Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

[198] 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:—

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 ”