It is the presence of the college that has given distinctive atmosphere to Cambridge. The character of the place has been determined by the fact that for more than two centuries and a half it has been the home of succeeding generations of men devoted not to trade and manufacture, but to the cultivation of the intellectual and spiritual elements in human life. Over the college gate stands an iron cross and upon the gate-post is the seal of the college with “Veritas” written across its open books. The Harvard life and spirit and teaching are all adapted to lead young men to the love and service of truth and to send them out to a ministry as wide and varied as the needs of humanity. The influence of the scholars and teachers and administrators that have been drawn into the service of the college is paramount, even if it is unconsciously exercised and felt, in the community about the college. Here have always been—inevitable in a town which is the resort of the chosen youth of the country—a healthy, wholesome independence of spirit and a high-minded earnestness. Here has always been the refined simplicity of life natural to a community composed of, or influenced by, men of quiet tastes and modest incomes. Here is that touch of sentiment which binds men to the place of their education and to the memories and friendships of youth. Here are the associations with great events and names which inspire patriotism and ambition of worthy service. Then, too, it has been said:
“Cambridge is an interesting place to live in because the poetry of Holmes, Longfellow and Lowell has touched with the light of genius some of its streets, houses, churches and graveyards, and made familiar to the imaginations of thousands of persons who never saw them, its rivers, marshes and bridges. It adds to the interest of living in any place that famous authors have walked in its streets, and loved its highways and byways, and written of its elms, willows and ‘spreading chestnut tree,’ of its robins and herons. The very names of Cambridge streets remind the dwellers in it of the biographies of Sparks, the sermons of Walker, the law-books of Story, the orations of Everett, and the presidencies of Dunster, Chauncy, Willard, Kirkland and Quincy.”
The place is not unworthy of the wealth of affection and poetic tribute that has been lavished upon it. The old Puritan church records, with their quaint entries about heresies and witchcraft, about ordinations where “four gallons of wine” and bushels of wheat and malt and hundredweights of beef and mutton were consumed, and about funerals conducted with solemn pomp; and the town records with notes about the “Palisadoe” and the Common rights and “the Cowyard” and the building of “The Great Bridge,”—a vast undertaking,—have more than merely antiquarian interest, for they reveal the intelligent and sturdy democracy and broad principles of government upon which the American republic rests.
But if these ancient records seem uninviting, let the visitor turn to the annals of the stirring time of the Revolution. General Gage called Harvard College “that nest of sedition.” In that nest were hatched John Hancock, James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Joseph Warren and many another of the patriot leaders. The town was the abode of many of the leading Tory families, but as early as 1765 the town-meeting voted “that (with all humility) it is the opinion of the town that
the inhabitants of this Province have a legal claim to all the natural, inherent, constitutional rights of Englishmen and—that the Stamp Act is an infraction upon these rights.” And after an argument on the merits of the question it was further ordered “that this vote be recorded in the Town Book, that the children yet unborn may see the desire their ancestors had for their freedom and happiness.” For the next ten years there is scarcely a proceeding in the preliminary debates and contests that led up to open revolution that is not illustrated in the resolutions recorded by the Cambridge town clerk. Vote followed vote, as the restrictive measures of Parliament irritated the townsmen, till at the town-meeting of 1773 it was resolved “that this town—is ready on the shortest notice, to join with the town of Boston and other towns, in any measures that may be thought proper, to deliver ourselves and posterity from slavery.” The 2d of September, 1774, just escaped the historic importance of April 19th in the next year. On that day several thousand men gathered on Cambridge Common and proceeded in orderly fashion to force the resignation of two of His Majesty’s privy councillors,
and then, marching up Brattle Street to the house of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Province, Thomas Oliver—the house that was afterwards the home in succession of Elbridge Gerry, Rev. Charles Lowell and his son James Russell Lowell—they extorted from him, too, a pledge to resign. “My house in Cambridge,” he wrote, “being surrounded by about four thousand men, I sign my name—Thomas Oliver.” Both the first and second of the Provincial Congresses met in Cambridge, and at last the running battle of April 19, 1775, swept through the borders of the town. Twenty-six Americans were killed within the boundaries of Cambridge, six of them citizens of the place, and the American militia who followed the British retreat from Concord on that momentous evening lay on their arms at last on Cambridge Common.