Did you know that what we today call “swimming,” in the 19th century, was generally referred to as “bathing?” Hence, today we still use the terms “bathhouses,” (sometimes spelled as two separate words) and “bathing suits.” The early 1800s had already seen private bathhouses along the Cambridge shoreline – Harvard had one in 1810 and 1841 near Hawthorne and Bath streets, and in 1830 the Cambridge Humane Society had built one near today’s Anderson Bridge. This post, however, focuses on the history of 19th century municipal swimming places on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, beginning upstream at Gerry’s Landing and moving downstream to the floating bathhouse at River Street, and finally to Captains Island – now called Magazine Beach.
First, a little history.
The latter half of the 1800s saw a strong movement extolling the health benefits of bathing, especially for those without access to private swimming pools—or even a bathtub in their own home. This movement was one of the driving forces behind developing public bathing spots and “bathhouses” along the Charles.
By 1867 the Cambridge Alderman’s Committee on Health advocated for five free public bathing places. Decisions about the development of the beaches, including bathhouses, concessions, floats, and changes in location were entangled in complicated governmental structures created by the State legislature (creating the Metropolitan District Commission, and Parks Commission), and by Cambridge‘s own Aldermen and Parks Department. Even after the City of Cambridge conveyed responsibility for the entire Charles River Park system to the Metropolitan District Commission in 1921, there continued to be tussles and renegotiations.
Gerry’s Landing
Cambridge Historical Commission, Photo Morgue Collection
Gerry’s Landing, pronounced with the hard “g” sound and not to be confused with “Jerry’s (soft “g”) Pit” in North Cambridge, was located at the same bend near what is now the intersection of Memorial Drive, Mount Auburn Street, Alewife Brook Parkway, and Greenough Boulevard.
Before it became Gerry’s Landing, this bend in the river was called “Sir Richard’s Landing” after the leader of the first European settlers who settled in Watertown in 1603. It is also well known because of Harvard Professor Eben Norton Horsford’s (debunked) theory that Leif Erikson traveled up the Charles and landed there in the year 1000.
Gerry’s Landing was named after Elbridge Gerry (1744-1824), signer of the Declaration of Independence, Congressman, Governor of Massachusetts, co-author of the Bill of Rights, and Vice President under James Madison. These days, he is most well-known for his eponymous voter redistricting map in Massachusetts, whipped up in order to further his political interests. Called “gerrymandering” (erroneously with a soft g), political cartoonists made the plan to resemble a salamander, and as such it has passed down to us today.
Pinpointing who exactly was responsible for maintaining the Gerry’s Landing beach during the 19th century was complicated. The question arose in 1883 when the Cambridge Hospital was considering building the hospital on Mt. Auburn St., but wanted to assurance that that the landing was “secured for the city” so that their contagious disease patients, brought upriver on boats, could disembark without objection. Eventually, the Alderman agreed to take possession of the landing, and the hospital was built the following year.
In 1918, the city provided men and boys with a bathhouse; but it was not until 1920 that women were accommodated (sort of), with a portable iron voting booth for changing. This was rectified by 1934 when men and women each had seperate bathhouses, which the city provided until WWII.
The demise of the original Gerry’s Landing beach arrived in 1947 with the extension of Memorial Drive westward to the intersection the Alewife Brook Parkway and Mt. Auburn St. In anticipation of this, the MDC committed to creating a “new” Gerry’s Landing beach a couple of hundred yards further up the river in the vicinity of the Browne and Nichols boathouse. This move involved a certain amount of excavating and constructing of a beachfront. On July 4, 1930, The Cambridge Chronicle reported that “The new beach, which has been covered with tons of sand by the Metropolitan district commission, is already proving popular with the patrons of the old Gerry’s landing beach.” By 1941, a bathhouse had been built at the new site.
The new Gerry’s Landing swimming beach also met its demise (along with all other beaches on the Charles) in 1949 when the Metropolitan District Commission closed all beaches due to pollution.
The River Street Floating Bathhouse
This floating bathhouse actually began its life in 1888 at the foot of the Western Avenue bridge. Shortly after its installation, effluent from a nearby sewer was discovered. Consequently, the bathhouse was moved downstream to a mooring on the right-hand side of the River St. Bridge.
Floating bathhouses were popular in the 19th century. By 1897, Boston had about six of them on its various waterfronts, including one on the Charles River at Craigie’s Bridge, which Cantabrigians often used. These were generally wood frame enclosures with gaps that allowed the river to run through them while at the same time providing a sort of designated swimming pool area to secure bathers from the current. The bathhouses might be open to the sky or enclosed, providing deck space and even changing rooms. While to date we don’t have an illustration of the River Street bathhouse, it may have borne some resemblance to this bathhouse in New York City:
The overall dimensions of the River Street bathhouse were 70 feet long by 28 feet wide, with the swimming tank being about 35 by 18 feet. It featured a safety rope “so that small boys who cannot swim can enter the tank in perfect safety.”
The July 28, 1888 edition of The Cambridge Chronicle described it:
“On the left of the entrance is the keeper’s office while on the righthand of the house and in the rear are closets….It is boarded on all sides, although small openings allow the water to have a splendid circulation. The water is 4 feet deep and there is one pair of stairs that lead down into the water. The plans were drawn by City Engineer Barbour. In order to give flotation to the building and have enough water in the tank, eight oil casks with a capacity of 120 gallons have been used. There are also several ships’ spars on which the house floats…”
It cost only three cents for boys and men (judging from the newspapers, women and girls didn’t have use of the bathhouse) to pick up a clean towel and a key to one of the closets. After changing in the closet and locking it, the customer returned the key to the manager, who took his name and address and gave him the number to wear around his neck. At the end of the swim, the swimmer handed in the number and received the key to fetch his clothes, Generally, order was well maintained: “…though this is no easy thing to accomplish when the tank is as full of boys as it is possible to fill it, and the rest of the house is filled with others who are waiting their turn to get into the water. The utmost good nature generally prevails…the benefit this public bath is to the youth of the city cannot be estimated…There should be several more of them…” (The Cambridge Chronicle 14 June 1890)
Today we forget that the Charles was a tidal river as far up as the falls (now a dam) at Watertown. Tides, and the smelly mud flats they created, also played a significant role in how, when, and where to construct beaches and bathhouses. This quote the explains the situation: “There are times when the tide is not right when he is obliged to close the door [to the River St. bathhouse] to prevent the boys from bathing in a bath of mud.” (The Cambridge Chronicle, 14 June 1890)
Around the mid-1890s, The Cambridge Chronicle regularly ran a high tide chart to enable bathers to schedule their dip:
The floating bathhouse was a huge hit: “The River St. Bath house now going fully blast …Often on a hot summer morning when Mr. Clover arrives at the house, he finds a crowd of boys roosted upon the fences and railings of the bridge, some nearly stripped, ready to plunge into the tank as soon as the door is opened…A visit to this one public bath house in the city is interesting and very amusing. In the big tank will be seen boys of every size, nationality and color, reminding one in their evolution of a big pond full of eels.” (The Cambridge Chronicle, 14 June 1890)
After the season closed, the bathhouse was towed to its winter quarters at the rear of the Holmes & Rugg coal wharf, as seen below:
Sadly, the River St. bathhouse met its end when it was destroyed by fire in April 1899. Moves to build a replacement facility stalled with city government.
Captain’s Island, aka Magazine Beach
Magazine Beach, originally called “Captain’s Island,” was developed on a small island in Cambridgeport surrounded by marshes. It was named after Captain Daniel Patrick (1605 England-1643 Connecticut) who emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. He gained the title “Captain” after the Bay Colony enlisted him to build forts and monitor security. He was given a parcel of land in which included a hill surrounded by marsh, which for centuries was referred to as “Captain’s Island.”
After the Revolution, the property was owned by private families until, in 1817, it was sold to the Commonwealth for the purpose of building a defensive powder magazine (1818). Below is a photograph depicting the state of the powder house in 1890 after it was no longer in use.
Later, the powder house was successfully converted into a bathhouse.
During the late 19th century, as the need for more residential space in Cambridge increased, the surrounding marshes began to be filled. At the same time, citizens were lobbying for more public bathing places in addition to Gerry’s Landing and the River Street bathhouse. The city paid attention and in 1894 took the land by eminent domain. This effort was part of a larger project to renovate the Charles River waterfront all the way up to Gerry’s Landing.
In 1899, the city engaged the Olmsted Brothers to draw up plans for landscaping, a new bathing beach, and bathhouse for women.
The city then renovated the old powder magazine to outfit it as a bathhouse for men and boys. Before the women’s bathhouse was built, as at Gerry’s Landing, a couple of iron voting booths were installed at one end of the beach. The beach itself was improved with river gravel along 430 feet of waterfront.
The June 3, 1899 edition of The Cambridge Chronicle outlined the new bathhouse protocol: “Bathers must provide their own suits, but the lockers are free. The man in charge will supply towels, if desired, at a small cost. … Mr. Joseph James, who formerly had supervision of the old city bath house at the foot of River Street is in charge of the present one, and will be assisted by a young man in a bathing suit…who will be on duty all the time, giving his special attention to guarding bathers against the danger from the strong current at this point.”
A month and a half later, on July 17, 1899, it was recorded that 750 bathers used the venue that day. In July, the city also acquired a row boat “for use in case of any danger to life in the water.” The Cambridge Chronicle remarked “the beach (how strange it seems to talk about a Cambridge ‘beach’) is thronged with observers, men, women and children, who go there for an airing and to see the bathers.” In January 1900, the paper reported that during the 1899 season “…about 30,500 people used the bathing beach.”
In 1900, an extravagant proposal for a new bathhouse surfaced. It was designed by Architect George Moore but never built.
By 1901, there were four bathhouses at Captain’s Island including a women’s bathhouse. The men’s facility featured four-foot-high lockers “to allow the men to hang their trousers full length without creasing them.” The new bathhouse use rates were slightly more than they had been at the floating River St bathhouse: “…Bathing suits and towels may be obtained from the attendant in charge of each bath house. The following prices will prevail: Suit, towel and locker accommodation, 10¢; suit, towel and dressing room, 15¢; dressing room, with towel, without suit, 10¢. extra towels, each 3¢…” (The Cambridge Chronicle June 15, 1901)
Women’s bathing suits at the time would have looked something like those on these ladies at Long Beach California:
Pollution in the Charles had always closed beaches for days at a time. Much of the pollution arose from aging sewer systems that combined residential and industrial waste with storm water runoff. In 1949, pollution was so high it became a public health hazard and the MDC closed all beaches on the Charles permanently.
In response to beach closures, the Metropolitan District Commission agreed to build a free public swimming pool at Magazine Beach. Designed by the John M. Gray Co., it opened in 1951. It is now the Veterans Memorial Swimming Pool and is still open and free to the public today.
The old Magazine Beach Powder House bathhouse was renovated in 2021 by the firms of Johnson Roberts Associates, Inc. and Clark and Green Architecture, who received a preservation award from the Cambridge Historical Commission.
Today, Magazine Beach includes a promenade, boat launch, and swimming pool. (The shoreline is currently under restoration.)
The Clean Water Act of 1972 and the establishment of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority in 1985 went a long way to clean up the river. First organized in 2013, the Charles River Conservancy Swimming Initiative now holds “City Splash,” an annual event that allows people to take a dip in the Charles in a circumscribed area by the Fiedler Dock on the Boston Esplanade.
Today’s post was written by Kathleen M. Fox
Sources
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