Cambridge Mass - The Cambridge Historical Commission Blog

St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church – Cambridge’s Newest Landmark

Posted on February 27, 2021March 2, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

View of St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church, 1964.

On February 22, the Cambridge City Council unanimously voted to designate St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church a Cambridge Landmark. This designation recognizes only a select number of individual properties that are important to the City as a whole, protecting them so that their unique qualities are maintained for the benefit of all the residents of Cambridge.

Located at 137 Allston Street in Cambridgeport, St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church is owned by the Trustees of The St. Augustine’s Mission. The church is also the home of Black History in Action for Cambridgeport (BHAC), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting programs focused on sharing Black culture, arts, history, and education with the general public. BHAC’s mission is to sustain and revitalize St. Augustine’s as a neighborhood center for assembly, empowerment, and outreach.

View of St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church with recently completed new roof.

The property was originally part of the estate of Mrs. Washington Allston [Martha Remington Dana Allston] as drawn on a survey by William A. Mason and W. S. Barbour dated May 1, 1862 and filed in the Middlesex County (South District) Registry of Deeds, Plan Book 33, Plan 5. The rector of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Central Square, Rev. Edward M. Gushee, acquired the property in 1886 to construct a mission of St. Peter’s. Rev. Gushee died in 1917 and bequeathed the property to his son Richard, an Episcopal minister in California. A new priest was appointed by the Diocese of Massachusetts, but the congregation dwindled over the next few years and could not sustain the church financially even though Rev. Richard Gushee continued to own the property. In 1927 Rev. Gushee sold the property to Central Square furniture dealer Morris Bobrick, who may have intended to use the property for storage but who defaulted on his mortgage. The property was bought at auction by Nettie E. Fernandez who in turn sold it to individuals associated with the African Orthodox denomination in 1931. The St. Augustine’s property continues to be owned by the trustees of The St. Augustine’s Mission.

Allston Street was named for Washington Allston (1779-1843), an artist who pioneered America’s Romantic movement of landscape painting. He married Martha Remington Dana, the daughter of Chief Justice Francis Dana, who owned most of the property in this area. Allston Street is a through street parallel to Putnam Avenue and intersecting with the main thoroughfares in the neighborhood, including Magazine, Pearl, and Brookline streets. The neighborhood is characterized by dominant north-south streets, uniform intervals between the cross streets, and sustained setbacks. Only on four streets – Green, Franklin, Allston, and Putnam – can one traverse the entire area in an east-west direction. Early building locations appear to have been determined by land elevation or proximity to Central Square. In 1830 there were only three cross streets; in 1854 there were six; and by 1873 the current street layout was virtually complete. South of Allston Street is a slightly elevated and once heavily wooded area known in the 19^th century as Pine Grove. In 1838 Edmund Trowbridge Hastings (1789-1861) and other Dana heirs laid out the Pine Grove subdivision with 131 house lots on Allston, Chestnut, Henry, Waverly, Sidney, Brookline and Pearl Streets. The original plan included a residential square around Fort Washington and another on Brookline Street that became today’s Hasting’s Square. Although some lots were sold, the area was too isolated to attract development even after the Cottage Farm (B.U.) Bridge was completed in 1851. Martha Allston’s land on the north side of Allston Street (including the site of St. Augustine’s Church) was subdivided in 1862 but remained substantially undeveloped until the 1880s, when the neighborhood began to fill up with one- and two-family houses. Construction of the Morse School in 1890 spurred development, and by 1910 the neighborhood was complete. It remains essentially unchanged today, although the school was demolished in 1957 and the site became a park.

From the founding of Cambridge in 1630 to the construction of the West Boston (now Longfellow) Bridge in 1793, only three families lived east of Quincy Street on “the Neck,” a marshy, wooded peninsula formed by the Charles and Millers rivers. The opening of the bridge spurred development. By this time two Cambridge men owned most of the land in Cambridgeport: William Jarvis controlled properties north of Massachusetts Avenue and Justice Francis Dana to the south. (Much of the rest – and all of East Cambridge – fell to Andrew Craigie.)

Jarvis was the U.S. Inspector of Revenue. Dana, who descended from an old Cambridge family and resided on a large estate on Dana Hill, served as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1791 to 1806. The two men worked with the Proprietors of the West Boston Bridge to lay out Massachusetts Avenue and Main Street but did not otherwise develop a master plan for the area. Justice Dana developed his holdings slowly and carefully. In 1798 Jarvis was convicted of misappropriation of customs duties; the federal government seized his properties and sold them off to multiple owners.

Justice Dana died in 1811, and his heirs continued to develop Cambridgeport in the same careful pattern. What is now Allston Street was a part of Justice Dana’s estate left to his daughter, Martha Remington Dana Allston (Mrs. Washington Allston).

St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Church was built in 1886-87 as St. Philip’s, a mission of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Central Square. The remote site was chosen to attract parishioners from the surrounding neighborhood who found it difficult to get to church in Central Square. It was the first house of worship to open in the former Pine Grove neighborhood and attracted so many worshipers that it needed to be enlarged two years later.

St. Philip’s was designed by the New Bedford architect Robert Slack, who oversaw both the original construction and the 1888 expansion and worked with the local builders Kelley & McKinnon. Talented and prolific, Slack did not specialize in one style; he designed private homes, churches, and institutions, including a new wing at Harvard’s Peabody Museum.

The church is reminiscent of an English village chapel but is distinctly American in its wood construction and simple expression. The exterior was shingled and stained dark red with trimmings of dark blue. The 50-foot-tall tower was surmounted by a gilded cross and enclosed a bell made at the Meneely foundry in Troy, New York. The main entrance was through a foyer on the right front. The interior featured an open-timbered auditorium with rows of cane chairs with hassocks for the congregation, double-hung windows with colored lights, and five decorative chancel windows high above the altar. The 1888 expansion involved cutting off the chancel end and moving it back 31 feet and building a section between with a transept on the south side, making the inserted section 31 feet by 34 feet. This increased the overall length from 60 to 90 feet and doubled the seating capacity to about 400. The basement was finished for use as Sunday School and guild rooms.

Image of church after expansion. Note the original side entrance. *Cambridge Chronicle*, Sept. 15, 1888.

St. Philip’s was a personal project of Rev. Edward M. Gushee, who served at St. Peter’s Episcopal in Central Square until Easter 1888, when he became rector of St. Philip’s. A wealthy, generous man, Rev. Gushee owned the building, presided at services, and was the parish’s sole financial benefactor. Gushee died in 1917, leaving a small allowance to the parish but bequeathing the building to his son Richard, an Episcopal minister in California who apparently had no wish to return to Cambridge. The diocese supplied the parish with a priest for a few years, but the congregation dwindled and could no longer support either a rector or the building. In 1927 Richard put the building up for sale, advertising it as suitable for “storage, church or remodeled for dwelling” (Cambridge Chronicle, August 26, 1927).

In August 1928 Richard Gushee sold the property to Morris Bobrick, a furniture dealer in Central Square who may have used it for storage. Two years later Bobrick sold it to the trustees of a new church, identified in the newspapers as the African Orthodox Society. In 1932 the Cambridge assessors gave the trustees as George Alexander McGuire, Rev. Gladstone St. Clair Nurse, and Elvira Headley.

Bishop George A. McGuire (1866-1934) established the African Orthodox Church in 1921. McGuire was born, raised, and educated on Antigua; he came to the U.S. in 1894 and two years later was ordained an Episcopal priest. He served in numerous parishes and was praised for both his preaching and his organizational skills. In 1910 he attended Boston University’s medical school, but in 1913 he went back to Antigua to nurse his mother.

In 1918 McGuire returned to the U.S. and began to move in a new direction. He campaigned for equal rights for Black Americans and severed his ties with the Episcopal Church to protest its systemic racism and discrimination against Black clergy. McGuire became an associate of Marcus Garvey and worked with Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA); Garvey in turn endorsed McGuire’s idea that true equality and spiritual freedom could only be achieved by an all-Black religious denomination – a church attended by people of color and administered by Black clergy. The bishop broke with Garvey in 1924, probably over the latter’s increasingly radical ideas on racial nationalism.

In the fall of 1921, St. Luke’s African Orthodox Church opened at 252 Green Street (now the site of the Green Street Garage). In 1931 the denomination took possession of the dilapidated St. Philip’s and renamed it St. Augustine’s African Orthodox Pro-Cathedral, with Bishop McGuire at its head. (A pro-cathedral is a church named by a bishop to serve as his seat but which remains under the governance of the vestry.) When Bishop McGuire died in 1934 the African Orthodox Church could claim approximately 30,000 members in thirty congregations in the United States, the West Indies, South America, and Africa.

General Sources

Cambridge Chronicle, June 6, 1887; September15, 1888; January 17, 1930.

Cambridge Sentinel, January 13, 1940.

Cambridge Tribune, June 18, 1887; January 28, 1888.

Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge, Cambridgeport. Cambridge Historical Commission, 1971.

Harvard Square Library, https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/cambridge-harvard/washington-allston/

Black History in Action For Cambridgeport, https://www.bhacambridge.org/history

Wikipedia entries for Rev. George A. Maguire and the African Orthodox Church

Black History Month: George D. Callender

Posted on February 26, 2021March 1, 2021 by Meta Partenheimer

Have you ever wondered where Callender Street in Cambridgeport got its name? The original street was approved in 1838 as part of Putnam Place, laid out between 29 Hews Street and 152 Putnam Avenue. In 1874, it was part of Hewes (Hews) Street and extended to 47 Howard Street. For reasons unknown, the street was renamed Grigg Street in 1877 and retained this designation for over seventy years.

Clipping from the *Cambridge Chronicle*, 8 March 1945

On October 18, 1949, the City Council ordered that the name of Grigg Street be changed to Callender Street in honor of Private First Class George Duncan Callender, a young man killed in action during World War II.

View down Callender Street east of Dodge Street, ca. 1950 (Cambridge Planning Board)

George was born in Cambridge on February 3, 1923. His mother, Gladys Odessa Pyle (1902-1966), was born in Saint Michael Parish, Barbados; his father, Eleazer T. Callender, died in 1925 when George was just an infant. Gladys, who went by Odessa, then married Marcus Elder Sr. (1904-1982) on June 3, 1926. Elder was a painter and immigrant from Castries, Saint Lucia. George graduated from Webster School in 1938 and from Rindge Technical School in 1942. In 1941 Callender, nicknamed “Lefty,” became a founding member of the Aggie Associates, or the “Aggies”, an all-Black basketball team based in Cambridge.

Clipping from the *Cambridge Chronicle*, 5 March 1942

George Callender (also spelled “Callendar” in some sources) enlisted on April 22, 1943 and was later assigned to Unit 366th Infantry Regiment, Company M.

U.S., World War II Draft Card for George Duncan Callender

At the time of his enlistment, George was living at 49 Grigg Street and working at Wards Baking Company at 140 Albany Street.

Advertisement for Wards Baking Company, published in the *Cambridge Sentinel*, 8 September 1928

After his enlistment, he trained at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and at Camp Atterbury, Indiana.

Enlisted Men’s Barracks, Fort Devens, Mass., ca. 1930-1945. Retrieved from https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/cj82kc208

Initial reports stated incorrectly that George died in combat on February 9, 1945, in Tuscany, Italy; later, it was determined that the fight had taken place in Germany. George was laid to rest in Cambridge Cemetery. In 1946 the Aggie Associates were renamed the George D. Callender Associates in memory of him. The house at 49 Grigg, a triple-decker built in 1913 by George B. Blacknell, was later purchased by the Cambridge Housing Authority and demolished in 1953 to make way for the Putnam Gardens housing community. Today, a marker honoring George D. Callender stands at the corner of Putnam Avenue and Callender Street in Cambridgeport.

George D. Callender Square marker, 2021 (CHC staff)

A “Sucker” Whig in Cambridge, 1848

Posted on February 15, 2021February 15, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

On the night of September 20, 1848, “a capital specimen of a ‘Sucker’ Whig, six feet at least in his stockings,” gave a speech in Cambridge City Hall in favor of the Whig candidates for president and vice president, General Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore (Boston Atlas). “Sucker” seems to have been a general term at the time for a Midwesterner, although its origin is unclear. ¹

This Sucker Whig was the Representative from Illinois, the Honorable Abraham Lincoln. He had attended the state Whig Convention in Worcester on the 13^th and delivered campaign speeches in Worcester, Lowell, Dorchester, and Chelsea. On the morning of the 20^th, he spoke in Dedham.

After having run a successful race for the train departing Dedham, Lincoln returned to the Boston and Providence Railroad depot near Boston Common, arriving in the early evening. He walked across the city to the station of the Fitchburg Railroad on Causeway Street [now North Station] to catch another train. This one took him in a westerly direction, across the Charles River to Cambridge. ²

The Fitchburg Railroad crossed Miller’s Creek (north of East Cambridge), then ran through Somerville to North Cambridge (and beyond). Lincoln would have alighted at one of three stations: two in Somerville, Prospect Street or Somerville (also called Park Street) stations in Somerville and one in Cambridge, Porter Station in North Cambridge (in the same location as today’s). From there, he would have walked.

A lively crowd of local Whigs (and a few reporters) awaited Mr. Lincoln at City Hall, then a simple wood building at the corner of Norfolk and Harvard streets completed 1832 (now site of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church).

Detail from 1854 map of Cambridge. The CEMETERY at the top middle is the Cambridgeport Burying Ground, now the site of Sennott Park. The cemetery is bounded to the north by Broadway, east by Essex Street, west by Norfolk Street, and south by Harvard Street. The townhouse is at the northwest corner of Harvard and Norfolk streets.

A committee of prominent citizens studied the matter of a townhouse carefully and in March 1831 recommended that it should be erected in Cambridgeport, “as more central to the populations of the town than the present house [in Harvard Square].”

The house is to be of wood, forty-six feet in front or breadth, and seventy-six feet long, with posts twenty feet and four inches high, and the roof one fourth of its base in height; on each end of the building, in addition to the aforesaid length, will be a portico, of six feet in width, consisting of six fluted Doric columns, with an entablature and pediment. ³

The town hired Asher Benjamin, a skilled housewright-turned-architect, to design the building in the Greek Revival style then considered suitable for houses of government. (Benjamin published a series of pattern books for ordinary builders. Each included a primer on architectural history and style elements, as well as complete house plans and measured drawings of circular staircases, mantlepieces, fences, and the like.) The town house cost $4,351.19, including furniture and fencing, the first town meeting was held there in March 1832. It burned down on 29 December 1853.

Local newspapers did not print the text of Lincoln’s Cambridge speech on September 20^th, nor have letters or diaries written by those in attendance been found, but a reporter for the Boston Atlas, a Whig newspaper, wrote about the rally enthusiastically.

A sudden shower had descended just before the meeting began, but it did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the Whigs present. It was one of those old-fashioned Whig gatherings, which it does a true Whig good to witness. … when the Old Cambridge [Zachary] Taylor Club entered the hall with a splendid band of music, and were received with cheer upon cheer, until the rafters shook and the roof rang, it seemed as if the building could not possibly contain the numbers who thronged to enter it. [The speech was] plain, direct, convincing … a model speech for the campaign. ⁴

Since there was no late train from Cambridge, Mr. Lincoln had to return to his rooms in Boston’s Tremont House by carriage or on foot.

Lincoln made one or two more speeches locally and left for Illinois on September 23, 1848.

Taylor and Fillmore won the election.

Tremont House, Tremont Street, Boston. Undated image.

¹ Sucker Whig: A commenter on an etymology blog noted that people from Illinois used to be called suckers in some neighboring states, perhaps, as another writer speculated, because Illinois men used to travel up the Mississippi River each spring to work and return home in the fall—Missourians called them “suckers” after a common fish that migrated in the same fashion. The Whigs took their name from those Revolutionary American Whigs who had opposed tyranny; this party, formed ca. 1834 in opposition to the authoritarian policies of Andrew Jackson and his Democrats, supported Congressional over presidential power and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism. In 1854, most Northern Whigs joined the newly formed Republican Party.

² Abraham Lincoln Among the Yankees: Abraham Lincoln’s 1848 Visit to Massachusetts by William F. Hanna (Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton, Mass. 1983)

³ The History of Cambridge, Massachusetts by Lucius R. Paige 1877

⁴ Hanna

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

National Pharmacist Day: The Orne Brothers of Cambridge

Posted on January 12, 2021January 25, 2021 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

“The father of the drug business in Cambridge”

Cambridge Chronicle, 27 July 1907

The Orne pharmacy was established in 1838 by Charles G. Wells. When Charles A. Orne (1823-1850) took over the business around 1840 he renamed it “Charles Orne & Co.” His brother Joel Stone Orne joined him and succeeded Charles in 1842. Joel’s obituary states that at that time Cambridge had 8,000 residents served by only two drugstores.

The pharmacy was at 395 Main Street in Lafayette Square (now no. 427) near the intersection of Main Street and Massachusetts Avenue. The Ornes operated the store for 65 years, from 1841 to 1906.

The brothers lost no time in advertising in the Cambridge Chronicle:

Clippings from Cambridge Chronicle, Volume I, Number 5, 4 June 1846

Sherman’s Worm Lozenges, Smithsonian National Museum of American History. ID number MG.293320.1370.

Bottle for Dr. Kennedy’s Medical Discovery, manufactured in Roxbury, Mass. From vtmedicines.com

Bottle for Bogle’s Hyperion Fluid, manufactured in Boston. From hairraisingstories.com

The Ornes were a prominent family whose ancestors arrived in Marblehead, Massachusetts, around 1630. Their father John Gerry Orne (1786-1838) was the great grandnephew of the fifth Vice President of the United States, Elbridge Gerry. J.G. Orne was married to Ann Stone. Her father, Moses Stone, arrived from England in 1735 and owned a large portion of the land that is now part of Mount Auburn Cemetery. Their sister, Caroline (1818-1905), was a well-known poet who hobnobbed with Longfellow and James Russell Lowell. She was the librarian of the Dana Library at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Pleasant Street and became the first librarian of the Cambridge Public Library. The Orne house on Auburn Street had been in the family since 1816 and served as a barracks during the Revolution.

Not much information is available about Charles A. Orne apart from the fact that he died in Panama on March 23, 1850, while returning home from California. He was 27 years old.

Joel S. Orne began in the pharmacy business at the age of 13 when he apprenticed to the druggist Isaac Snow of Boston and was only 16 when he joined his brother’s company.

Joel married Rachel Atwood Brown in 1852, and they had three children. Charles Parker Orne (1853-1912) became a “manufacturing chemist” and druggist at 837 Main Street (now Massachusetts Avenue), at the corner of Trowbridge Street. Daughter Maria became the first licensed pharmacist in the city, practicing alongside her father. Daughter Jennie married Charles Smith Brooks, a boot and shoe salesman.

Joel S. Orne was active in the Cambridge Veteran Firemen’s Association, a member of various Druggists’ Associations, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Amicable lodge of Masons. He died in 1906.

After his death the business was bought by John Minon:

Clipping from *Cambridge Chronicle* 8 September 1906

Clipping from *Cambridge Chronicle*, 20 October 1906

In 1907 the pharmacy was described as having “…a marble floor, walnut fixtures, a neat and attractive soda fountain, and the generally well-ordered appearance of an up-to-date and prosperous place” (Cambridge Chronicle 27 July 1907).

It is unclear what happened to the Orne/Minon Pharmacy after 1912. By 1916, there is no pharmacy listed at 427 Mass. Ave. By 1920, Minon is listed in the Boston Directory as a druggist.

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

Sources:

Cambridge Public Library Newspaper database
Ancestry.com
FamilyHistory.com
Newspapers.com

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.

Historic Buildings: Lionel Hall and Mower Hall at Harvard

Posted on April 17, 2020April 17, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

It is hard to name an architecture style more identifiable with Harvard than the Georgian style. The oldest extant buildings in Harvard Yard include Massachusetts Hall (1720), the Wadsworth House (1726) and Holden Chapel (1744), just some of a larger group of Georgian buildings constructed before the American Revolution. The Georgian style is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, George III, and George IV—who reigned in continuous succession from 1714 to 1830. It is in this time that Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, created its now iconic architectural identity. By the 19th century, other buildings in various styles were designed in the Yard, from University Hall (1815) in the Federal style, to Matthews Hall (1872) a Victorian Gothic dormitory, to Sever Hall (1880) one of the greatest examples of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in the world; Harvard would later return to the Colonial-era Georgian style. Two great and lesser-known examples are Lionel Hall and Mower Hall.

1930 Bromley map showing recently completed Lionel and Mower Halls enclosing the two small quadrangles.

Current aerial of Lionel (yellow) and Mower (blue) Halls, facing west. Holden Chapel at center.

Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard University President (1909-1933) is responsible for the wide-scale revival of the Georgian style at Harvard through his massive building programs for the Harvard River Houses, dormitories in the Yard, and the new President’s House. Two of the smallest being Lionel Hall and Mower Hall.

Screen Shot 2020-04-15 at 4.27.04 PM — Circa 1925 image of Mower (left) and Lionel (right) Halls during construction from Peabody Street. Courtesy of Harvard Property Information Resource Center.

Screen Shot 2020-04-15 at 1.21.57 PM — Plans of Lionel Hall (identical to Mower Hall) published in Architectural Forum, Dec. 1925.

Lionel and Mower Halls were built in 1925 in the Georgian Revival style and sited to frame the Holden Chapel and enclose the western edge of the Yard. Appropriately nicknamed “The Holden Twins”, the two dormitory buildings were designed by the firm of Coolidge, Shepley, Bulfinch, and Abbott, who went on to design many later buildings for Harvard, including the River Houses (both the Georgian style and later Modern Houses). Both Lionel and Mower Halls were funded by a building campaign by President Lowell to expand the university and house additional students. They are constructed of red brick with stone trim. Both buildings are near-identical and rise 2 1/2 stories into a gambrel roof. Symmetrical facades and stone entries with fluted pilasters capped with Corinthian capitals over rusticated stone complete the Georgian Revival motif.

46838104 — Lionel Hall quadrangle facade. Photo by Ralph Lieberman (2012).

46838107 — Lionel Hall entry detail. Photo by Ralph Lieberman (2012).

Lionel Hall is named after Lionel de Jersey Harvard (class of 1915), an English descendent of John Harvard who was killed in World War I in France. Lionel was the first known relative of John Harvard to attend his namesake’s University. He descended from Thomas Harvard (1609–1637), brother of Harvard University founder John Harvard (1607–1638), who had died childless. Lionel Harvard in 1918 served as Commander of Number One Company, in the British Army and died from mortar fire in March of 1918, during the German Spring Offensive, leaving behind a widow and infant son.

LioneldeJerseyHarvard_InUniformStanding — Undated photo of Lionel de Jersey Harvard, Creative Commons.

Mower Hall is named in honor of Thomas G. Mower, by a gift valued over $18,000 from Miss Sarah E. Mower as a memorial to her late father. Thomas Gardner Mower (1790-1853) graduated from Harvard College in 1810 and immediately began to study medicine, later enlisting in the army as a surgeon in the War of 1812. After the war, Mower settled in New York and became a head Surgeon and examiner for the US Army until his death.

While these two modest dormitories do not stand out for their size nor architectural grandeur among the iconic buildings in Harvard Yard, they together showcase how proper design, massing and siting can truly enhance the character of an area without diminishing the significance of nearby buildings.

The Ashton Valve Company

Posted on April 7, 2020May 13, 2020 by cambridgehistoricalcommission

Today’s post was written by guest author Rick Ashton and tells the story of the Ashton Valve Company, formerly located at 161 First Street, East Cambridge.

The sound of a steam train whistle in the distance can stir your imagination. The Ashton Valve Company offered locomotive whistles in sizes up to 48″ tall. The beautiful brass gauges in the cab of a locomotive and the safety valves on the engine also could have been manufactured by Ashton Valve. For over 100 years the company was one of the leading manufacturers of railroad-related items.

ashton_lock_valve_patent_1872-1024x1522 — Courtesy Rick Ashton, https://newsm.org/manufacturers/ashton-valve-co/

One Ashton item was an innovation that saved lives. How? If the engine’s boiler happened to build up too much pressure, the Ashton “Pop” Safety Valve would activate or “pop” and let the excess steam blow off, preventing a possible boiler explosion. We have Henry G. Ashton to thank for that life-saving invention.

Henry G. Ashton was born in Norfolk, England in 1846 (Editor’s note: Henry G. Ashton is the great-great-grandfather of this post’s guest author, Rick Ashton). He attended public schools and took courses in mechanical engineering. In 1869 he arrived in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife Emma and infant son, Albert. He was first employed by the Hinkley Locomotive Works. In 1871 he invented his Lock-up “Pop” Safety Valve. It was the first effective safety valve to actually work and was an immediate success. He formed the Ashton’s Lock Safety Valve Company (Ashton Valve Company) and set up shop on Pearl Street in Boston with three other employees. In 1872 the company secured a contract with the United States Navy for safety valves, a contract they held for 76 years.

Ashton_Valves_Adverts_001-300 — Henry G. Ashton. Courtesy Rick Ashton.

The Great Boston Fire of 1872 destroyed the Pearl Street building, but the company persevered and by 1879 they relocated to 271 Franklin Street, a building they would occupy for 27 years. The building was four stories tall and business was so strong that in 1900 a fifth floor was added to keep up with the demand. In 1892 they purchased the Boston Steam Gauge company and began manufacturing steam gauges, a perfect compliment to the various steam related valves they were producing. The gauges were manufactured with the same assurance of quality as the valves were.

ashton_valvegauge_ad

After 24 years of managing the company, Henry Ashton, the company founder, died in 1895. His son Albert, who had attended engineering classes at MIT, took over many of the management responsibilities and ran the company for the next 27 years.

Ashton Valve outgrew the Franklin Street building and in 1907 they built a new facility at 161 First Street in East Cambridge. The building was 45,000 square feet and was built at a cost of $67,000. That’s $1,797,000 in 2018 dollars. A completely modern building, it had electricity on all floors and modern bathroom facilities. The building still stands today with the Ashton Valve name carved in granite over the front entrance.

Sentinel19201225-01.2.84-a6-700w — Credit: Cambridge Sentinel, 1921.

1-161First-StreetEXT.

Screenshot 2020-04-06 at 3.38.01 PM — 161 First Street today. Credit: Google Maps.

By 1907 the company had sales offices all over the world. Ashton products were internationally known for their quality. As their advertisements stated, “higher in first cost but cheapest in the end.” The 1920’s and 1930’s were the peak years and the company employed up to 300 people. Their profits often were in the millions (in today’s dollars).

Ashton’s Railroad Division had been the backbone of the company since its inception in 1871 and was run as a separate entity until the 1950’s. They produced separate catalogs for the valves, whistles, and gauges used on trains. Some of the Ashton products produced for the train industry included: locomotive mufflers and open pop safety valves, steam gauges including the Ashton-Lane-Bourdon locomotive gauge, double spring steam locomotive gauges, duplex steam and heat gauges, air brake gauges, protected dial pressure gauges, air brake recording gauges, wheel press recording gauges, locomotive steam whistles and whistle valves.

49033923077_be405083f1_o — Ashton Valve pressure gauge, ca. 1923-1924. CHC Objects Collection. Photographed by John Dalterio.

With the advent of diesel locomotives, electricity, and gas engines, sales started to drop off in the late 1940’s. The peak years were over. In 1948 Ashton merged with the Crosby Valve and Gauge Company, but kept the Ashton name alive until sometime in the early 2000’s. Today one is liable to see the Ashton Valve name on gauges sold on eBay to collectors, and they demand a high price.

The next time you hear a train whistle in the distance, think of the Ashton Valve company – it could be an Ashton whistle!

Sources and Related Reading:

The Ashton Valve Company

https://steampunk-explorer.com/articles/family-history-steam

https://cambridgehistory.org/industry/ashtonvalve.html

https://www.steamlocomotive.com/appliances/safetyvalve.php

Lewis Family Collection

Posted on March 11, 2020December 1, 2020 by Brittany F.

The Commission has recently finished processing a small image collection titled the Lewis Family Collection. This collection chronicles a portion of the longstanding and prolific Lewis family of Cambridge, Mass. and it is part of a much larger set of subject records available concerning the Lewis family. Other records include the Lewis family and Lewisville segments of African American files in CHC people files. However, these other textual files mainly pertain to the family’s 19^th century contributions and its efforts in various African American movements, including the Cambridge Liberian Emigrant Association. We highly recommend you visit us to see these incredibly rich records!

The Lewis Family Collection is unique because it is solely visual documentation and it covers a period of about 20 years (1900-1920) that is not often represented in historical accounts of the Lewis family. It also is a product of a larger effort conducted by the CHC primarily in 1980-1982 called the Cambridge Photo History Project. The Project was intended to bring together photographs of Cambridge taken before 1945. For this collection, the donor brought in five scrapbooks, which were photographed page-by-page and then returned to her. The CHC retained the surrogates and transformed them into negatives and copy prints so that the content of the scrapbook would be available to you.

“Dad.” George W. Lewis Jr. ca. 1900-1920s

Within the collection are three generations of the Lewis family, immediate relatives, and close friends. The first generation shown is Nancy and George Washington Lewis (Jr.) George Washington Lewis (Jr.) was born in Cambridge in 1848 and he worked as a steward for the Harvard Porcellian Club for over 45 years and he replaced his father’s position in 1876.

Nancy Lewis as young woman — “Ma.” Nancy E. Lewis, ca. 1900-1920s

On October 11, 1872 George married Nancy E. Poole who was born ca. 1852 in Columbia, South Carolina. They had five children, Elizabeth E. Lewis, Jerome Theodore Lewis, Walter E. Lewis, George Colman Lewis, and Ethel A. Lewis. By 1897 the family purchased 47 Parker Street and were noted for hosting amateur theatrical productions and housing black Harvard undergraduates.

A.M. from Harvard, 1917 — “A.M. Harvard. 1917”

Julia Harris, Dave Houston, Bob Morris, Ida Morris, and Tony Har — “[top left] Julia Harris, [Gordon David] Dave Houston, [top right] Bob Morris, [bottom left] Ida Morris, [bottom right] Tony Harris”, ca. 1900-1920s

These images exemplify some of the African American youth that would congregate at the Parker Street residence. Gordon David (Dave) Houston is the resident of “Houston’s Den” mentioned in this collection. He was born in Cambridge on May 6, 1880 and attended the Cambridge High and Latin School. In 1900 he graduated from the high school, the same year as Anthony Harris– it is possible that they knew each other through sports. In 1904 he graduated from Harvard College cum laude and pursued an academic career as an English professor. He led English departments at Tuskegee Institute, Howard University, Dunbar High school, and Douglas High School. On August 20, 1907 he married Dora Mayo Lawrence and they had two daughters, Dorothy Maude and Ethel Augusta.

Anthony (Tony) Harris went to Sunday School at Christ Church in 1900– likely connecting him to Ethel Lewis. That same year he graduated from the Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys (CMTS) after attending and graduating from the Washington grammar school in 1895. During his time at CMTS, Anthony– or more popularly addressed as Tony– was known for his skills at football. He later coached football at CMTS until ca. 1906. The 1908 City Directory cites Anthony as a waiter boarding at 73 Howard Street.

The others in this image have speculative biographical histories available in the collection’s finding aid.

Vic Blackwell, Nora Wingfield, Elizabeth E. Lewis, Leila Stubbs, — “(left) Vic Blackwell, Nora Wingfield, Bessie Lewis, Leila Stubbs, (right) Maurice”, 1910

Along with hosting social gatherings for friends, Nancy and George had five children. The image on the left shows “Bessie” Lewis with her probable bridesmaids in 1910, the year she married Maurice Jefferson Brooks, who is in the right-side image. Bessie’s given name was Elizabeth Estelle Lewis but she went by various nicknames including Bessie, Birdie, Bess, and Aunt Lizzie. She was born in November 1880. After her family moved to Cambridge, she worked as a bookkeeper. She married Maurice (1879-1913), a porter from Washington D.C. living in Boston, on October 20, 1910. They had one son, Jerome Theodore Lewis, named after Elizabeth’s brother. When Maurice died in 1913, she moved back in with her parents.

Emille Bass and Ethel Lewis — “E.A. Lewis”

George and Nancy’s other daughter was Ethel A. Lewis who was born in October 1878. According to articles in the Cambridge Chronicle, she attended Sunday School at Christ Church and partook in the Girls’ Friendly Society in Cambridge– two organizations that connect her to other individuals in this collection. In the 1900 Census she is cited as working as a stenographer. She has been cited as graduating from Bryant & Stratton Commercial College ca. 1903 and by 1905 as working as a teacher for Simmons College, although no records of confirmation have been found. Nonetheless, a book was published by the Colored Citizens of Greater Boston and the Garrison Centenary Committee of the Suffrage League of Boston and Vicinity due to her efforts as stenographer. The book, The Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of William Lloyd Garrison was published in 1906 and it is available free as an online Google Book! Ethel moved to Baltimore, Maryland in 1906 to become a schoolteacher. She boarded at various residents including 1409 McCulloh St in 1920 and 1935 Druid Hill Ave in 1930 while being employed as a teacher and stenographer.

George Colman Lewis at 4 Wellington Ave — “G.C. Lewis”, ca. 1900-1920s

One of their sons, George Colman Lewis, was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1875. By the 1890s he was a member of the Cambridge Social Union Debating Club and in 1892 he graduated from the Manual Training School. He also partook in the Riverside Cycle Club, an exclusively black club in Cambridge. At various points throughout his life George C. worked as a railroad worker but he attempted a career change ca. 1900 when he embarked on becoming a tailor at 29 Boylston Street. He soon returned to the railroad industry and became a porter. He died on August 19, 1906 at the Mt. Auburn Hospital of heart disease when he was 31 years old. He is here depicted at 4 Wellington Ave (now Somerville).

Nancy, George W. Lewis, family relations, and friends at home — “Ma Lewis, Pa Lewis, Nellie Sorrell, Anthony Harris, Benzina Reese, Henry Robbins, Ethel Lewis, Jerome Lewis”, ca. 1900-1920s

The Lewis’s eldest son, Jerome Theodore Lewis, was born on November 21, 1872. When the family moved to Cambridge, he worked as a laborer for Ford Motors at 400 Brookline Street. He also married Margaret A. Lewis. Another son, Walter E. Lewis was born in November 1876 and died August 23, 1880. Little is known about him.

Benzina Reese was Nancy Lewis’s niece. Born in October 1873 in South Carolina, Benzina came to Cambridge by 1900. The 1900 Census lists her as working as an office girl. In 1902 she married Frederick Sandford Gray– making her also the Mrs. Gray of this collection. At some point they moved to 10 Chestnut Street in Plymouth, MA, where Frederick worked as a chef. They had three children: Herman F., Helen E. and Leslie R. Gray. Herman is also present in this collection as a baby.

Washington Elm, Pa Lewis, and other photos — “(upper left) Pa Lewis, (upper middle) Kate, Sue [Harris], (bottom middle) Washington Elm, (bottom right): Andrew”, ca. 1900-1920s

There are so many others present in this collection we could only give a quick taste of what you can come see. We’ve also digitized a sampling of images for our Flickr page. Check them out here

To learn more about what is available in the Lewis Family Collection, our newly edited finding aid will be available here soon!

Torn Down Tuesday: Prospect Skating Rink

Posted on December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by Meta Partenheimer

According to the “Brief Notes” section of the Cambridge Chronicle from March 22, 1884, “Roller skating rinks are booming in Cambridge.” The June 14th edition declared “Everybody goes to the skating rink now.” At this time, a new skating rink was under construction at 30-50 Prospect Street in Cambridgeport.

At the time of the Prospect St rink construction, roller skating rinks were already under heavy use at Union Hall around the corner on Mass Ave and in Harvard Square, and a petition to erect another rink on Green Street was making its way through the city government.

Worcester skating rink, Worcester, Mass., undated. The bottom of the image reads “225 x 100 feet, floor 175 x 73 feet.”. Historic New England.

The economy of Cambridgeport was highly-industrialized, and included ventures in soap-making, musical instrument manufacturing, and confectioneries, among others. A steady influx of immigrant labor allowed these businesses to expand exponentially along with the population, which grew by nearly 10,000 each decade in the mid-nineteenth century. Residents new and old sought recreation to fill idle moments between work and daily obligations.

Roller skating guide (1884) Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut Libraries

The United States, and East Coast cities in particular, saw a surge in roller skating popularity after Medfield, Mass native James Plimpton patented an improved version of the roller stake that allowed for more steering control.

Pair of Roller Skates (with leather straps and metal buckles). Sarah Moore Field Collection, Historic New England

To meet this increased demand for skating venues, rinks were constructed at a furious rate during the late 19th century. Construction of rinks in Cambridge allowed residents the convenience of leisure and recreation in their own city rather than making the trek into Boston.

Wood engraving after a sketch by Miss Georgie Davis titled “District of Columbia – glimpses of life at the national capital – a fashionable roller-skating rink” (1880)

The Prospect Skating Academy, as it was known, held a grand opening in May 1884. The ceremony and ensuring party included music by the Cambridge Orchestral Society and “an exhibition of fancy skating.” These events were held frequently, and often included an evening of full entertainment. Costume parties,

Advertisement in the *Cambridge Chronicle* (3 October 1885)

Despite the rink’s popularity, the building was razed just ten years after it was built, replaced by a row of three-story retail stores in 1895.

A fire destroyed most of this newer building in 1948, and as a result, the complex was converted to the one-story line of retail stores that stands today. Current businesses include Improv Boston, Jimmy’s Shoe Repair, and The Boston Tattoo Company.