We have recently processed a collection donated last year by William B. King and his daughter, Rachel King. 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. If you would like to research this or any other collections, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.
The William B. King Collection contains textual records collected by William B. King related to his contributions to local Cambridge organizations, including Harvard Law School, Cambridge Civic Association, Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, and the Cambridge Historical Commission. It also holds external reports, newsletters, maps, and ads from other local institutions as well as the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The collection consists of approximately 100 folders of written records ranging from official typed forms, handwritten notes, draft documents, and printed publications.
King at Memorial Hall, 2000, CHC photo
A bit of background on Mr. King: he was born in Boston in 1932; he married the Cambridge native Sheila Malone in 1955, and the couple would go on to participate in civic and social activities in Cambridge. For more information on Sheila M. King, see her obituary here. They had three children, Stephen in 1960, Rachel in 1963, and Christopher in 1965.
After graduating from Harvard College in 1954, King received his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1959. After passing the bar that same year, he became an associate and in 1968 partner at Goodwin, Procter & Hoar, a position he held through 1999.
Harvard University 1954 Class Album
More pertinent to this collection, King served in many positions with the Cambridge Civic Association (CCA), including advisor, director, vice president, and finally president between 1965 and 1966. The CCA was a merger among the Committee for Plan E, the Cambridge Citizens Committee, and the Cambridge Taxpayers Association in 1945. Joining the organization in the 1960s, King participated in the “Save Magazine Beach” petition to defend a recreation and playground area from a planned highway extension along Memorial Drive.
In 1970 King became a trustee of the Buckingham School, an independent school in Cambridge that was coed through 6th grade and all-girls through 12th grade. He was actively involved in its 1974 merger with the Browne & Nichols School, an all-boys independent school (grades 7 through 12).
King at the Boys & Girls Club, 2015, holding the just-published oral history collection, We Are the Port, recollections of Area 4/The Port.
In 1973 King was appointed the lawyer member of the Cambridge Historical Commission and in 1986 became its chair. During his time at the Commission, he advocated for and helped develop operating procedures under Cambridge’s two precedent-setting, home-rule ordinances relating to Demolition Delay and the designation of Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCD) and Local Landmarks. He sat on the city’s first NCD study committee that eventually led to the establishment of the Mid-Cambridge NCD and served on study committees establishing and/or revising the Avon Hill, Half Crown-Marsh, and Harvard Square Conservation Districts. In 2017, King retired from his Commission position.
The William B. King Collection is divided into six series comprising correspondence, drafts, legal and financial statements, memos, personal notes, newsletters, maps, reports, articles, and a recipe. The series are as follows: Series I: Harvard Law School; Series II: Cambridge Civic Association; Series III: Buckingham Browne & Nichols School; Series IV: Cambridge Historical Commission; Series V: External correspondence, publications, materials; Series VI: Personal.
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
Side entrance of 11 Fayerweather Street facing the road. A dog is on the pathway and three children sit on the front stairs. 5 Fayerweather is visible beyond. At the time of this image, ca. 1900, the houses were numbered 5 Fayerweather and 3 Fayerweather.
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.
As the year draws to a close, it is nice to reflect on personal and professional accomplishments. The staff at the CHC has been working hard to make its archival collections more easily accessible for you this year. From home, we have been uploading our finding aids to ArchivesSpace to make your searching, finding, researching, and learning easier. You can search our ArchivesSpace here to find out what we hold in our collections. To give you an idea of what is available, here are short blurbs from all ten of the collections recently updated and newly available (listed from most recent uploads to oldest).
Currently, the Historical Commission is offering limited research assistance. Please see our main webpage for the most up-to-date information. If you would like to research any of our collections, please email us at chcarchives@cambridgema.gov.
A collection of 49 glass plate negatives related to the Gooch family, the former residents of 11 Fayerweather Street in Cambridge. The family lived there from the 1850s to 1900, when the family moved to 35 Adams Avenue in Watertown. The Gooch family also owned a summer residence in Marblehead on Marblehead Neck. All three locations are shown in the collection, which you can see on our Flickr page.
Black and white drawing of 11 Magazine St, ca. 1847, and matchbook covers advertising the Watson Funeral Home. Watson Funeral Home Collection
A collection of photographs, certificates, blueprints, clippings, and ephemera related to the Watson Funeral Home, a 20th century Cambridge business. The funeral parlor was at 11 Magazine Street, a Greek Revival house near Central Square.
A collection of maps, correspondence, development studies, town reports, and traffic studies for the City of Cambridge with the bulk of the materials dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. Researchers interested in viewing the Alan McClennen Collection will be engaged by topics on community development in the city during the mid-twentieth century. McClennen served as the Planning Director for the City of Cambridge. During this period, he was also clerk of the Urban Renewal Coordinating Committee, a member of the Traffic Board, clerk of the School Building Advisory Committee, member of the Council on Aging, and secretary of the Cambridge Historical Commission. He assisted the Cambridge Housing Authority with site selections for elderly housing projects.
Alfred West, clock business ledger page, 1916. West Family Collection
A collection spanning 1885 to 1926 that includes a ledger from the family’s clock business; blueprints and contracts for work done on the two West properties at 115 Pearl Street and 6 Cottage Street; school material for Alfred, George, and Gertrude West; and a photograph album. Alfred West emigrated from Bristol, England, in the early 1900s and settled in Cambridge. His five children maintained the two Cambridge properties, the former as a rental unit and the latter as their home, until 1987. Of particular interest are the essays composed by George, which describe the experiences of a schoolboy in the early 1900s.
A collection of papers from Alfred B. Wolfe’s tenure as chair of the Cambridge Historic Districts Study Committee (1961-1962) and chair of the Cambridge Historical Commission (1962-1973). The records kept by Wolfe on the work of the Cambridge Historical Commission are the primary focus of this collection.
The papers within this collection represent several decades of Sheila Cook’s activism and civic involvement in Cambridge, composed primarily of her personal and organizational correspondence, as well as relevant newspaper clippings and government documents. Materials span the years 1830 to 2012 but focus primarily on the years between 1990 and 2002. The records offer an important glimpse into the development and preservation of historic and ecological aspects of the greater Cambridge area.
Exeter Academy hockey team, ca. 1915. George “Tubber” White Collection
This collection may be enjoyed by those of you with an interest in Cambridge’s sports history. It includes hockey, football, and baseball team photographs featuring Tubber White during his time at Rindge Technical School and Exeter Academy from 1912 to the 1920s. It also has eleven photo postcards featuring members of the North Cambridge semiprofessional baseball team. (White became a dentist.)
In this collection you can find nine record books detailing militia records for the City of Cambridge for the years 1846 to 1886. Each book contains lists of names and marginal notes recording those enrolled in the Cambridge Militia.
This collection consists of an assortment of books from the Cambridge Office of the City Engineer that cover a period from about 1860 to 1908. Contents include plot drawings, measurements, transcribed land deeds and abstracts, field notes, newspaper clippings, mathematical calculations, and copied legal documents.
This collection is composed of five boxes and two flat files containing Edwin F. Bowker’s professional correspondence as a civil engineer and surveyor in Cambridge. Included are surveyor’s notes and records, draft sketches, manual calculations, notes on markers, drawings, plans, transcripts regarding property boundaries from deeds, and correspondence from mid-1886 through 1919.
Other collections uploaded this year:
Here is a quick list of the other finding aids uploaded to our ArchivesSpace this year.
Image of ephemera from Squirrel Brand Company Collection
Explore other collections and digital materials here.
What is ArchivesSpace? How is this different than viewing finding aids in the regular PDF format? Check out a previous blog post for answers to these questions.
Let us know what you think of this finding aid format!
Recently, the CHC formed a partnership with the Cambridge Public Library (CPL) in an effort to make our collections more digitally accessible. With the help of CPL Archivist Alyssa Pacy, we have begun to encode finding aids from our repository and upload them into an ArchivesSpace account that the CPL is kindly sharing with us.
Some of our readers may be wondering why this project is beneficial, or you may be unsure about what encoding a finding aid means. Let’s start at the beginning:
After a collection is donated to us, we perform a number of steps to ready the materials for research and use. Among these are physical processing as well as arrangement and description. The final product of this process is an organized collection with an accompanying finding aid, a document that describes the records and their significance.
At the CHC, we create print and PDF copies of our finding aids to be used in our office and to make available on our website.
PDF finding aid for the Xonnabel Clark Collection
Whereas these versions are text-searchable, encoding a finding aid renders the text machine-readable and gives meaning to each section described. This is achieved by encoding the finding aid in XML (Extensible Markup Language). This process is akin to writing HTML to create a website.
A snippet of the XML document encoded for the Xonnabel Clark Collection using Oxygen XML Editor software.
After our finding aids are encoded, we upload the XML document to a platform that can convert this information to display nicely for human eyes while still retaining the machine-readable “meaning” behind the words. In our case, we are using ArchivesSpace.
The Xonnabel Clark Collection finding aid – available on ArchivesSpace
One example of this capability is in the subjects section. In paper or PDF finding aids, these items are simply words that convey the multiple subjects that may exist within a collection. Employed digitally, these subjects link collections with the same subject by just clicking your mouse.
So, we hope you are as excited about our ArchivesSpace partnership with CPL as we are! We hope to continue to encode both new and existing finding aids to make all of our resources from the CHC more accessible. In the meantime, follow the links below to view our ArchivesSpace page or browse one of our available finding aids: the Cambridge Manual Training School/ Rindge Manual Training School/ Rindge Technical School Collection. We would love to hear your feedback!
