Cambridge is a city in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England. Cambridge is most famous for two prominent universities, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 101,355. It is the fifth most populous city in the state.
History
The site for what would become Cambridge was chosen in December 1630, and the first houses were built in the spring of 1631. The settlement was initially referred to as'the newe towne'. >http://books.google.com/booksid=QGolOAyd9RMC-pg=PA316-lpg=PA305-dq=newetowne-source=bl-ots=bWCYe4Smmz-sig=SqBiih-2JOSzUBFnLaYU72oUmBI-hl=en-sa=X-oi=book_result-resnum=6-ct=result#PPA305,M1...
Cambridge is a city in the Greater Boston area of Massachusetts, United States. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England. Cambridge is most famous for two prominent universities, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 101,355. It is the fifth most populous city in the state.
History
The site for what would become Cambridge was chosen in December 1630, and the first houses were built in the spring of 1631. The settlement was initially referred to as'the newe towne'. >http://books.google.com/booksid=QGolOAyd9RMC-pg=PA316-lpg=PA305-dq=newetowne-source=bl-ots=bWCYe4Smmz-sig=SqBiih-2JOSzUBFnLaYU72oUmBI-hl=en-sa=X-oi=book_result-resnum=6-ct=result#PPA305,M1 accessdate=2008-12-26}} Official Massachusetts records show the name capitalized as Newe Towne by 1632. >http://books.google.com/booksid=IyYWAAAAYAAJ-pg=RA1-PA298-lpg=RA1-PA298-dq=%22Ordered+That+Newtowne+shall+henceforward+be+called%22-source=bl-ots=N6PaGaOGde-sig=BFD1ofKIt1kxt5c9Lf3v-UYlcGU-hl=en-sa=X-oi=book_result-resnum=6-ct=result location=Boston date=1889 page=12 accessdate=2008-12-24}} Located at the first convenient Charles River crossing west of Boston, Newe Towne was one of a number of towns (including Boston, Dorchester, Massachusetts Dorchester, Watertown, Massachusetts Watertown, and Weymouth, Massachusetts Weymouth) founded by the 700 original Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under governor John Winthrop. The original village site is in the heart of today's Harvard Square. The marketplace where farmers brought in crops from surrounding towns to sell survives today as the small park at the corner of J.F.K. and Winthrop Streets, then at the edge of a salt marsh, since filled. The town included a much larger area than the present city, with various outlying parts becoming independent towns over the years: Newton, Massachusetts Newton (originally Cambridge Village, then Newtown) in 1688, Lexington, Massachusetts Lexington (Cambridge Farms) in 1712, and both Arlington, Massachusetts West Cambridge (originally Menotomy) and Brighton, Massachusetts Brighton (Little Cambridge) in 1807. West Cambridge was later renamed Arlington, in 1867, and Brighton was later annexed by Boston, in 1874.
In 1636 Harvard College was founded by the colony to train minister (religion) ministers and the new town was chosen for its site by Thomas Dudley. By 1638 the name'Newe Towne'had'compacted by usage into Newtowne. 'In May 1638 the name was changed to Cambridge in honor of the University of Cambridge university in Cambridge, England. The first president (Henry Dunster), the first benefactor (John Harvard (clergyman) John Harvard), and the first schoolmaster (Nathaniel Eaton) of Harvard were all Cambridge University alumni, as was the then ruling (and first) governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop. In 1629, Winthrop had led the signing of the founding document of the city of Boston, which was known as the Cambridge Agreement, after the university. It was Governor Thomas Dudley who in 1650 signed the charter creating Harvard College.
Cambridge grew slowly as an agricultural village eight miles (13 km) by road from Boston, the Capital (political) capital of the colony. By the American Revolution, most residents lived near the Common and Harvard College, with farms and estates comprising most of the town. Most of the inhabitants were descendants of the original Puritan colonists, but there was also a small elite of Anglicans Anglican'worthies'who were not involved in village life, who made their livings from estates, investments, and trade, and lived in mansions along'the Road to Watertown'(today's Brattle Street, still known as Tory Row). In 1775, George Washington came up from Virginia to take command of fledgling volunteer American soldiers camped on the Cambridge Common - today called the birthplace of the U.S. Army. (The name of today's nearby Sheraton Commander Hotel refers to that event.) Most of the Tory estates were confiscated after the Revolution. On January 24, 1776, Henry Knox arrived with artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga, which enabled Washington to drive the British army out of Boston.
Between 1790 and 1840, Cambridge began to grow rapidly, with the construction of the West Boston Bridge in 1792, that connected Cambridge directly to Boston, making it no longer necessary to travel eight miles (13 km) through the Boston Neck, Roxbury, Massachusetts Roxbury, and Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline to cross the Charles River. A second bridge, the Canal Bridge, opened in 1809 alongside the new Middlesex Canal. The new bridges and roads made what were formerly estates and marshland into prime industrial and residential districts. Soon after, turnpikes were built: the Cambridge and Concord Turnpike (today's Broadway and Concord Ave.), the Middlesex Turnpike (Massachusetts) Middlesex Turnpike (Hampshire St. and Massachusetts Avenue (Boston) Massachusetts Ave. northwest of Porter Square), and what are today's Cambridge, Main, and Harvard Streets were roads to connect various areas of Cambridge to the bridges. In addition, railroads crisscrossed the town during the same era, leading to the development of Porter Square as well as the creation of neighboring town Somerville, Massachusetts Somerville from the formerly rural parts of Charlestown, Massachusetts Charlestown.
