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Cambridge and
Boston, of which the profits should be paid to Harvard College, also a similar petition of Hugh Hall and others of
Boston, and a petition of
John Staniford of
Boston for liberty to construct a bridge from a point near the copper works in
Boston to
Col. Phips' farm (now East Cambridge) were severally referred to the next General Court,
1 and both enterprises were abandoned.
Nearly fifty years afterwards, Feb. 11, 1785, the town appointed a committee “to support in behalf of the inhabitants of this town the petition of
Mr. Andrew Cabot to the General Court, now sitting, praying leave to erect at his own expense, a bridge over
Charles River, from Lechmere's Point in this town to Barton's Point, or such other place in
West Boston as shall be thought most expedient;” and to demonstrate that such a bridge would be more important than one at the ferry-way, as petitioned for by some of the inhabitants of
Charlestown.
This effort to secure a direct route to
Boston failed; the
Charlestown petition was granted, March 9, 1785; and Charles River Bridge was opened with imposing ceremonies on the 17th of June, 1786.
The desired accommodation for
Cambridge, however, was not long postponed.
In the “Columbian Centinel,” Jan. 7, 1792, appeared this advertisement:—
West Boston Bridge.
As
all citizens of the
United States have an
equal right to propose a measure that may be beneficial to the public or advantageous to themselves, and as no body of men have an
exclusive right to take to themselves such a privilege, a number of gentlemen have proposed to open a new subscription for the purpose of building a bridge from
West Boston to
Cambridge, at such place as the General Court may be pleased to direct.
A subscription for two hundred shares in the proposed bridge will this day be opened at Samuel Cooper's office, north side of the
State House.
This subscription “was filled up in three hours.”
2 A petition was immediately presented to the General Court, and on the 9th of March, 1792, Francis Dana and his associates were incorporated as “The Proprietors of the West Boston Bridge,” with authority to construct a bridge “from the westerly part of Boston, near the Pest House (so called), to Pelham's Island in the town of Cambridge,” with a “good road from Pelham's Island aforesaid, in the most direct and practicable line, to the nearest part of the Cambridge road,” and to take certain specified tolls “for and during the term of forty years;” and they were required to “pay ”
