Proceedings Volume 43 – 1973–1975 [PDF]

The Proceedings of the Cambridge Historical Society, Volume 43, 1973-1975 Officers 5 PAPERS Around The Top of the Hill: Houses and Neighbors BY CHARLES W. ELLIOT 2ND 7 maps facing pages 16 and 17 Brattle Street: A Résumé of American Residential Architecture, 1673-1973 BY BAINBRIDGE BUNTING 33 illustrations following page 32 Louis Agassiz and the Founding of the Museum of Comparative Zoology BY BRYAN PATTERSON 53 The Historical Development of Cambridge Common BY PAUL J. LEWIS 67 Cambridge 1774-1779 - Inspiration for 1974-1979 BY ALBERT B. WOLFE 83 maps following page 96 The Story of the Window Shop BY ALICE DE N. COPE 97 The First Church in Cambridge, Congregational: Some Events in Its Life BY JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN 111 The Medical Botany of the New England Area: 1782-1842 BY G. EDMUND GIFFORD JR., M.D. 127 Fort Washington, 1775-1975, and Other Cambridge Fortifications BY DOUGLAS ADAMS AND CHARLES SULLIVAN with an introduction by CHARLES W. ELIOT 2ND 141 maps facing pages 144 and 145 Historic Books and Resource Materials on Cambridge History BY JOSEPH W. CHAMBERLAIN AND CHARLES W. ELIOT 2ND 147 Lois Lilley Howe, F.A.I.A., 1864-1964 BY ELIZABETH W. REINHARDT 153 illustrations following page 160 Contents of the Proceedings Volumes 1-43, 1905-1975 173 List of Members: 1973, 1974, 1975 197 Annual Reports of the Treasurer 206 The Cambridge Historical Society LIST OF OFFICERS FOR 1973-1975 1973 President Mr. Charles W. Eliot, 2nd Vice-Presidents Mr. Dwight H. Andrews Miss Eleanor R. Appel Mr. Harley P.Holden Secretary Mrs. Max Hall Treasurer Mr.JohnW.Cobb Curator Miss Elizabeth Droppers Editor Mr. Foster M. Palmer Mrs. Sidney Gleason, pro tem 1974 President Mr. Charles W. Eliot, 2nd Vice-Presidents Mr. Dwight H. Andrews Mr. Norman Pettit Mrs. T. North Whitehead Secretary Mrs. Max Hall Mrs. T. North Whitehead, pro tem Treasurer Mr. Joseph W. Chamberlain Curator Mr. Harley P. Holden Editor Mr. Foster M. Palmer Mrs. Sidney Gleason, pro tem 5 1975 President Mr. Charles W. Eliot, 2nd Vice-Presidents Mr. Dwight H. Andrews Mr. Norman Pettit Mrs. T. North Whitehead Secretary Mr. Russell H. Peck Treasurer Mr. Joseph W. Chamberlain Curator Mr.HarleyP.Holden Editor Mr. Foster M. Palmer Mrs. Sidney Gleason, pro tem MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL 1973 Mrs. Levin H. Campbell Mr. Norman Pettit Mr. Robert B. Rettig Mrs. Alden S. Foss Mrs. T. North Whitehead Mrs. Casimir deRham, Jr. 1974 Mr. John T. Blackwell Mr. Robert B. Rettig Mrs. Levin H. Campbell Mr. Chauncey Depew Steele, Jr. Mrs. Casimir deRham,Jr. Mrs. Amos N. Wilder 1975 Mr. John T. Blackwell Mrs. Levin H. Campbell Mrs. Casimir deRham, Jr. Mr. James C. Hopkins Mr. John S. King Mrs. Amos N. Wilder 6 Around the Top of the Hill: Houses and Neighbors BY CHARLES W. ELIOT, 2ND HIS past autumn the house in which my three brothers, three sisters and I grew up—and T in which Mrs. Eliot and I are now living—became one hundred years old. That prompted some research for a kind of "biography" of the house at 25 Reservoir Street and was a good excuse for a family reunion to celebrate the hundredth anniversary. Our reunion produced reminiscences and anecdotes not only about the house, but also about our neighbors and the neighborhood. Over the years there have been numerous papers before this Society on other Cambridge neighborhoods—notably on Shady Hill and the Norton Estate (three papers), on Sparks Street (two papers), as well as on Quincy Street, Berkeley Street, Coolidge Hill, North 1 Cambridge, and other areas. Like those areas, the Read February 4,1973 1. "Francis Avenue and the Norton Estate," by Charles F. Whiting (vol. 41); "Shady Hill and Its Owners," by Charles W. Eliot (vol. 17); "Where the Old Professors Lived," by Esther Lanman Cushman (vol. 42); "The History of Coolidge Hill," by Rosamond Coolidge (vol. 32); "Quincy Street in the Fifties," by Lillian Horsford Farlow (vol. 18); "The Evolution of Cambridge Heights," by Laura Dudley Saunderson (vol. 38); "Gerry's Landing and Its Neighborhood," by Mary Isabella Gozzaldi (vol. 13); "The History of Garden Street," by Lois Lilley Howe (vol. 33); "A History of Berkeley Street," by Alice C. Allyn (vol. 21); "Old North Cambridge," by Thomas O'Malley (vol. 20); and "Sparks Street," by several authors (vol. 22), and "From Lover's Lane to Sparks Street," by Penelope Barker Noyes (vol. 41). 7 neighborhood "around the top of the hill" has a story of houses and their occupants which may interest you. THE FAYERWEATHER ESTATE I started my research with a review of our Society's Proceedings, where I found the record of the early landholdings around the top of the hill in William Payson's "Notes on Some Tory Row Land Titles" (vol. 37, p. 12) with data on the Fayerweather Estate. It appears that in 1764 the Fayerweather Estate, around and north of the mansion at 175 Brattle Street, consisted of a 60-acre strip, varying in width from 600 to 900 feet and stretching from Brattle Street over the "top of the hill" some 2,500 feet to Vassall Lane. All but five acres of the estate immediately around the Fayerweather house were sold in 1847 to William G. Stearns, who proceeded to lay out Fayerweather and Reservoir Streets with lots along them. THE CITY RESERVOIR Just when Reservoir Street was actually opened or got its name is uncertain, for it was six or seven years after the Stearns subdivision before the reservoir was constructed. For that fact I am again beholden to the Society's Proceedings: Mr. John F. Davis's paper on "The Life Story of Cambridge Water" (vol. 41). There I learned that in 1855 the Cambridge Aqueduct Company constructed the original reservoir on one of the highest points in Cambridge with a 12-inch pipeline from Fresh Pond. Mr. Davis also records that "in 1865-1868 it was rebuilt and a second reservoir constructed alongside." Both reservoirs were surrounded by an embankment 9/2 feet high above the highest point on Reservoir Street. When the Cambridge Water Works was augmented by the Hobbs Brook Reservoir in Waltham and Lincoln, and when the Payson Park Reservoir was constructed in Belmont in 1897-1898, that higher reservoir superseded the reservoir on Reservoir Street, which was then drained. 8 That year my parents had rented the house at 51 Highland Street directly east of the reservoir, and my brother Sam remembers the reservoir and its round tower at the west end of the dividing walkway. He recalls that "the family was just moving into 51, when little Ros and I explored it—empty but deep. Racing back along the walkway, she behind me suddenly collapsed and tumbled rolling down into the dry pit. I dashed into the turmoiled house shouting 'Rosamond's fallen into the register!' " Sam goes on: "Reservoir was a new word for me, I'd misremembered. Eventually a stout nurse climbed down the steep slope and brought the baby up. I think she was not yet 3, I (Sam) was 5/2 but, of course, remember it vividly." That same tower at the end of the walkway—or rather its demolition—is also my first memory. In 1902, when we heard that the tower was to be dynamited, arrangements were made for Sain to be let out of school early so he could watch it, and baby Charles was taken for a walk in his go-cart, so he wouldn't be frightened. But the timing was off in some way and it was I who saw the tower tumble. So that was the end of the reservoir, but you can still see the huge blocks of stone which held up the north end of the larger basin along Reservoir Street and behind the lots on Blakeslee Street. FIRST FIVE HOUSES Now let's get back to the houses which were built in the Stearns subdivision of the Fayerweather Estate. From what I have been able to learn, the first houses in this subdivision were one at what is now 11 Fayerweather (1850) on a lot extending to Brattle Street, and a second house, also on the west side of the street but at the "top of the hill," where Mr. B. G. Smith built a large house and barn before 1854 (shown on the city map of that date). I recall the Smith house as a yellow-brown, 2/2-story, rambling structure stretching back to the barn, with porches across the front and south sides. Sixty-five years ago it was occupied by "Miss Smith—the White Ghost," who was said to be the sole sur- 9 vivor of an epidemic which had wiped out all the rest of her family. My sister Frances recalls the fascination for us, as children, in waiting for a peek at Miss Smith when she reached out of the side door to pick up the food which "Jimmy" (her "hired hand") prepared for her in his quarters in the barn. The only other times we saw her were at night when she flitted about in the pear orchard—always dressed in white, so that we called her the White Ghost. That pear orchard, by the way, was a great temptation until we were scared off by Jimmy firing a shot-gun from the barn window. The Smith house was torn down to make way for Lincoln Lane and the Wyzanski and Birkhoff houses in 1939-1940. The third house around the top of the hill has, unfortunately, also disappeared. It was at the southeast corner of Reservoir and Highland (then High) Streets—in "Gothic revival" style of unusual quality.

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