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When the lone pioneer Blaxton, voluntary
Crusoe of
Shawmut, climbed to the peak of the hill at the foot of which he had pitched his solitary camp, he beheld to the westward two great bays, barely held apart at the base of the slopes by a low, narrow path disappearing in the highlands beyond.
In either of these spacious coves the navies of the world of the time might have found ample anchorage.
A winding river, flowing down from the westerly hills, broadened into a noble estuary that formed a land-locked harbor, and, narrowing again, rushed with a sister stream in confluence towards the open sea.
It was a bountiful stream of fresh water that brought
Winthrop and his men to the hills of Blaxton's peninsula, on the slopes of which they settled and faced the blasts of the east wind.
Had these life-giving waters gushed forth on the farther bank of the great bay to the north, the
Boston of the pioneers would have been founded there,—there would have been the sheltered harbor and the seat of commerce, with the city of the future gradually encircling the great inland haven protected by Blaxton's hills from the ocean winds and storms.
If
Winthrop and the new-comers turned their backs on the estuary of the
Charles, as a port, there were some who, allured by the gentle slopes of the opposite shores, crossed it in search of fields to till and meadows for pasture.
But it was more than a quarter of a century (1660) after their coming before they found courage to span the river with a rude bridge at its narrowest point.
Thereafter they lived on and on with the most meagre means of communication with the parent settlement, despite the dignity of a college foundation, and the war of the Revolution had been fought and independence won, the
Constitution had been adopted and
Washington was
President of the
United States, before the people finally abandoned their uncertain
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ferries and spanned the river with a causeway and bridge, thus gaining ready access to Blaxton's hills and the great town of the day that had grown up upon and around them.
That part of the original New Towne which is now
Cambridge held, in 1793, when the first bridge to
Boston was opened, more than a century and a half after the coming of the forefathers, but one hundred and forty-eight houses, which sheltered twelve hundred souls.
That the new link across the
Charles was the most happy material event that had happened to
Cambridge since its foundation—the college, of course, excepted—was proven by the rapid growth of the town that at once followed its opening.
The twelve hundred of 1793 became twenty-four hundred in 1808, and obtained another bridge, this time from Lechmere Point.
It was the northern bay which had kept
Boston and
Cambridge apart so long with the breadth of its waters and the wide stretches of its marshes and flats.
These tide-covered lowlands skirted the town its entire easterly and southerly sides from
Charlestown to
Watertown, a distance of nearly five miles. More than a third in extent of what is now
Cambridge was lapped by the spring-tides up to the beginning of the century.
To the east a mile of lowlands lay between the town and the channel of the
Charles.
As long as an abundance of tillable land satisfied a sparse population, the marshes, as yet undefiled, performed auxiliary service to the farmer with their supplies of salt hay, and the flats, as yet untainted, gave him the mussel and the clam in plenty.
The yield of the grass gave but slight value to the riparian lands.
It was not until the people grew in such numbers as to exhaust the uplands, that any attempt was made to reclaim the lowlands for habitation or commerce.
The bridge of 1793, which became the great highway from the towns of
Middlesex to the markets of
Boston, and so quickly doubled the population of
Cambridge, gave the first impetus to the work of pushing back the sea. Its long causeway was laboriously made over the marshes, and, later, little by little, a rod of land was gained from the waters here and there on either side as the increasing traffic justified the enterprise of shop or of inn. The new prosperity of the town awakened the ambition of the more sanguine.
Why suffer
Cambridge to be merely a roadway to the capital town, when the great basin of the
Charles offered as ample a roadstead as the harbor below?
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Let the market-wagons end their journey in
Cambridge and there exchange their burdens for the freights of the world brought direct to the wharves of
Cambridge.
Why tamely suffer
Boston to monopolize the commerce of the seas, when
Salem and
Newburyport and New Bedford successfully disputed for a share?
Out of such ambitions grew the ditch canals of the new port of
Cambridge, and the laying out, on a grand scale for the day, of the
Broad Way leading over the marshes to the high lands.
But the enterprise, praiseworthy as was its conception, languished, and dashed the hopes of its courageous promoters.
Like the bridge, however, it stimulated settlement upon the marshes; for the excavations of the canals were cast up on either side, and strips of made land grew along the new water-ways and gave room for wharf landings and desultory structures.
Similar results followed the opening of the
Craigie Bridge, in 1809, in East Cambridge.
The projection of the railroad across the eastern marshes, after
Cambridge became a city, divided their expanse with its raised embankment for rail service into two almost equal parts.
Although a narrow culvert here and there half admitted the pressing tide, a rampart was thus formed that kept the great tract of lowlands between it and the uplands comparatively dry and firm; and the establishment of industries on the barren lands, along the new path of the iron horse, was encouraged.
Thus by the creation of the bridges and of the railroad, great sections of the marshes were cut off from the inroads of the sea, and invited from their exceeding cheapness those of means too small to enjoy the luxury of the far more costly solid lands.
These for the most part camped on the wastes as they were, content to raise them by gradual process, if at all, with the scant refuse of their homes.
With a blindness to the inevitable outcome of such ill-conditioned settlements that seems strange to us now, the municipality permitted their haphazard growth and continuance until their offensive conditions threatened the well-being of the whole city, and finally compelled an interference so costly as to burden for a time the public resources.
Extensive areas of the original marshes were thus reclaimed largely out of the common purse.
It would have been well in the light of what we know now, if a long step further had been taken, and the entire littoral of the city had been then condemned to public uses; for private capital continued
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to shrink from the hazardous enterprise of reclaiming these border lands, so forlorn was the outlook for their commercial utilization.
And so the outskirt river-lands remained as a standing menace, and as the people grew in numbers, became more and more an offense to sight and smell, a desolation, forming a forbidding entrance to a beautiful and famous city.
Meanwhile,
Boston had been early forced, through the confinement of her narrow limits, to overcome the handicap of the tides with laborious seizures of the encompassing lowlands.
From the beginning of the present century large areas of tide-covered lands were successively reclaimed and quickly occupied.
The great northern basin was in turn attacked with vigor, until half its water-lands was condemned to the uses of man. The Commonwealth, successor to the old rights of the Crown in submerged lands, took part in the work of recovery, and helped to solve the problem of necessary expansion at large profit both of money and of urban advantage.
A quarter of a century ago, the narrow neck of land, so low as to be often washed by the spring-tides, that Blaxton beheld from his hilltop disappearing into the
Western highlands, had by man's work grown far broader than the peninsula of which he was the original settler.
It is to the outcome of the work of the
State and of its capital city in reclaiming the southern shoals of the great estuary of the
Charles that
Cambridge owes in large measure the improvement of its own riparian lands.
For among the highways that were run for the people's convenience over the commonwealth lands was
West Chester Park, which crossed all the great arteries of the city, and, carried as it was straight to the river's bank, clearly invited extension over the waters to the sister community beyond.
Again
Boston, awakened at this time by the example of other great municipalities, began to consider seriously the acquirement of park areas.
A beautiful system of open places was outlined in 1876, and, of the many attractive spots suggested here and there throughout the city for common use, it was officially proclaimed that the gem of them all would be the great interior basin of the
Charles.
The building of
West Chester Park to the river's edge foretold its ultimate extension to the opposite bank.
The public suggestion of the adornment of the
Boston littoral encouraged the idea of its duplication on the northern shore.
The proprietors of the
Cambridge lowlands took heart, and began to dream of a
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bright future for these hitherto worthless wastes.
To the adornment of the basin, commerce of every kind, long hampered by the hindrance of the manifold bridges, must give way, and only fine habitations face the wide esplanades on either side.
For such purposes the
Cambridge shore, that caught the sunshine of the entire day, was far superior to the
Boston bank.
The summer breezes from the
Brookline hills, gathering cool refreshment as they swept over the bay, shunned the southern shore to bring full benefaction to the
Cambridge lowlands.
Here was a solid foundation of clay and gravel near the surface, while the silt of centuries had lain deep on the other side.
When the bridge was built across the bay to the fine home quarter of
Boston, the remote lands of
Cambridge were brought conveniently near to this and all other centres of the capital city; furthermore, these lands were in the heart of what was to be the great metropolis of the future, when
Boston and its fringe of beautiful cities and towns should come together under a single name and assume a place among the great cities of the world.
As soon as the stress of the commercial disturbance of the seventies was relaxed, the first step forward in the general improvement of the
Cambridge shore of the basin was taken.
In the summer of 1880, the proprietors of two thirds of the lowlands were brought together in conference.
Out of their deliberations sprang an agreement to make common interest in a work of improvement, which was projected on broad lines.
The submerged lands lying between Main Street on the north, the
Grand Junction Railroad on the west, and the bay of the
Charles on the south, formed an irregular triangle, covering an area of about two hundred and fifteen acres, greater in extent than the
Back Bay district of
Boston between Boylston Street and the river.
There were no structures of any kind on this territory except along the line of Main Street. The water line from bridge to bridge of the lands was about nine thousand feet, nearly two miles, in length.
The northerly half of the district was almost entirely flats, uncovered only at low tide.
A tongue of marsh, with a fine gravel beach, known as Whittemore's Point, made out into the waters in the centre of the lands, and beyond this, to the south, the flats were nearly equal in extent.
Great indentations had been formerly made in these marshes for material to fill lowlands in the old westerly end of
Boston.
It was planned to embrace the whole of this
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triangular territory in a harmonious scheme of development for a residential quarter of the first class with an ornamental esplanade two hundred feet wide, contained by a substantial sea-wall fronting the water, extending from bridge to bridge, in complement of the proposed embankment on the
Boston side.
The material for filling the lands was to be taken from the ample stretches of gravel and sand in the basin and appurtenant to the territory.
Thus the reclamation of the lands would be followed by the removal of the nuisance of the offensive outer flats, and a full basin of water, independent of the tides, would be created fronting the broad esplanade.
Effort was to be made to hasten the construction of the bridge from
West Chester Park, the extension of which across the river would strike the territory to be improved at a central point.
Appeal was made to the legislature of 1881 for authority to permit the proprietors to unite in carrying out their enterprise of improvement, and liberal corporate powers were granted them under the name of the
Charles River Embankment Company.
The esplanade two hundred feet in width was provided for, to be appropriated to public use, and a right of eminent domain to project it beyond the limits of the combined ownership of the incorporators to the bridges at either end as termini was granted.
The capital of the company was fixed at not less than five hundred thousand dollars, with permission to increase the amount to not exceeding two millions of dollars.
Authority was granted the city of
Boston by the same General Court to begin the improvement of the river bank between Craigie and West Boston bridges.
The following year power was granted by the legislature to
Boston and
Cambridge to build conjointly a bridge over the bay of the
Charles from a point on Beacon Street, to be determined in concurrence, and the city council of each city made an appropriation sufficient to secure soundings for piers and plans for a structure.
Early in 1883, committees of the two city governments agreed upon the location of the bridge as an extension of the lines of
West Chester Park.
In February of the same year, the incorporators of the new
Charles River Embankment Company, after a vexatious delay, took conveyance of about one hundred acres of the land within the territory to be reclaimed, and, in conjunction with other proprietors controlling some fifty additional acres, began the work of improvement.
The first section of retainingwall,
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one thousand feet in length, was built on a solid foundation of gravel during the
summer and
fall of 1883, and a large quantity of material was excavated by dredges from the flats fronting the wall and deposited on the lands behind.
This was the first material work done towards the adornment of the
Charles River basin and the devotion of its shores to public uses.
Boston began what is now her Charlesbank some time later.
Cambridge, recognizing the vast importance of the successful improvement of the large districts of offensive lands on her border at private cost, and appreciating the magnitude and the difficulties of the enterprise of the
Embankment Company, wisely relieved it from the burden of increased taxation for a period of ten years, and in return the company obliged itself to build over its lands a wide approach to the proposed bridge, and to fulfill other requirements.
Further, the city authorities did all in their power to hasten the construction of the new avenue across the
Charles.
Obstruction to the measure was prolonged in the city council of
Boston, in spite of the petition of many of the leading citizens and of the heaviest tax-payers of that city, until, in 1887, recourse was had to the General Court for relief, and a mandatory act was obtained enforcing the construction of the bridge and providing for a commission with full powers to accomplish that end. The bridge act of 1887 was unique in that no former legislature had exerted such compulsory powers in enforcing a public work of this order upon two of the larger cities of the
State, one of which through a representative body had declared by a large majority for its indefinite postponement.
The passage of the enforcing act was followed by a quick beginning of the work on the bridge structure under the commission in charge, and the work of reclaiming the lowlands within the territory of the
Embankment Company was resumed.
The completion of the Charlesbank, in
Boston, which was at once taken into popular favor as the most health-giving of all the new commons, directed general attention to the opportunities of the
Charles River.
Agitation was begun for the extension of the
Boston embankment farther up the stream; the question of the closing of navigation on its waters to mast vessels, thus definitely devoting its banks to residential and park purposes, was warmly taken up; the pollution of its tides by noxious sewage was denounced, and an era of popular appreciation of the noble
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river and its broad estuary set in, out of which is fast coming the fulfillment of its destiny as the most beautiful water-park in
America.
The general discussion of
Charles River questions led to the creation of a special commission (1891) charged with inquiring into and reporting upon the proper treatment for the public weal of the historic stream.
This was followed by the recommendations of the Metropolitan Park Commission, a new body, created in 1892 to supplement the work of
Boston, and to provide open spaces for the larger
Boston, in favoring the appropriation of the shores of the river to park uses.
The new bridge, fittingly named from the college to which its connecting avenue leads, was finished in 1890, but, awaiting the settlement of a question of crossing the location of the
Grand Junction Railroad, was not opened to public use until 1891.
After the opening of the bridge and its avenue, renewed progress was made under this encouragement, with the extension of their sea-wall and the covering of their submerged lands by the
Embankment Company.
It remained for
Cambridge to take the final step in the work of furthering the consecration of the
Charles to adornment and recreation.
A strong popular agitation of the question of public parks (1892) led to the creation of a municipal park commission, with proper powers.
A fortunate selection of three citizens uniting strong practical wisdom with excellent taste and judgment, to carry out the wishes of the people, was made.
The work of this commission was as speedy as it was effective.
Within a few months after its appointment, besides inland reservations, it had set apart forever to the use of the people a ribbon of shore lands in East Cambridge, between Craigie and West Boston bridges, fourteen hundred and sixty feet in length, and the entire
Cambridge bank of the
Charles from the westerly terminal of the esplanade under construction by the
Embankment Company almost to the
Watertown line, a distance of over three miles.
The waste areas to the north of Main Street have also been slowly undergoing changes for the better.
Of the intricate system of canals devised for the creation of the port that was to rival
Boston, one after the other succumbed to the encroachment of trade.
To-day, only a suggestion of the mighty enterprise of the canal-builders is left in the
Broad Canal, which will itself disappear in turn.
West of the location of the railroad, numerous factories of importance, and, lately, of still larger
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consequence, have been erected.
A large fraction of the district known as the Binney fields obstinately resisted settlement, but now for the most part has become happily embraced in the park areas of the city.
South of the railroad, the recovery of the lowlands, although almost encompassing the most thickly habited section of
Cambridge, has been till recently slow in its progress.
Repeated effort through corporate union of landed interests proved unavailing to effect their transformation.
The incorporation of the city and the projection of the railroad, promising a new era of prosperity and growth, encouraged certain merchants, in 1847, to undertake the improvement of the overflowed lands in this quarter.
Corporate powers were secured by them from the General Court, with authority to buy and develop lands between the highlands of East Cambridge and the
River Charles and north of West Boston Bridge; and the
Cambridge Wharf Company was organized.
Beyond the purchase of a tract along the river front and the conception of a plan of improvement, this company did little, and finally released its entire holdings to an individual purchaser in 1890.
A second corporation was created by the legislature in 1861, under the name of the
East Cambridge Land Company, to attempt the work of reclamation in the territory covered by its predecessor.
A large district covering some seventy-five acres, lying between Portland Street and Third (formerly Court) Street and the
Broad Canal came into the possession of this company.
On these lands a number of manufacturing structures and workshops, some of notable character, have been erected; but after thirty-five years of effort, and despite the strong and steady growth of the old districts of the city during that period, quite one third of the available holdings of this company still remain to be built upon.
In 1874, a third charter was granted by the legislature to other citizens desirous of solving the utilitarian problems in this section.
The Cambridge Improvement Company was thus formed, and became possessed of between fifty and sixty acres of lowlands, mostly flats, between Third Street and the river.
The interposition of
Broad Canal between these lands and Main Street, always a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to the use of these lands, effectually closed them from advantageous connection with
Boston.
With the aid of the authorities of the municipality, this barrier was, however, about to be removed, when the disastrous financial panic following the
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initiation of this enterprise, which paralyzed all energies, effectually put an end to the efforts of this company.
A short section of stone wall on the river front, ragged from neglect, remained as a forlorn monument of the fallen fortunes of this enterprise until 1889, when a citizen of
Boston, convinced of the possibilities of these barren lands, situated as they were in the heart of a great community, and within a trifling distance of the commercial centres of his city, acquired nearly fifty acres of this territory, including the entire water front, half a mile in length, lying between the canal and either bridge.
The effort to recover this land was at once renewed, and this time with effect.
First Street was at once filled, from its terminus at Binney Street to the line of
Broad Canal, a thousand feet in length, and the sea-wall along the river extended easterly.
By a wise cooperation of the city authorities and the courageous investor, the
Broad Canal was at length bridged, and entrance gained to Main Street at its junction with West Boston bridge.
Since that time, the work of recovering the waste lands of this part of
Cambridge has been rapid.
Already about fifteen acres of original flat-lands have been filled.
First Street has been recognized by the city authorities as a thoroughfare of such importance as to warrant a pavement of granite blocks.
Its sidewalks, ten feet in width, will be asphalted.
On this street stands, finished but yesterday, one of the noblest monuments of industry yet erected in
Cambridge, a great structure, whose purposes are proclaimed by
Athena, goddess of letters, whose heroic effigy proudly crowns its pediment.
Of the ancient marshes and flats in this quarter of the city, between the highlands and the river's line, over one hundred acres still await reclamation.
It is to this district that
Cambridge must largely look in the future for its prosperity.
For here, under wise encouragement, should grow up a great manufacturing quarter second to none other in or near the capital city.
All elements necessary for the creation of a commercial district of this character seem to be here in happy conspiracy.
It is almost at the gates of
Boston.
First Street is only a mile distant from the City Hall of
Boston, and, accordingly, nearer to that accepted centre than the
Hotel Vendome, than the new Union station now proposed on the
Back Bay, than Dover Street, than all
South Boston, except a small portion of the newly made lands, than all
East Boston, than all
Charlestown
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but a small fraction.
Barges of the largest size may be moored at its wharves, and, by spur from the main line of steel track, the products of its factories may find direct land transportation over the continent.
Two main thoroughfares lead from this quarter straight to the heart of the great city over the narrow waters in one direction, and out into the cities and towns beyond in the other.
Here wide streets will afford ample room for traffic, and preserve the play of sunshine and the freedom of air. A dense population is at hand to supply the artisans of the coming industries.
A river park on the one side and a land park on the other will furnish the toilers and their children with refreshment and recreation.
The policy of the city in encouraging the private reclamation of its lowlands, now long since established, will favor the proper improvement of this quarter with increased generosity as its possibilities become more fully appreciated.
For with its appropriation by the great hives of industry will come an increased prosperity to the community.
As a purely residential city,
Cambridge cannot hope to be more than an annex to
Boston.
The presence within her borders of large commercial interests will give her the importance of a self-sufficing entity, and a hardy independence of her neighbors, great or small.
To the spread of the quarters of business more than to those of habitation will be due that happy increase of financial resource which is so necessary for the pressing wants of a growing community.
Long before
Cambridge celebrates a centennial anniversary of urban existence, these lands, every inch reclaimed from the deep, and filled with workshops and warehouses, will be pointed out with pride as a distinctive quarter of the city, its past nakedness and desolation buried and forgotten.
Thus, in this memorial year, the results of the work of the last few years in solving the grave problems affecting the
Cambridge littoral sum up largely.
It is only thirteen years since the first stone of a sea-wall facing the bay of the
Charles as the outwork of a public promenade was laid in the solid gravel of its bed. To-day, the wall stretches out far from either side of the
Harvard bridge, in front of it an always open basin, and behind it the promised esplanade, two hundred feet wide, and thirty-five hundred feet in length, ready for the decoration of trees and plants to justify its exceeding value to the
Cambridge of the future and its further extension along the river banks.
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To-day, the wall of the Charlesbank of East Cambridge is built, and a beautiful section of river park will at no distant time be there open to the people.
To-day, with the exception of a few hundred feet, the entire littoral is in the hands of the people.
The progressive improvement of the river's banks under public control will force the wholesome recovery of all the abutting lowlands at private initiative.
In the commercial district to the north of Main Street the Binney marshes have given way to a health-giving common, and the obnoxious flats are fast disappearing.
Since 1892, the bridge at First Street has been built, and fifteen acres of the adjacent lands have already been reclaimed for settlement; it will be but a short time before the tide is finally driven from this entire quarter.
To the south of Main Street, a great section of the ancient shallows, one hundred and twenty acres in extent, has given place to clean uplands, inviting the builders of houses.
Beyond, to the west of the railroad, a million feet of the marshes have been raised, and a site for a great athletic campus is made.
If all but a tithe of this great work has been done during the past five or six years, what may not be accomplished in its active prosecution within the next decade?
There can be now no retrograde action in the treatment of the shores of the beautiful river.
The transformation of the desolation that threatened the well-being of the people, that mortally offended the sense of the beautiful, that foreboded a staggering burden of public debt, has so far progressed that the quick consummation of the hopes of the past may be confidently anticipated.
Nor will
Cambridge be long alone in the labor.
Her example must stimulate the great sister city to happy imitation on the south shore of the bay, and hasten the park scheme, covering the upper reaches of the
Charles, to completion.
When the work is finally completed of devoting this river and its banks far up the stream to the pleasures of the people, and all the menacing lowlands are things of an unhappy past, a great pride will fill the hearts of the people in the possession of so beautiful a spot, and the stranger will come from afar to admire.
And Blaxton, could he climb again the high peak of his hermitage, and gaze on the splendid panorama about him, would indeed marvel at the mighty works of those who have come after him.
