comstock Papers

On October 20, 1923, Comstock was inaugurated as president of Radcliffe College. She led the school for 20 years, strengthening its academic programs and in 1943 persuading Harvard to accept classroom co-education. Prior to this, Radcliffe had been paying Harvard professors to repeat their lectures for women. President Comstock launched a nationwide admissions program for Radcliffe, improved student housing, constructed new classroom and dormitory buildings, and expanded the graduate program. She retired as president of the college in 1943 but continued to promote the Graduate Program and advocate for improvements in and expansion of women’s educational opportunities. After her retirement, Radcliffe named a new dormitory in her honor and called her “the chief architect of the greatness of this college.”

Ada Comstock during her time as President at Radcliffe College. Harvard University Archives.

Radcliffe’s Comstock Hall was built in 1957 as the final wing of Moors Hall, at the northern edge of Radcliffe Quad. The school hired Maginnis, Walsh and Kennedy, the successor of Maginnis and Walsh who specialized in Neo-Gothic architecture and had designed many churches in Cambridge and the eastern United States. For Comstock Hall, the architect Eugene F. Kennedy Jr. employed Georgian Revival and Classical detailing to complement the Quad’s existing character. Radcliffe would soon after embrace Modernism with the Hilles Library, Currier House dormitories, and Faculty Housing on Linnaean Street, which complete Radcliffe Yard.

In addition to her roles in women’s education, Comstock served in many capacities with governmental and institutional groups. In 1929 she was the only woman named by President Herbert Hoover to the eleven-member Wickersham Commission, which was tasked with surveying the U.S. criminal justice system under Prohibition and making public policy recommendations. She also served as president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and on the National Committee for Planned Parenthood.

The Wickersham Commission in 1929. Ada Comstock, the only woman on the commission, is seated in the front row. To her left is Roscoe Pound, then Dean of Harvard Law School. President Hoover is in the first row, center right.

A week after her retirement from Radcliffe in 1943, Comstock married Yale professor emeritus Wallace Notestein. The two had met in Minnesota decades before, but Comstock had focused on her academic career, as her father wished; neither had married in the intervening years. They never had children. Wallace Notestein died in 1969. Ada Comstock died four years later at her home in New Haven, Connecticut, at the age of 97.

*Undated image of Ada L. Comstock,*
*Harris & Ewing, photographer, Library of Congress Catalog.*

Ada Comstock continues to be honored for her dedication to expanding and improving women’s education. She is also remembered in numerous buildings on college and university campuses, including Comstock Hall at the University of Minnesota; Comstock House, aresidence hall at Smith College; and the featured Comstock Hall in Radcliffe Quad, which is now a part of Pforzheimer House, one of Harvard’s twelve undergraduate residential houses. Her childhood home in Moorhead, Minnesota, is maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society.

New Collection Available: Gooch Family Photographs

Posted on January 9, 2021January 25, 2021 by Brittany F.

We have recently processed a collection that was donated in October, and its finding aid is now available on ArchivesSpace. Currently, the Historical Commission is offering limited research assistance. Please see our main webpage for the most up-to-date information.

The Gooch Family Photographs (P029) contains 49 glass plate negatives that we have digitized so that the collection is available from the safety of your home. The items are available for viewing on our Flickr page here. If you would like to research this or any other collection, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.

The Gooch Family Photographs comprises images related to 11 Fayerweather Street in Cambridge; Harvard University buildings; Mt. Auburn Street in Watertown, Massachusetts; and non-Cambridge locations. The collection was donated by the wife of a photographer who bought and sold photography related items on Ebay and specialty photographic sites. While cleaning out her basement, she found the boxes and explained that “thought the negatives might be important to the history of an area.”

11 Fayerweather Street, front facade, ca. 1900.

Initially the content of the glass plates were unidentified, but through research the CHC staff has determined that the images are likely connected to the Gooch family, who were lived at 11 Fayerweather Street (no. 3 Fayerweather at the time of their residency). The negatives include images of family members, but the names of individuals have not yet been determined.

The Gooch Family

The story of the Gooch family in Cambridge starts with Nathan Gooding Gooch (1835-1919), a descendant of the colonial settler John Gooch. In the 1850s bachelor Nathan Gooch boarded with John Bridge Dana at 3 Fayerweather Street (renumbered 11 Fayerweather by 1930). Dana (1800-1888) worked for the Charles River Bank and later became a Harvard steward. His daughter, Ellen Coolidge Dana, married Nathan Gooch on June 14, 1860. Both generations lived in the house, presumably with the house divided by the partition shown on a 1900 remodel plan.

Woman and dog on front porch of 11 Fayerweather Street during winter, undated. The woman may be Ellen Coolidge Dana, who married Nathan Gooch

Nathan Gooch initially worked as a bookkeeper for W.T. Richardson near Harvard Square and became a lumber dealer in Brighton in 1857. Nathan worked with his brother at their lumber firm, J.G. & N.G. Gooch; he also became a coal dealer on Kilby Street in Boston in 1865. During the Civil War he served in the Massachusetts 12th Company from November 12, 1863, to August 15, 1864. Nathan Gooch was also a Cambridge City Council member from 1865-1866 and a deacon of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, a position he occupied until 1908. In 1906 he worked for Cox Bros. & Co., anthracite coal dealers in Boston.

A man holding a toddler next to a dog at 11 Fayerweather Street, undated. This could be Nathan Gooch and his granddaughter Margaret.

Nathan and Ellen Gooch had two children, William D. Gooch and Ellen M. Gooch. The family moved to Watertown in 1900 to a house that was once part of the Adams estate. Built in 1900, 35 Adams (or Fairlawn) Avenue was designed by F. Bryant & Co. It would continue to be the family’s home until the 1930s.

Aerial view taken from the Oakley Country Club showing Shattuck Avenue in Watertown before Adams Avenue was laid out.

The Gooch family also owned a summer residence in Marblehead on Marblehead Neck (sometimes called Nanepashment). Their first summer home was at the corner of Harbor and Harvard streets (formerly Spring Street). In 1892 Nathan Gooch had the house moved 25 feet. He later sold the property to Maria M. Stone and in 1901 moved the family to Ocean Avenue (likely located is now 372 Ocean Avenue). His brother, Johnson G. Gooch, also had a summer place in Marblehead on Atlantic Avenue.

A child holding a doll in a field with a man behind in the middle-ground. Beyond is the sea. The man may be William D. Gooch and the toddler his daughter, Margaret. This location could be in Marblehead. The image is undated.

The Gooch’s daughter, Ellen, married G.F. Rouillard, and they had sons Robert G. and Clarence D. Their son, William, worked as a bookkeeper before becoming an auditor for a drug and chemical company. He owned a motorboat named Dixie and continued to summer in Marblehead for a few years after his father’s passing in 1916. At some point William married Mary A. Pearce, and they had two children, Dana Appleton Gooch (1897-1972) and Margaret Caroline Gooch. Dana worked as an office clerk but was unemployed by World War I; his subsequent occupations are unknown. He was married in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1934 and died in Florida on March 6, 1972.

A woman holding a baby on the porch steps of 11 Fayerweather Street. The woman is possibly Mary A. Pearce Gooch, William’s wife, and the baby may be Margaret or Dana.

Margaret Caroline Gooch (1891-1988), William’s daughter, is likely present in this collection since one of the original glass plate boxes was labeled with her name. While employed as a teacher, she married Eugene Judson Barney on December 10, 1917. Eugene was a refrigerator electrical engineer from Dayton, Ohio, and by 1920 they had moved back to his hometown. According to census records, they lived at 12 Seminary Avenue in 1920; 1438 Catalpa Drive in 1930; and 1827 Harvard Boulevard in 1940. Eugene and Margaret were the parents of Edward Barney.

Dana Gooch with a dog in a sandbox in Marblehead, ca. fall 1900. According to the *Marblehead Messenger*, Dana caught his finger in a bicycle spool on September 3, 1900, and had to get it sewn and bandaged; the bandage is visible on his left hand.

11 Fayerweather Street

In 1850, 3 Fayerweather Street was built as a 2½ story house for John B. Dana. After the Dana and Gooch families moved, the house was purchased by Mrs. Archibald Howe (Arria Sargeant Dixwell) in 1900. Mr. Howe (1848-1916), a lawyer and former member of the House of Representatives, ran for Vice-President in 1900 on the “National Party” ticket. His cousin Lois Lilley Howe (1864-1964), a pioneering female architect, remodeled 3 Fayerweather Street that year. The new design removed the interior partition (mentioned above), extended the house by four feet, and added three dormers to the front façade. It is likely that Lois Howe was the photographer of image G-2161: it is strikingly similar to photographs she took on April 30, 1900. (For a lot more information on Howe, get in touch with the Historical Commission.) The house was renovated by Lois’s architectural firm, Howe, Manning & Almy, in 1916. (No. 3 was renumbered 11 some time between 1916 and 1930.) The house was later owned by Louise McLennan, who altered it again, in 1939.

The collection includes images of beaches, fields, and mountain landscapes, possibly at Marblehead Neck and in New York state. There are also photographs of Harvard’s Memorial Hall, the Washington Elm, and the Old Cambridge Baptist Church after the fire of 1897.

The Dogs of Mount Auburn Cemetery

Posted on October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first rural cemetery in the United States, is credited as the beginning of the American public parks and gardens movement. Dedicated in 1831 and marked with classical monuments in a rolling landscaped terrain, Mount Auburn Cemetery marked a distinct break with Colonial-era burying grounds and church-affiliated graveyards. The appearance of this type of landscape coincides with the rising popularity of the term “cemetery,” derived from the Greek word for “a sleeping place,” instead of graveyard. The cemetery, shared by Cambridge and Watertown, has evolved greatly in its nearly 200 years but remains one of the most picturesque landscapes in the country.

*General view of Mount Auburn Cemetery with monuments, gravestones, and rolling topography.*

When strolling Mount Auburn Cemetery, some monuments and funerary art stand out more than others. Attentive visitors may notice numerous sculptures of dogs that seem to watch over their owner’s graves; a contrast to the fact that dogs, living or deceased, are not allowed onto the cemetery’s grounds. These types of sculpture are known as psychopomps whose primary function is to escort souls to the afterlife. Historically, dogs have symbolized guidance, protection, loyalty, and unconditional love, all important roles for a psychopomp.

Here, we will give a brief history of some of the dogs found in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Perkins Monument Dog

The Perkins Family Tomb, on Central Avenue at Mount Auburn Cemetery, is guarded by this marble dog. The monument commemorates Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854), “the Merchant Prince” of the China trade. In 1843 Perkins visited the Italian studio of Horatio Greenough (1805-1852), considered America’s first professional sculptor and one of the first to receive a national commission, and commissioned him to carve Perkins’s Newfoundland dog in Florentine marble. The dog seems to have been installed at the family tomb at Mount Auburn a year later. As a young man Thomas Perkins was a slave trader in Haiti, a maritime fur trader who transported furs from the American Northwest for trade in China, and then a major smuggler of Turkish opium into China. Perkins invested in textiles and granite quarries. Among his many philanthropic works, he gave his Boston residence to the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, which was renamed the Perkins School for the Blind in his honor. Today, however, we can contextualize the multiple layers of Perkins’s life story, including an examination of how he acquired his wealth. Perkins was originally interred at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Boston; he was removed to the family tomb at Mount Auburn in 1914.

Harnden English Mastiff

Further along Central Avenue, this English mastiff is sheltered from the elements by a Neoclassical monument. This marble watchdog remains in excellent condition, his gaze as vigilant as ever and the sharpness of his claws and loose skin folds still remarkably intact. William Frederick Harnden (1812-1845) was the founder of Harnden and Company, one of the first independent express shipping companies in the United States. Harnden died of consumption (tuberculosis) in January 1845 and was buried next to his 10-month-old daughter, Sarah, who had died three years prior. In 1866 the Express Companies of America erected this monument in Harnden’s memory, replacing his original, plainer marker. The corporation hired Boston sculptor Thomas A. Carew to carve the English mastiff as a symbol of fidelity and security on the journey into the afterlife.

Wingate Whippet

Located on Olive Path, this sculpture of a whippet is a small decorative element at the rear of the Wingate family plot. The dog lies in a crate-like enclosure, measuring 32″ wide x 16″ high x 18″ deep, which was originally made of glass and bronze and has since been replaced with plexiglass that has become somewhat opaque. The sculpture, which dates to 1866, includes a base inscribed “Their Favorite.” This diminutive whippet protects the graves of Abbott P. and William A. Wingate, Jr. (“Willie”), both of whom died in 1865 at ages 20 and 18, respectively (it is believed that they died in the Civil War). Sculptor Martin Milmore is best known for two prominent local memorials to the Civil War dead: the gigantic Sphinx (1873) facing the Bigelow Chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on Boston Common (1877).

Richardson Dog

On Oak Avenue at Mount Auburn, the Richardson Dog serves as a psychopomp to William Taylor Richardson, Jr. (1846-1864), an infantryman in the Massachusetts 33rd Regiment during the Civil War. It is unclear in which battle Richardson died, but over the course of the war his regiment lost 104 enlisted men killed and mortally wounded and 77 enlisted men by disease. Young Richardson was was only 18 years old when he was laid to rest at Mount Auburn Cemetery. His parents commissioned Alexander McDonald, who operated a monument works on Mt. Auburn Street, to carve the dog for his grave.

Francis Calley Gray English Setter

Tucked away on Hemlock Path, you will find this mournful English Setter resting atop a granite slab. The memorial marks the tomb of Francis Calley Gray (1790-1856), who served as private secretary to John Quincy Adams and later became a philanthropist, legislator, art collector, and one of the earliest proprietors of the Mount Auburn Cemetery. His vast collection of early engravings and prints made him America’s first great print collector. In 1837 Gray visited Rome, where he met Joseph Gott (1786-1860), a sculptor who specialized in life-like animal and human sculptures; Gray soon commissioned Gott to carve an English Setter in marble. The sculpture was originally intended for placement at Mount Auburn in an unknown location. However, in 1849 Gray gave the sculpture to his friend and fellow art collector William Appleton. Following Gray’s death in December 1856, Appleton had the dog placed on Gray’s grave at Mount Auburn. The setter appears to be in grief, with its head resting on its front leg and eyes open.

Mary Prentiss Saunders Dog

On Larch Avenue in Mount Auburn Cemetery, the smallest of all the funerary psychopomps can be found in the Saunders Family Plot. The dog serves as a guide to little Mary Prentiss Saunders (1843-1849), who died at just 6 years old. Mary was the daughter of William Saunders and Mary Prentiss; she was their first child, born two years after they married. As a wedding gift, William’s father, a housewright, built the couple a stunning Greek Revival house on Massachusetts Avenue. The house was later moved to Prentiss Street and is now known as the Mary Prentiss Inn.