On this day in 1630, according to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. The colony’s first college was established two years later. The name of the town was changed to Cambridge to honor the English university town in 1638. The college changed its name to Harvard the following year.
In 1630, the Massachusetts Bay Colony proprietors chose a site along the northern bank of the Charles River for their capital. They named it Newtowne, and laid out an orderly grid of streets fortified by a wooden palisade. It was the first planned town in English North America. Six years later, the colony’s first college was established in Newtowne. In honor of the English university town, Newtowne was renamed Cambridge. Contemporary William Wood noted “this is one of the neatest . . . towns in New England, having many fair structures with many handsome . . . seats.” Despite its well-ordered appearance, Cambridge did not remain the colony’s capital. In 1638 the General Court settled five miles downstream, in the neighboring town of Boston.
Ah, those Boston arrivistes — Cambridge’s largest suburb. What might our Commonwealth have accomplished if fair Cambridge had only remained its capital — lower taxes, a more dynamic economy, more diversity, and what goes along with all of these, of course … ever more progressive politics? Read the full story here.
I was told on a history tour I took as a grade schooler that the reason the capital was changed was because the Governors house made out of the notoriously unreliable Cambridge brick melted during an unusually hot summer. Whether that is true or not I do not know, but certainly while the capital Boston was a backwater town well into the 1830s. My dads hometown of Salem, MA was bigger, more industrialized, and in fact at one point that busiest port in the Western Hemisphere. Cambridge, my hometown had more people, more development, and more intellectual capital, and not to mention more land than Boston because there had been no landfills yet and “Cambridge” also included Somerville, Watertown, Brookline, Newton, Arlington, and parts of Lexington right up until the mid 18th century.
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p>Personally I am glad we are not the capital, I think we have more influence internationally, nationally, and arguably within the state being an intellectual powerhouse and the national center of the fastest growing sector of the economy: biotechnology.
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p>My exposure to people of different races, faiths, cultural backgrounds, life experiences, and as we got older sexual orientations in our great public schools certainly helped mold my character and outlook on life. I remember befriending Somalian refugees in 1st grade, having a British teacher, learning about other religions including Hinduism and Islam faiths underepresented nationwide and finding lots of common ground. Only on a Cambridge playground would an Israeli and Palestinian get along without a care in the world. While I have certainly become more moderate politically, and certainly am to the right of most Cantabridgians, my early liberal outlook on life and high degree of tolerance has not changed one bit and I am not sure if Id have held them as strongly growing up anywhere else.
The General Court back then could not cope with the Cambridge system of elections and decided to create the great “City on a Hill” on the other side of the river. As compensation for their loss, Cambridge was chopped into many legislative districts so as to maximize the community’s power – :).
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p>Nice piece of history! Thanks for posting it. Maybe in 400 years they will be writing about how Harvard was once located in Cambridge, before moving to the prestigious Allston community.
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p>Best,
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p>H.