Imagine this: The year is 1850, and you are standing at the current intersection of Somerville and Massachusetts avenues at Porter Square, looking toward West Cambridge (now Arlington). To your left are acres of cattle and sheep pens. There is a cacophony of bellows, snorts, and grunts along with mooing and bleating. At the weekly Wednesday Cambridge Cattle Market, you can inspect up to 2,500 cattle and sheep for sale. Think of the sounds. Think of the manure!
In the early 1800s, cattle drovers en route to Boston from Maine, New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts would stop near Union Square (now called Porter Square) in Cambridge to water themselves at the Davenport Tavern and their cattle at feed lots across the street. In 1833 Sylvester Edson of Vermont bought the pens, erected a slaughterhouse, and built a hotel adjacent to the cattle market. In 1837 the hotel was purchased by Zachariah B. Porter (1797-1864, also a Vermont native), who already had a successful hotel across the Charles at the Brighton Cattle Yards. Of course, he renamed the hotel the Porter House, from which we derive the name “Porter Square” and, as some attest, the “Porterhouse steak.”
The cattle market, hotel, and associated businesses soon created the need for a local bank. In the early 1850s, George Meacham and others established the Cattle Market Bank. Meacham was a real estate investor, North Cambridge landowner, and prominent cattle broker. He became a director and subsequently president of the bank.
Some cattle were driven over roads from New Hampshire or Vermont in droves of 100 to 200 at a time. In 1903 Charles O. Stickney recalled:
“…as many as 4000 head on the road between Exeter, N. H. and Cambridge. It was no uncommon sight to see from 100 to 200 cattle in a drove, and the road packed with droves half a mile or more. Years ago full one-half of the drovers who went to Brighton and Cambridge were Maine men. New Hampshire also had a large number of drovers…”
Cambridge Tribune March 7, 1903
Most of the cattle transported to Cambridge arrived in railcars over the Fitchburg and Vermont Central Railroads and were off-loaded at what became known as Porter’s Station:
In September of 1849, after it had been in business for just five weeks, the Cambridge Chronicle described Porter’s operation, noting in particular the number of cattle cars that pulled up at the station: a total of 168!
Two months later, the paper wrote admiringly of a remarkable 3,700 lb. ox for sale:
Some cattle arrived at the Medford station via the Northern, Nashua, and Lowell railroads. Cattle drovers then herded them the two miles to the Cambridge Cattle Market.
The one-year anniversary of the Market was big news. On October 23, 1850, the Boston Evening Transcript reported that there were “no less than three thousand five hundred head of cattle, and eight thousand sheep, while at the dinner table sat six hundred market-men.” The anniversary dinner was free—on the house at Porter’s Hotel. In just one year, the cattle market had grown from eight acres to fourteen and from 50 cattle pens to 188.
Of course, maintaining sanitary conditions and eliminating disease amongst the cattle was crucial. The notice below outlined the rules and regulations the cattle market. (Note that “no Cattle shall be killed after 6 o’clock in the afternoon.”)
“Milt’” refers to the cattle’s spleen.
THE DEMISE OF THE MARKET
Cambridge’s population was growing and with it the need for more housing. Around 1870 the value of real estate in North Cambridge started to increase rapidly. Rising property values and the need for a more streamlined transportation route to the Boston market, not to mention the odiferous and noisy nuisance of the stockyard and its rowdy drovers, pushed the Cambridge market’s move to the newly constructed “Union Cattle Market” in Watertown near the Arsenal. The wood of the sheds and pen railings at Cambridge were sold for firewood and Porter and George Meacham’s land divided into housing lots.
The Cambridge City Directory of 1872 still included the cattle market on its fold-out map:
THE HOTEL
Following Edson, the hotel’s original owner, the hotel changed hands and names several times (Cattle Market Hotel and Cattle Fair Hotel) before Zachariah B. Porter renamed it the Porter House Hotel, or Porter’s Hotel.
Like the Davenport Tavern before it, Porter’s Hotel was remembered fondly by drovers, cattle brokers, and other passers-by. Again, the recollections of Charles O. Stickney:
Zachariah Porter’s well-known hospitality and delicious menu attracted more customers than just cattle men. His dance hall was frequently used for soirees and his large dining hall for celebratory occasions. Harvard students and prosperous Cantabrigians began dining at the hotel. Many of them were coming for a singular specialty.
THE PORTERHOUSE STEAK
It is generally believed that the name “Porterhouse Steak” derived from Porter’s establishment, though occasionally others served up alternative stories. In 1923 a daughter of Amos Pike, who had managed the hotel, and who had herself known the cook, Mary Harvey, gave an interview in which she attempted to end the debate. However, the anonymous author of this article was unconvinced.
THE DEMISE OF THE HOTEL
After Zachariah Porter’s departure, the hotel had several owners: Amos Pike, Francis Locke, Davis Locke, and Edgar I. D. Houck, who took it over in 1894, and his widow, Cora Houck. After the turn of the century, the business began a downhill slide. The combination of license irregularities and the increasing value of the real estate led to its ultimate demise.
Houck’s case went to trial, but he was proven not guilty.
In 1907, Brooks & Conley moved the hotel to the rear of the property and erected a row of stores directly on North (Massachusetts) Avenue. The hotel finally met its end in 1909.
Today, all that is left of the thriving old cattle market is the Cattle Pass under Walden Street Bridge. Built in 1857 as a pathway for cattle from the freight cars to the stockyards, it was renovated in 2007-2008.
Union Square was renamed Porter Square in 1899. The champions of the market, Zachariah B. Porter and George A. Meacham, are both buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery
Today’s post was written by CHC volunteer Kathleen Fox.
SOURCES
Porter Square Neighbor’s Association
Cambridge Historical Commission
Genealogy Bank
Newspapers.com
Cambridge Public Library digitized newspaper collection
