Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Brattle Street in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or " Tory Row" before the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...
, 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 George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
and
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to comp ...
both lived (though at different times), as well as
John Vassall William John Christopher Vassall (20 September 1924 – 18 November 1996) was a British people, British civil servant who spied for the Soviet Union, allegedly under pressure of blackmail, from 1954 until his arrest in 1962. Although operating o ...
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."Survey of Architectural History in Cambridge: Old Cambridge, 1973 , Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. 55-67


Origins of Brattle Street as a forest path

Even before the settlement known as "Newe Towne" was planted on the site of the modern Cambridge, at the first good
Charles River The Charles River (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ), sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles, is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Hopkinton to Boston along a highly me ...
crossing west of
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
, the path or trail from Charlestown to Watertown ran past the site of the current
Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...
and westward along much of what is now Brattle Street. In early 17th century Newe Towne, according to historian John Fiske, "On the north side of Braintree Street, opposite Dunster, and thence eastward about as far as opposite the site of Linden, stood a row of six houses, and at their back was the ancient forest. Through this forest ran the trail or path from Charlestown to Watertown, nearly coinciding with the crooked line Kirkland - Mason - Brattle - Elmwood - Mount Auburn; this was the first highway from the seaboard into the inland country." Where the current Ash Street intersects the current Brattle Street stood Newe Towne's West Gate, a palisaded fence to keep cattle out of the town.


Eighteenth-century Brattle Street and "Tory Row"

During the 18th century, seven mansions were built along the main road to Watertown (which included not only the modern Brattle Street but also what is now Elmwood Avenue). Because many of their owners were
Loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cr ...
s during the
American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
, these houses got the nickname "Tory Row". During and after the Revolution, many were confiscated by
George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
's army. Some of these were, however, later restored to the families of their former owners. Even as the Tory Row mansions were being built, however, the forest remained a nearby presence in Cambridge. As late as 1759, a Harvard student writing home reported "many bears killed at Cambridge and the neighboring towns about this time, and several persons killed by them." In the same year, 1759, the house at 105 Brattle Street was built, of which more below. Provincial militia leader William Brattle, at one time the wealthiest man in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...
, is thought to be the Brattle for whom the street was named. He had the house at 42 Brattle Street built for him in 1727. Brattle tried to keep peace between patriots and the British, but after the 1774 incident known as the
Powder Alarm The Massachusetts Powder Alarm was a major popular reaction to the removal of gunpowder from a magazine near Boston by British soldiers under orders from General Thomas Gage, royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, on September 1 ...
, an angry mob surrounded his house and forced him to flee. The Baroness Riedesel, whose husband commanded the Brunswick regiments that supported the British, spent much of the wartime "imprisoned" at 149 Brattle Street, the old Tory Row mansion now commonly called the Lechmere-Sewall-Riedesel House. She has left a charming painting in words of the Tory society on Brattle Street before the Revolution came: "Never had I chanced upon such an agreeable situation. Seven families, who were connected with each other, partly by the ties of relationship and partly by affection, had here farms, gardens, and magnificent houses, and, not far off, plantations of fruit. The owners of these were in the habit of daily meeting each other in the afternoons, now at the house of one and now at another, and making themselves merry with music and the dance,— living in prosperity, united and happy, until, alas! this ruinous war separated them, and left all their houses desolate, except two, the proprietors of which were also soon obliged to flee."


105 Brattle Street, Washington, and the Longfellows

Another Loyalist who fled Cambridge in 1774 was John Vassall Jr., owner of the handsome yellow Georgian house at 105 Brattle Street, built for him in 1759. This vacant house was turned over in 1775 to
George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...
, who took command of the
Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...
there. Washington used the rooms at the building's southeast corner, upstairs and down, for his private apartments, where his wife Martha Washington joined him in December, 1775. Washington lived in the house until July 1776.Howard, Hugh. ''Houses of the Founding Fathers''. New York: Artisan, 2007: In the summer of 1837, a young Harvard professor named
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to comp ...
began renting some rooms in the house at 105 Brattle Street, now being run as a boarding house by the widow of
Andrew Craigie Andrew Craigie (1754–1819) is best known for serving as the first Apothecary General of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. The one-time owner of the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site, Craigi ...
, Washington's Apothecary General. Longfellow proudly wrote to a friend, "I live in a great house which looks like an Italian villa: have two large rooms opening into each other. They were once Gen. Washington's chambers".Calhoun, Charles C. ''Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life''. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004: . In 1843, Longfellow was given the house as a wedding gift by his father-in-law Nathan Appleton, when Longfellow married Nathan's daughter Frances. The price of the house at that time was $10,000.Calhoun, Charles C. ''Longfellow: A Rediscovered Life''. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004: 167. . Longfellow's wife Frances, also called Fanny, was the first American woman to receive anesthesia during childbirth, giving birth in the house at 105 Brattle Street. Longfellow and his wife Frances had two sons as well as the three daughters memorialized in his 1860 poem " The Children's Hour" as "grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair." All three daughters later had houses on Brattle Street, Alice inheriting her parents' home while Allegra and Edith had stylish homes built for them, at 113 and 115 Brattle Street, respectively, in 1887.


Brattle Street in the 19th century

During the early days of the 19th century, Brattle Street saw just a few houses added to the "Tory Row" mansions on its northern side, while the south side was still "meadow-land and orchards." Between 1805 and 1812, a decision was made and finally carried out to straighten the end of Brattle Street, where it joins Mount Auburn Street, renaming a part of the original Tory Row "Elmwood Avenue." As a result, the Brattle Street of today is different from the original Watertown highway, whose original route went along what is now Elmwood Avenue. This is why " Elmwood," one of the seven original Tory Row mansions ("on Elmwood Avenue, then a part of the Watertown highway, which here made a sharp serpentine sweep to the southward, lived Lieutenant-Governor Oliver") no longer has a Brattle Street address.
James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell (; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets to r ...
, writing in 1868, conjured up Brattle Street (the "Old Road") as it was in the 1830s, seen from the top of a hill near where Mount Auburn Hospital stands now:
On your right, the Charles slipped smoothly through green and purple salt-meadows, darkened, here and there, with the blossoming black-grass as with a stranded cloud-shadow. Over these marshes, level as water, but without its glare, and with softer and more soothing gradations of perspective, the eye was carried to a horizon of softly-rounded hills. To your left hand, upon the Old Road, you saw some half-dozen dignified old houses of the colonial time, all comfortably fronting southward. If it were early June, the rows of horse-chestnuts along the fronts of these houses showed, through every crevice of their dark heap of foliage, and on the end of every drooping limb, a cone of pearly flowers, while the hill behind was white or rosy with the crowding blooms of various fruit-trees. There is no sound, unless a horseman clatters over the loose planks of the bridge.
As the 19th century lengthened, Brattle Street continued to attract wealthy families who built houses in the newest architectural styles, such as
Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...
(#112 built in 1846),
Stick style The Stick style was a late-19th-century American architectural style, transitional between the Carpenter Gothic style of the mid-19th century, and the Queen Anne style that it had evolved into by the 1890s. It is named after its use of linear " ...
(#92, built in 1881), and
Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...
(#115, built in 1887). The Shingle style Mary Fiske Stoughton House at 90 Brattle Street has been called "the best suburban wooden house in America ... comparable only to the finest of Frank Lloyd Wright's."


Brattle Street after 1900

In 1969, the architect owners of the Design Research store created a four-story glass and concrete
Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
building at 48 Brattle Street to showcase the
Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
n clothing and housewares they had been selling on Brattle Street since 1953. During the summer months,
Harvard Square Harvard Square is a triangular plaza at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue (Boston), Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts), Brattle Street and John F. Kennedy Street near the center of Cambridge, Massachusetts, C ...
and Brattle Square host many street performers and buskers. The Fokin Memorial sculpture (2001) at One Brattle Square is 10-inch brass representation of a favorite puppet once used there by puppeteer Igor Folkin.
Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet. Along with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, he was part of the Beat Generation, as well as one of its youngest members. Early life Born N ...
's first book of poems is titled "Vestal Lady on Brattle: A Collection of Poems Written in Cambridge, Massachusetts 1954-1955."


Notable sites on modern Brattle Street

* 40: Brattle Hall* * 42: William Brattle House*^ * 48:
Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
glass and concrete building built in 1969 for the Design Research store (founded on Brattle Street in 1953) * 54: Dexter Pratt House* * 64:
American Repertory Theatre The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is a professional not-for-profit theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1979 by Robert Brustein, the A.R.T. is known for its commitment to new American plays and music–theater explorations; to ne ...
* 85: The Norton-Johnson-Burleigh House (1847) * 90: Mary Fiske Stoughton House* * 92: The Misses Sarah and Emma Cary House (1881), an example of the
Stick style The Stick style was a late-19th-century American architectural style, transitional between the Carpenter Gothic style of the mid-19th century, and the Queen Anne style that it had evolved into by the 1890s. It is named after its use of linear " ...
in Queen Anne architecture * 94: "Estate of Mrs. Henry Vassall," also known as the Henry Vassall House^ * 99: The former
Episcopal Divinity School The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) is an unaccredited theological school in New York City. Established to train people for ordination in the American Episcopal Church, the seminary eventually began training students from other denominations. T ...
, founded in 1867, whose St. John's Chapel (1868) was modeled on an English parish church * 101: Oliver Hastings House* * 105: Former estate of John Vassall and longtime home of
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to comp ...
, also known as the "Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House," now the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site^ * 112:
Greek Revival Greek Revival architecture is a architectural style, style that began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe, the United States, and Canada, ...
house (1846) at the corner of Willard Street * 113: The Edith Longfellow Dana House (1887), now home of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. * 114: Neo-Georgian house (1903) designed by John W. Ames * 115: Annie Longfellow Thorp House (1887), a
Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...
house built in 1887 for Longfellow's daughter Annie Allegra, inspired by her father's Georgian house * 149: Lechmere-Sewall house also known as the "Lechmere-Riedesel House" or the "Lechmere-Sewall-Riedesel House"^ * 159: Hooper-Lee-Nichols House now home of the Cambridge Historical Society^ * 175: Ruggles-Fayerwether House^ *Footnote: Items marked with * are also included in the
National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts This is a list of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachuse ...
. Note that the entire Old Cambridge Historic District, which runs in an irregular pattern along Brattle Street, is also one of the listings in the National Register of Historic Places. Items marked with ^ are among the seven "Tory Row" houses listed by Samuel Atkins Eliot in 1913.


See also

*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Cambridge, Massachusetts This is a list of sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Cambridge, Massachuse ...
* Old Cambridge Historic District


References

{{reflist, 2 History of Cambridge, Massachusetts Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts Landmarks in Cambridge, Massachusetts