earlgreytea68 | Cambridge Foot Tour#1 -- Part One

1. Brattle Mansion

Today, it’s the Cambridge Center for Adult Education! I took my violin lessons here! According to the 1937 book, it has been “shorn of much of its former glory” but is “otherwise well preserved.” In 1937, it was the home of the Cambridge Social Union, but it dates from 1727, when it was one of Cambridge’s finest mansions. These days, it is nestled right in the heart of bustling Harvard Square, between the Brattle Theater and a busy shopping center, if I’m remembering correctly. The 1937 book seems mostly concerned with the fact that it was once the home of Margaret Fuller, “the most brilliant American woman of her day, a friend of Emerson and other transcendentalists, first editor of the Dial, author of ‘Woman in the Nineteenth Century,’ literary critic and teacher.” The book gives us this delightful synopsis of her life: “Holmes [presumably Oliver Wendall, although the book doesn’t clarify, so I like to imagine he means Sherlock], who went to grammar school with her, described Margaret Fuller as a queer child; and the urbane and customarily gallant Lowell went as far as to call her ‘that dreadful old maid.’ In her thirties, however, she married the Marquis D’Ossoli in Italy and bore him a son. On their return voyage to America she perished with him and the child in a shipwreck off New Jersey.”

2. Site of the Village Smithy

Apparently, Longfellow wrote this famous poem about a village smithy. I don’t know, I’ve never heard of it. Today, the site of the Village Smithy is an Indian restaurant.

3. Cock Horse Tearoom

I think this is it. It was built in 1811 for Dexter Pratt, the village blacksmith. I guess the blacksmith from the smithy in the Longfellow poem referred to above? Because then the 1937 book helpfully quotes a line of poetry: “The smith a mighty man was he.” Anyway, it is no longer a tearoom, but it does still house a bakery.

4. Read House

So this is what exists today at the address the 1937 book gives me for this house. It’s the library for Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

So I thought this might be a loss, except for this detail that the 1937 book gives me: “Though encroached upon by the business district, it maintains a front garden stretching back 60 feet from the sidewalk to the house.” So I thought to peek behind the library, and lo and behold:

“Two-and-a-half-story yellow frame dwelling.” Check! And, for added verification:

Yup, whatever Harvard uses it for, they still call it Read House. And it’s still got “a white doorway framed by wedge-shaped wood quoins.” (The house, in case you were wondering, was built in 1725.)

5. Mary Longfellow Greenleaf’s Home

I think this is it. Seems to fit the description I’m given of it well enough. Mary Longfellow Greenleaf was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s sister. And I think Samuel Longfellow, according to the book, “wrote several fine hymns still in general use.”

6. House that John Fiske Built

The book calls this “a Victorian dwelling with a tower,” so I thought I was looking for, you know, a big tower. This is apparently the tower he’s talking about:

See it? Over there, behind the arbor? You can just see the conical roof there. Anyway, I know this is the right house because the 1937 book tells me that the “eminent historian” John Fiske was in the middle of building this house when he died suddenly. This house had a plaque on it calling it the Stoughton House but, when you look more closely, it stated that John Fiske lived there.

I’m not sure why the plaque says it was built for a Mrs. Stoughton and the book claims it was being built for John Fiske. Maybe something fishy going on there. But, anyway, in case you want to know about John Fiske: “An early champion of the then heretical theory of evolution [the more things change…], Fiske was not invited to teach at Harvard. After the University embraced the theory it still thought Fiske a little too ‘popular’ to adorn its faculty, but awarded him an honorary degree.”

7. Belcher House

The plaque on this house doesn’t say anything about Belcher.

However, I’m pretty sure this is the right house, not just because it’s at the right address but because the Belcher House the 1937 book talks about has two main entrances, as does this house. Here’s the second:

According to the book, half the house was built as early as 1635, while the other half was added around 1700 (the plaque disagrees, but does estimate 17th century for half of the house and 1746 for the other half so it's close-ish).

8. Craigie-Longfellow House

(Right around this part of the tour, a passing pedestrian stopped me and asked me, with interest, what I was doing. This is the only time I have ever been stopped while doing a tour.)

Okay, so, this house was the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1937, Longfellow’s grandson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana, still lived in the house. According to the 1937 book, the house “has a mellow prosperous dignity very characteristic of the poet himself.” The house was built in 1759 by Major John Vassall. Want to know about the architecture? It’s “a three-story square yellow clapboarded mansion with white Ionic pilasters, a white roof-rail, and yellow brick chimneys capped with ornamental hoods. Side piazzas, east and west, overlook wide lawns, and in front of the house a small formal park runs down almost to the Charles River. This is what that area in front of the house looks like today:

The house is now cut off from the Charles by Memorial Drive (a very busy street in Cambridge).

The plaque in front of the house acknowledges that Major Vassall built it:

And who was Major Vassall? Well, he was a Tory. This house, along with six others, constitute the famous (in Cambridge) Tory Row (living on today in the name of a Harvard Square restaurant). Major Vassall abandoned Cambridge in 1774 for the safety of British-occupied Boston, at which point Washington made the house his headquarters. Martha Washington actually joined him here, and they even celebrated a wedding anniversary in the house (their anniversary was apparently January 6, according to the 1937 book). Later on, Dr. Andrew Craigie lived in the house (hence the name the 1937 book gives it; Craigie is also a famous Cambridge name, there’s a Craigie Street not far from where this house stands). Dr. Craigie added a banquet hall onto the house “and entertained lavishly.” The 1937 book disapproves. It notes that Dr. Craigie died bankrupt, forcing his wife to rent out rooms in the house in order to make ends meet.

Enter young Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who rented a room from Mrs. Craigie in 1837, which was his second year teaching at Harvard. In case you were wondering, the 1937 book tells us his rooms were the second floor rooms to the right of the entrance. Longfellow’s rented study was the same room used by Washington as his private bedroom. Longfellow wrote several early poems from this rented study. When he married Frances Appleton of Boston, his new father-in-law purchased the house and gave it to them as a wedding present. In 1845, the couple converted Longfellow’s old study to a nursery, and Longfellow moved his poetry-writing to the front room on the first floor to the right of the entrance. On Wednesday evenings, Longfellow held meetings of the Dante Club, where he read aloud his translation of “The Divine Comedy” and asked for suggestions on how to improve it. “The evenings always ended with a good supper, good wine and good conversation.”

The house is now a national historic site and open to the public, but not in the fall, when I was there. I really need to go back, I’d like to see it.