Chapter 2: civil History.
The purpose for which Cambridge was originally established as a town is stated by two of its projectors, Winthrop and Dudley. “The governor and most of the assistants,” had “agreed to build a town fortified upon the neck,” between Roxbury and Boston, Dec. 6, 1630; but, for several reasons, they abandoned that project, eight days afterwards, and agreed to examine other places. On the twenty-first day of the same month: “We met again at Watertown, and there, upon view of a place a mile beneath the town, all agreed it a fit place for a fortified town, and we took time to consider further about it.” 1 Dudley, describing the events of 1630, in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, says, “We began again in December to consult about a fit place to build a town upon, leaving all thoughts of a fort, because upon any invasion we were necessarily to lose our houses when we should retire thereinto. So after divers meetings at Boston, Roxbury, and Watertown, on the twenty-eighth of December, we grew to this resolution, to bind all the assistants2 (Mr. Endicott and Mr. Sharpe excepted, which last purposeth to return by the next ship into England), to build houses at a place a mile east from Watertown, near Charles River, the next spring, and to winter there the next year; that so by our examples, and by removing the ordnance and munition thither, all who were able might be drawn thither, and such as shall come to us hereafter, to their advantage, be compelled so to do; and so, if God would, a fortified town might there grow up, the place fitting reasonably well thereto.” Johnson describes the original design and its partial accomplishment, in his characteristic manner: “At this time, those who were in place of civil government, having some ”
