Fall 2007 The Newetowne Chronicle/ 1 The Newetowne Chronicle A publication of the Cambridge Historical Society IN THIS ISSUE P E O P L E A N D P L A C E S Fall 2007 Mapping Cambridge: Volume VII—Number 3 _________________________ From Wigwams to Aerials P E O P L E A N D P L A C E S By Michael Kenney Mapping Cambridge cover story A recognizably mapped Cambridge first appears in the early 1630s. About where you would expect to find the future Harvard Square, there is a largish meetinghouse with F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T A Major Achievement some small houses grouped around it. And most notably there are, not too far off, page 2 several groups of conical structures, labeled “Indians.” F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R But that map, however sketchy and suggestive, was the first step in the process of The Oldest House... mapping Cambridge that continues to the present day, now with the technological aid page 3 of aerial photographs and global positioning systems. R E C E N T P R O G R A M S Cambridge Cameos, Cambridge Discovery Days, The Sparks House with the Reverend Peter Gomes page 4 Hunt for History: A Tory Row Quest page 5 F R O M T H E L I B R A R Y & A R C H I V E Mark Time page 9 C A L E N D A R O F E V E N T S page 10 __________________ Managing Editor–Karen L. Davis Detail of the Dana Hill area from J. G. Chase’s 1865 map. Contributing Editor–Michael Kenney Copy Editor–Luise Erdmann The full map is on the city’s GIS site. Photography and layout–Lewis Bushnell __________________ For Cantabrigians interested in their city’s history, a number of historical maps can THE CAMBRIDGE now be accessed on the website of the city’s Geographic Information System (GIS) HISTORICAL SOCIETY with the Cambridge City Viewer (see page 7). Other online resources for historic The Hooper-Lee-Nichols House 159 Brattle Street maps of Cambridge include the Boston Public Library (http://maps.bpl.org) and the Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 Harvard Map Collection (http://hcl.harvard.edu). Tel: 617/547-4252 Of prime interest on the GIS site is the 1865 map created by the civil engineer J. G. Web site: www.cambridgehistory.org E-mail: [email protected] Chase. It shows the city before extensive land-making filled the marshes in East Cambridge and Cambridgeport and when much of North Cambridge was still farmland. (continued on page 6) Fall 2007 The Newetowne Chronicle/ 2 OFFICERS F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T Theodore L. Hansen A number of individuals are responsible President A Major Achievement Kathleen Born for this book. First and foremost, Daphne Vice President The Society will be celebrating the publi- Abeel deserves our gratitude for the atten- Chandra Harrington tion she gave to this major project over the Vice President cation of A City’s Life and Times: Cam- bridge in the Twentieth Century ($20) with past four years. Karen Davis and Lewis Maxwell D. Solet Bushnell contributed many hours beyond Vice President a party on November 7 at the Harvard Andrew Leighton Bookstore. The 400-page book—illustrated their usual duties to the production process. Treasurer with maps, photographs, and drawings—is And many thanks are due the writers who Thomas Bracken graciously contributed their articles. Secretary our first especially commissioned volume. Lindsay Leard Coolidge I think you will want to add this important Curator contribution to the documentation of Cam- Finally, the Society extends its sincere ap- Michael Kenney bridge history to your library. preciation to Cambridge Savings Bank, Editor whose financial support has made this ef- fort possible. COUNCILORS Charlie Allen Darleen Bonislawski See page 10 for details on the publication Robert G. Crocker party. Do plan to attend and be among the Heli Meltsner first to purchase a copy. Paula Paris Mary Webb Ted Hansen ADVISORS Daphne Abeel M. Wyllis Bibbins Carol Cerf Luise M. Erdmann Karen F. Falb George H. Hanford Since its founding in 1905, the Society has Swanee Hunt published lectures on Cambridge history in D. Eliot Klein A Request from the President Dennis C. Marnon its Proceedings as well as a number of Ellen G. Moot booklets on Cambridge topics. But this Each year in late fall the Society calls on Larry Nathanson, M.D. book goes well beyond the scope of previ- its members and friends to produce the in- Brian Pfeiffer ous efforts in its wide range of 20th- come needed to avoid dipping into our Susan S. Poverman Charles M. Sullivan century topics. It is a significant contribu- modest endowment. I ask that when you tion to the Society’s mission of preserving receive the annual appeal letter, you will STAFF and presenting Cambridge history. consider making a generous contribution. Karen L. Davis Executive Director Lewis Bushnell Editor Daphne Abeel assembled eighteen Our 2007 Spring Benefit was a financial Associate Director writers, most of whom live in Cambridge, success and membership revenues are sta- Sally Purrington Hild to offer their perspectives on the city as it ble, but we need to raise $50,000 to match Program Director evolved in the past century. Here are some the Community Preservation Grant we re- Mark J. Vassar chapter titles to give you a sense of the ceived to renew the electrical system at the Resident Archivist Shane LeGault book’s scope: “Immigrant Jewish Cam- Hooper-Lee-Nichols House. Resident Fellow bridge,” “Town and Gown in the Twenti- Victoria Hickey eth Century,” “Coolidge Hill in the Past Thank you for your past donations to the Assistant Century,” and “Looking Backward: Club Cambridge Historical Society. They have The Newetowne Chronicle is 47 and the 1960s Folk Revival.” Other sub- permitted the Society to be the success it is published three times annually jects include architecture, politics, and lit- in collecting, preserving, and presenting by the Cambridge Historical erature. An article by Charles Sullivan, ex- Cambridge history. Society. ecutive director of the Cambridge Histori- cal Commission, “An Overview: Cam- bridge in the Twentieth Century,” provides the historical context for the book. Fall 2007 The Newetowne Chronicle/ 3 F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R tics of what are now called First Period houses. The Oldest House… In 1980, Anne Grady and Sally Zimmerman studied the HLN House under Cummings’s su- pervision and revised its date to ca. 1685. The Fairbanks House in Dedham and the Balch Since then dating First Period houses has be- House in Beverly have each claimed to be the come a subspecialty of historic preservation. oldest house in Massachusetts. The Cooper- Frost-Austin (CFA) House and the Society’s A new technique called dendrochronology–– Hooper-Lee-Nichols (HLN) House have vied the DNA of physical evidence––has made it for the title of oldest in Cambridge. possible to date First Period houses precisely. Wood samples of the oldest timbers in the A 1930 marker at Linnaean Street and Massa- house are compared to a master chronology of chusetts Avenue claims that the CFA House the tree-ring pattern for a given species of tree was built in 1657 and is the city’s oldest. At from the same region. This was recently done about the same time, a plaque on the fence of at the CFA House to establish the date of its the HLN House announced that the “Nichols initial construction as 1681. Dendrochronology House” was built ca. 1660. Subsequently, the also settled the question of Fairbanks (1641) date of the HLN House was revised to ca. 1685 vs. Balch (1677). and that of the CFA House revised to ca. 1690. Recently, the CFA House was redated to 1681. There are about twenty “dendro-dated” 17th- What’s with the date creep? century houses in the Boston area. Perhaps the most famous one is the House of Seven Gables in Salem (1668), which was restored to its First Period appearance by Joseph Everett Chandler in 1909. He also restored the CFA House and added the library to the HLN House. Now called the Chandler Room, it is a Colonial Re- vival interpretation of a First Period room. Both the HLN House and the CFA House be- gan as “half houses,” growing over the centu- ries to their present sizes. Chandler restored the CFA House to highlight its First Period details, The Cooper-Frost-Austin House, 21 Linnaean Street but the HLN House is maintained as an exam- ple of the Georgian style, which it became Local historians relying on documentary re- when it was remodeled in the 1730s, hiding its search usually established the inaccurate early then unfashionable First Period features. dates. The 1660 date of the HLN House, for example, was probably based on deeds traced What really matters, of course, is not which back to Robert Holmes. Even when deeds house is “the oldest” but that these precious mention a house, they do not specify where on antiques exist at all. This is largely because farm-sized lots the house was located, nor do most First Period houses are owned by preser- they record the replacement of one house by vation organizations or historical societies de- another. Accurate dating of 17th-century voted to ensuring their survival and keeping houses must include an analysis of physical them open to the public.