Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the most populous city in the county, the fourth-largest in Massachusetts behind Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, and ninth-most populous in New England. The city was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, which was an important center of the Puritan theology that was embraced by the town's founders.
Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The term "Harvard Square" is also used to delineate the business district and Harvard University surrounding that intersection, which is the historic center of Cambridge. Adjacent to Harvard Yard, the historic heart of Harvard University, the Square functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge, the western and northern neighborhoods and the inner suburbs of Boston. The Square is served by Harvard station, a major MBTA Red Line subway and a bus transportation hub.
Government Center station is an MBTA subway station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located at the intersection of Tremont, Court and Cambridge Streets in the Government Center area. It is a transfer point between the light rail Green Line and the rapid transit Blue Line. With the Green Line platform having opened in 1898, the station is the third-oldest operating subway station in the MBTA system; only Park Street and Boylston are older. The station previously served Scollay Square before its demolition for the creation of Boston City Hall Plaza.
The Hooper–Lee–Nichols House is an historic Colonial American house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Initially constructed in 1685 and enlarged and remodeled many times thereafter, it is located at 159 Brattle Street in Cambridge. It is the second-oldest house in the city. The house is now headquarters for History Cambridge, formerly the Cambridge Historical Society.
First Parish in Cambridge is a Unitarian Universalist church, located in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is a Welcoming Congregation and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Association. The church is notable for its almost 400-year history, which includes pivotal roles in the development of the early Massachusetts government, the creation of Harvard College, and the refinement of current liberal religious thought.
The William Brattle House is an historic house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of the seven Colonial mansions described by historian Samuel Atkins Eliot as making up Tory Row, housing several prominent figures in early colonial history. It remains in use by the Cambridge Center for Adult Education.
The Old Cambridge Historic District is a historic district encompassing a residential neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts that dates to colonial times. It is located just west of Harvard Square, and includes all of the properties on Brattle Street west of Mason Street to Fresh Pond Parkway, all of the properties on Mason Street and Elmwood Avenue, and nearby properties on Craigie Street. The district includes five National Historic Landmarks: Elmwood, the Reginald A. Daly House, the Oliver Hastings House, the Mary Fiske Stoughton House, and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, as well as several other houses listed separately on the National Register. The district follows the general route of the Watertown Path, an early colonial road that supposedly followed a Native American trail. This portion of the way became known as Tory Row during the American Revolution, because many of the fine mansions lining it were owned by Loyalists. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it continued by a fashionable location, and now features a number of architecturally significant buildings. It includes 215 contributing buildings and one other contributing sites over an area of 52 acres (21 ha). One included building is the Cambridge Historical Society's offices, which are in the NRHP-listed Hooper-Lee Nichols House, located at 159 Brattle Street.
The Brattle Street Church (1698–1876) was a Congregational and Unitarian church on Brattle Street in Boston, Massachusetts.
Joseph Badger was a portrait artist in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 18th century. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, to tailor Stephen Badger and Mercy Kettell. He "began his career as a house-painter and glazier, and ... throughout his life continued this work, besides painting signs, hatchments and other heraldic devices, in order to eke out a livelihood when orders for portraits slackened." In 1731 he married Katharine Felch; they moved to Boston around 1733. He was a member of the Brattle Street Church. He died in Boston on May 11, 1765, when "on Saturday last one Mr. Badger, of this Town, Painter, was taken with an Apoplectic Fit as he was walking in his Garden, and expired in a few Minutes after." Works by Badger are in the collections of the Worcester Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Historic New England's Phillips House, Salem, Mass. While respected in his own time, subsequent scholars and connoisseurs largely overlooked Badger's significance until Lawrence Park wrote a book about him in 1918.
Brattle Street, which existed from 1694 to 1962, was a street in Boston, Massachusetts, located on the current site of City Hall Plaza, at Government Center.
Design Research was a retail store founded in 1953 by Ben Thompson in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and which introduced the concept of lifestyle store. In the 1970s under subsequent ownership, it became a chain of a dozen stores across the United States, and went bankrupt in 1979. Thompson's goal was to provide "a place where people could buy everything they needed for contemporary living", notably modern European furnishings and in particular Scandinavian design.
Tory Row is the nickname historically given by some to the part of Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where many Loyalists had mansions at the time of the American Revolutionary War, and given by others to seven Colonial mansions along Brattle Street. Its historic buildings from the 18th century include the William Brattle House and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 of the seven Colonial mansions making up Tory Row, called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." Owners of Caribbean slave plantations, including the Vassall and Royall families, built the mansions as a statement of the "incredible wealth" they had amassed from slave labor in Jamaica and Antigua, and they enslaved an unusually high number of people on the premises.
Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or "Tory Row" before the American Revolutionary War, is the site of many buildings of historical interest, including the modernist glass-and-concrete building that housed the Design Research store, and a Georgian mansion where George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived, as well as John Vassall and his seven slaves including Darby Vassall. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 about the seven Colonial mansions of Brattle Street's "Tory Row," called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." "As a fashionable address it is doubtful if any other residential street in this country has enjoyed such long and uninterrupted prestige."
The Cambridge Center for Adult Education (CCAE), a non-profit corporation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been teaching adult education courses at 42 Brattle Street since taking over the building from the Cambridge Social Union in 1938.
Rev. Col. John Hancock Sr. was a colonial American clergyman, soldier, planter, politician, and paternal grandfather of American politician John Hancock.
This is a timeline of the history of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.
The American House was a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, located on Hanover Street. Abraham W. Brigham, Lewis Rice (1837–1874), Henry B. Rice (1868–1888), and Allen C. Jones served as proprietors. In 1851 the building was expanded, to a design by Charles A. Alexander. In 1868 it had "the first hotel passenger elevator in Boston." By the 1860s it also had "billiard halls, telegraph office, and cafe." In the late 19th century it was described as "the headquarters of the shoe-and-leather trade" in the city. Guests of the hotel and restaurant included John Brown, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Whitwell Greenough, Charles Savage Homer, Zadoc Long, and George Presbury Rowell. Many groups held meetings there, among them: Granite Cutters' International Association of America, Letter Carriers' Association, National Electric Light Association, and New England Shorthand Reporters' Association. The hotel closed in 1916, and re-opened under new management in 1918. It permanently closed on August 8, 1935, and the building was shortly afterwards demolished to make room for a parking lot. The John F. Kennedy Federal Building now occupies the site.
The Eliot Indian Bible was the first translation of the Christian Bible into an indigenous American language, as well as the first Bible published in British North America. It was prepared by English Puritan missionary John Eliot by translating the Geneva Bible into the Massachusett language. Printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the work first appeared in 1661 with only the New Testament. An edition including all 66 books of both the Old and New Testaments was printed in 1663.
Major-General William Brattle was an American politician, lawyer, cleric, physician and military officer who served as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1736 to 1738. Brattle is best known for his actions during the American Revolution, in which he initially aligned himself with the Patriot cause before transferring his allegiances towards the Loyalist camp, which led to the eventual downfall of his fortunes.
