Cambridge, Harvard University and its Divinity School and Related Institutions, Episcopal Divinity School and Weston Jesuit School of Theology

We will head from Boston across the river to Cambridge, founded first as a strategic protection against the King’s navy coming up the Charles and cutting off the colony from behind. When the injunction to the Governor to move there did not bring enough settlers (or the Governor himself) to the site, it was decided to place first the judicial court, and then a school there, to secure an adequate population to effect a viable defense.

The oldest school of higher education in the country might thus be said to have been founded merely as a decoy to attract sitting ducks to the upriver location if needed.

A. Crossing the bridge

As you head back across the Longfellow Bridge you pass over what is left of the old Middlesex Canal to your right, and looking to your left will see what was known during the Federalist period as Lechmere point. Even earlier, during the colonial era, it was called Thomas Grave’s Landing, a name which the condominiums on the right have taken for their own.

1) Graves was a doctor and a member of the Anglican Christ Church, Boston, who ran the ferry which came across the river from Boston to this area. He is buried in a barrow tomb with a finely carved family escuteon on his stone in Charlestown’s Phipps Street Burying Ground. The land later came to Thomas Lechmere, a Tory who left Boston during the American Revolution, and was taken over by Thomas Craigie, a land speculator and the second owner of the large house originally built by another Tory, John Vassal, above Harvard Square and now known as the Longfellow House, which we will drive past in Section 3.

Stay on Broadway until you reach Quincy Street, making a right onto Quincy Street and going past the Fogg, the Sackler, and behind the fire station. Go through the intersection with Cambridge Street-in-Cambridge (no relation) past the Design School, the Swedenborgian Church, and make the dog’s leg right-and-left onto Divinity Avenue, continuing to the dead-end where the recently restored Divinity Hall (1826) building (now a residence hall) is located in the cul-de-sac beside the Herbarium.

As well as being the home to a number of fervent patriots, it was the home of several Anglicans–also Tories–who had to leave when siege of Boston was lifted (tell how....Cannon from Fort Ti in midwinter, Knox made Gen for this feat)...home became boardinghouse for students when he died intestate.

2) We’re passing through MIT, and also near the Department of Defense’s Draper Lab area where an ongoing silent vigil by the Quakers (Society of Friends) has taken place for upwards of twenty years. As we go up Broadway towards Harvard Square, you may notice some of the ethnic churches and food stores which abound in this community, which in more recent years has included a number of Asians and Middle Eastern enclaves as well, some working or attending schools in the area.

These schools are in what is sometimes called the “Peoples’ Republic of Cambridge” and Harvard University is located in 02139, sometimes called “the most opinionated Zip code in the country.” Cam...sanctuary, nuclear free zone...

3) East Cambridge: Like the North End, (which once housed the free black population, was later filled with sailors, then Jewish, and now Italians) this is an area in which new clusters of ethnic groups arrive and settle. Cambridgeport, an area across Massachusetts Avenue and between H2 and C2, was once the official Immigration Arrival Point and many groups, including Greek Orthodox, Swedish Lutherans; Scottish Presbyterians; Portuguese, Polish, Irish and Italian Catholics; Brazilian Pentecostals; and most recently Revivalist Haitians, have come here and founded churches or missions, many of which still exist. The Central Square Minister’s Association includes 40 members, (the Harvard Association has 10-12; Boston, about 15) and at least ten other known churches in the area have either failed or moved elsewhere in the past fifty years as well.

B. Orientation to Harvard Square and early Cambtidge church history

We will use the time going up to Harvard Square to establish a background framework for understanding the structure of Harvard Square, several of the church historical events and one of the important families which have affected them both.

1) The structure of Harvard Square: When you arrive in Harvard Square, you will see that a part of the Square is taken up by commercial properties, stores, and service centers; and part of it is land owned by the University. More like an European university than many in the US, the “town-gown” interfaces here are more fractillated than clearly defined. The “Coop” (local slang for “The Harvard Cooperative Society,”–don’t say “co-op,” they’ll think you mean the communal food store in Central Square) is across the street from the Yard; the Kennedy School of Government is down the street, opposite dorms on one side and restaurants on the other. Anyone can walk through the Johnson Gate and into the Yard, and if we had time, we would in fact do that.

2) Church historical events: Est of Hooker’s community; plan for Governor to move to Cambridge, Lt. Gov. Dudley did, and w/ him his (cousin, I think,) Anne Bradstreet, the poet, who lived from to on the corner of opposite..... However, the encroaching hegemony of Endicott’s company, governed as it was by John Winthrop, appears to have influenced the Hooker company to leave and they, claiming to be limited by the available farmland, took off for Hartford, CT in 16..... (Their effort to escape the long arm of the Winthrops was foiled in part, however, when John Winthrop had CT declared a (?dependency...ck this) of MA. His own son, FitzJohn, was sent as its first governor, and his son was the second governor, and when the Hartford contingent tried to claim they were in a different area, he had the entire colony named as one as well. (get source on this.)

We will walk past CCC later; this is one of the early Anglican churches in this area and the oldest church still standing in Cambridge. Explain....why not liked, differences in polity; names of ministers different: rector, etc, vs. 4-fold ministry (names on b gd stones) and issues with governmental officials (required to be seen taking communion x 4 in Angl ch as proof of loyalty to ruling monarch); Mandamus Councillors and “tar and feathering” and the Brattle spy situation...

The later arrival of Unitarian ideas, (known to have caused one split by 1742 by the dismission of Samuel Mather, son of Cotton, from the pulpit of the “real” Old North Church in Boston’s North End), influenced churches throughout New England greatly. As mentioned earlier, the appointment of xxx to the Hollis Chair signalled a new era in politial events in Boston and its surrounding areas, and this was echoed in church affairs as well.

We will also see First Parish Church, a Unitarian Church, and First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, the remnant from which FPC originally split away. Explain Dedham court case, effects here, Abial Holmes’ diary entry the day he was turned out of his parsonage, and the long-lasting animosity that was kept alive for years among Cantabrigians of the two stripes. (Unitarian Oliver Wendell Holmes lived near the Div School, not far from the Law Library. His poem, “The Wonderful One-Hoss-Shay” is said to have been poking fun at Congregationalism, although irony less apparent than ?hypocrisy (careful here) of gloating after one’s own team has triumphed, but now suffers the same ignoblity (loss of numbers, appearance of irrelevance...)

3) The wealthy families of Cambridge: As we near Harvard Square, we will go over a rise. The Dana family lived in a large mansion on what is now called Dana Hill, and five of the streets are named after branches of the family in chronological order as they married into the family. (Remington, Trowbridge, Channing, Ellery, and Dana streets all cross Broadway and end in Mass. Ave. near P)utnam Square.)

As we cross the Kirkland intersection, you can see Memorial Hall (Ware, Van Brandt, 1873) on your left, and to the far left, the very bright honey-mustard colored house is the home of the Plummer Professor of Morals and the rector of Memorial Church (not Hall...), the Rev. Peter Gomes. Once located closer to the Square, it was moved–a good colonial practice still employed sometimes today–to its present location to make way for a new building.

By this point we will have reached the early 19th century Divinity School structure, recently renovated.

In addition to the building you are looking at, Harvard Divinity School includes a cluster of other buildings facing a block away on Francis Avenue: Andover Hall (1910), the newer Rockefeller Hall residences, and the Harvard-Andover Library (currently under renovation). Also related to the Div School complex are Jewett House (the traditional residence of the Dean), and the Center for the Study of World Religions.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND ITS DIVINITY SCHOOL
HDS: http://www.hds.harvard.edu/

HDS - Harvard College is not the oldest thing in the Square (the Old Cambridge Burying Ground, fenced in in 1633/4, is) but it is the oldest continually operating university in the US, founded only six years after the town of Boston was founded, in 1636. It was originally called simply, “The College in Newtowne,” but that changed two years later when John Harvard, a young minister from Charlestown, died and left all his books and half his estate to the college, which took his name and renamed the town for the university in England where he had completed his studies.

The school’s original charter notes its historical context and purpose:
After God had carried us safe to New England and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, read’d convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civill government: One of the next things we longed for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.

The oldest endowed professorship in any American college, the Hollis Chair of Divinity (1721/22) acknowledges this purpose. The first printing press was set up here, the Bay Psalm Book was one of the earliest publications off that press, and among other of its early descendants was the first Bible printed in a transliterated Indian tongue (Algonquin), as translated by John Eliot, named by his Dorchester church as missioner to the native Americans.
We will be passing the William James Hall to the left on the way out of Divinity Ave, dedicated to the noted author of the influential book, The Varieties of Religious Experiences. Also note the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem opposite before turning, the twin towers of Memorial Hall and First Church, Congregational (both by the same firm, Ware and Van Brandt, in the 1870s, obviously influenced by HHR). and the Memorial Church spire in the middle of the Yard.
Harvard College was founded in the year of the Antinomian Crisis in New England, 1636, by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony. The weight of theological debate was such as to underscore the importance of not only a learned ministry, but a rational one as well. Following the controversy surrounding the election of “Liberal” Henry Ware as Hollis Professor of Divinity in 1805, the occasion for the subsequent founding of Calvinist Andover Seminary, a graduate program in ministerial studies was organized in the College in 1811. In 1816, the Divinity School itself was established, the first non-sectarian theological school in the country, to insure that “every encouragement be given to the serious, impartial, and unbiased investigation of Christian truth.” Divinity Hall, erected in 1826, is a building of continuing historical interest. Dedicated by William Ellery Channing, it was here that Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his famous “Divinity School Address” and it was in this building that such intellectual luminaries as Emerson, Theodore Parker, and George Santayana once lived and studied. Harvard’s early presidents were ministers who were prominent in the religious and cultural debates of the period…. Unitarianism, Emerson and Transcendentalism…. Into 20th century and Nathan Pusey….neo-Orthodoxy…. Today the concerns of the founders of Harvard remain at the center of the Divinity School. Its purpose is to educate women and men for service as leaders in religious life and thought – as ministers and teachers, and in other professions enriched by theological study. The setting is an academic community characterized by continuing commitment to serious and impartial investigation of the truth. Students and faculty at HDS represent over fifty-five denominations and different ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds engage in rigorous historical and comparative study of Christian traditions in the context of other world religions and value systems. Two points might be singled out as of interest respecting the unique nature of Harvard Divinity School.

The resolution of the Antinomian crisis early in New England’s history might be seen as a motivating force for shaping the trajectory of theological direction at HDS and ways by which religion is conceived, stressing the ordered nature of revelation and rational means by which it is understood. Even today the Divinity School curriculum is shaped by this concern in its three areas of organization: Scripture and Interpretation, Christianity and Culture, and Religions of the World.

Harvard College, and then its Divinity School, have since their organization been committed to the promulgation of virtue in Colony, Commonwealth and contemporary society. Epitomized in the work of the late James Luther Adams and in the current Field Education Program is an abiding commitment to the ways in which religious values are central to human dignity and community justice through voluntary association. The Field Education Program at Harvard Divinity School serves as a rich repository of such opportunities for all students throughout the Boston Theological Institute.

Turn slowly in the Divinity Ave. cul-de-sac to reverse direction and exit, stopping briefly at the intersection with Kirkland Street. Jog right then left onto Quincy Street, right onto Cambridge Street (going under the underpass to Mass. Ave)l get into the center lane, turn left and continue on Mass Ave where it bends to the right and becomes Brattle Street. Go through on Brattle to Eliot Street, making the right onto Mt. Auburn at the Brattle Square needle, make the left at the light in front of the Post Office onto University Road, and pull back into the parking area behind the Charles Hotel and the monastery.

By this point we will have arrived at the area behind the Charles Hotel. The Monastery is facing Memorial Drive and we will briefly go inside, walk upriver to Ash Street and go up Ash to Brattle Street, where EDS and WJST are located. Thence we will walk down along Garden Street past First Church’s fifth building, beside the Sheraton Commander, go past CCC and the Old Cambridge B Gd, through Harvard Yard, and be met at the bottom of Quincy Street by the Trolleys as we exit the gate nearest Mass Ave.

A WALK THROUGH HARVARD SUARE: THE EPISCOPAL DVINITY SCHOOL AND THE WSTON JESUIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

A. The Chapel of the Society of St. John the Evangelist Monastery

Anglo-Catholic, 1800s, after loss of credibility for Anglicans in general, given ties to English government; quick walk-in, walk-out, just to see it and to see the trees along Mem Drive.

Reboard trolleys, go up to Lowell Street, make a right, then right again on Brattle, past Longfellow House, Webster’s House (Ornithology), and the EDS cloister.

B. The Vassal-Craigie-Longfellow-Dana House

We pass the Longfellow House on the left as we turn back down towards Harvard Square. Built by John Vassal....Craigie, Longfellow, etc. The Federalist-era owner of Lechmere point, Andrew Craigie, also owned this house after its Tory builder, John Vassal, left during the Siege of Boston in 1777?8** Craigie’s land speculations left his estate insolvent when he died, so that his wife began taking in Harvard students and junior faculty as borders in order to be able to keep possession of the former Vassal home. One of those borders, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, liked it so well it the when he married Fanny Appleton in 18.... (ck dt), her father purchased it and gave it to them as a wedding gift.

Make the left onto Mason Street, passing WJST, then First Church in Cambridge, Congregational, opposite the Cambridge Commons.

THE EPISCOPAL DIVINITY SCHOOL
EDS: http://www.episdivschool.org/

THE WESTON JESUIT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
WJST: http://www.wjst.edu/

C. Church and Civic History in Harvard Square

At the intersection of Mason with Garden Streets, on the left we pass First Church, Congregational, the surviving Trinitarian congregation of the earliest gathered church in Cambridge. This is the fifth building of that congregation; explain 1911/1913 splits and Dedham case as precedent. At the a right we pass Radcliffe Yard, the Episcopal Chaplaincy, Christ Church, Cambridge (1761-oldest church in Cambridge, by the same architect, Peter Harrison, as King’s Chapel and the Truro, RI Synagogue) and the Old Cambridge Burying Ground, (where early ministers, teachers, and students and their wives, children, and slaves are buried–including Cecily and Jane, young black women who were servants in two of the well-to-do households in Cambridge, and Abigail, the wife of Judah Monis, the Jewish instructor of Hebrew at Harvard College.

1) At the opposite corner of the Old Burying Ground is Isaiah Rogers’ 1833 wooden Cottage Gothic church which he constructed for First Parish, UU.

2) The Three Steeples/Dawes Triangle- Stand diagonally opposite from the Johnson Gates, on the triangular island formed by the intersection of Garden Street and Massachusetts Avenue. Commemorative plaques here describe the historical significance of this location, including the bronzed “hoofprints” of William Dawes, one of the three riders who on April 18, 1775 rode to cry out the militia to guard the powder stores which Howe expected to take in Lexington.

3) The Johnston Gate (1890) - Standing here you can look into old Harvard Yard, the historic center of the College and University since the 17th century. On your left is Harvard Hall (1766) on the site of an earlier Harvard Hall (1677), destroyed by fire (1764) and once the school's library and repository of the John Harvard collection. On your right is Massachusetts Hall (1720), the oldest building still standing at Harvard and the second oldest academic building in the country. Straight ahead is University Hall (1815), designed by Charles Bullfinch and originally built to provide dining, classroom, and chapel space. This building separates the Old Yard (17th and 18th century) from the New Yard (19th and 20th century).

4) A Walk Through Harvard Yard - Passing by Daniel Chester French’s John Harvard statue. (there are “three lies” about the statue: it was done two centuries after Harvard’s death, so it isn’t of him; the date given for the school named “Harvard” is 1636, whereas it wasn’t until 1638 that they re-named the school, and ...I don’t know the third.) Behind you is Stoughton Hall, named after one of the more insistent members of the government during the Salem trials of 1692–Lt. Gov. Wm. Stoughton, an illustrious HC graduate who was displeased when the returning Gov. Phipps rescinded death warrants he had signed for eight people accused as witches.

Walk past University Hall to the New Yard, or Centennial Park, where graduation exercises are held. To the right you will see Widener Library (1914) built with funds donated by Eleanor Elkins Widener in honor of her son, Harry Elkins Widener, Class of 1907, a rare-book collector who died on the Titanic in 1912. Widener is the center of the University's library system with its more than 3.2 million volumes housed in over 50 miles of bookshelves. Although it requires special permission to enter and view them now, inside Weidner are a series of three dioramas which depict and explain life in Harvard Square (and beyond) in the 17th, late 18th, and early 20th centuries

Printing Press, Indian College, First church/stockade house in the center of the square.

D. Church and School History in old Harvard Yard

1) Memorial Church: To the left are the building and steeple of The Memorial Church (1932) where daily prayers and Sunday services continue. Memorial Church is unique in that it was built as a memorial to commemorate Harvard graduates who died on all sides of World Wars I and II, and, by extension, later wars.

2) Continue out past Houghton Library, on the right, where the rare book and prints collection is–including the original of the mezzotint of Mather to your right here (INSERT PIX) and first copies of things like his historically important Magnalia Christii Americani. (You can also see Calder’s whimsical octopus and Moore’s terse statute, nnn, in passing.)

Continue past the Coop, making the right onto Brattle Street in the Square, going halfway around Eliot then bearing left onto Mt. Auburn as it goes down towards Central Square.

To the left is the former home of Professor xxx Winthrop, whose collection of scientific instruments was destroyed in the 1764 fire in Harvard Hall. To the right is the site of the market and opposite it, the home of Judah Monis, Jewish instructor of Hebrew at the College who converted to Congregationalism and became a member of First Church. Further over, in the next block down on the right, is the home of Capt. John Bonner, who made the map we looked at the beginning of the trip. And as we pass Dunster Street, we pass the location of the Grammar School, the first (to the right) and third (to the left) church sites of the First Church of Christ in Cambridge as it was then known.

As we continue down, we see the Lampoon Castle straight ahead to the left And at Bow and Arrow, (note tower, building, after Palazzo Vecchio, Sienna, for St. Paul’s, also, this is the Boston Archdiocesan Choir School, whose educational facilities were recently rebuilt),

Go right on Putnam when it intersects with Mt. Auburn at Mass Ave, down Putnam to Magazine, making a right on Magazine Street to Granite, just before Memorial Drive.

NB (here, this abbreviation means “Note Bulldozer!”) See the mural on the back of the Micro Computers building at the end of Magazine Street, which commemorates the “opinionated” activism of the neighbors in the area in the 1960s, who stopped the decimation of the area when a freeway connector was supposed to have been put through. The scene depicts pretty much what happened: they stood in front of the bulldozers and stopped them from going through.

Go left on Granite, then right at Brookline Street, and take the BU Bridge across to BU, taking the loop around to the left, getting into the right lane to turn right at Comm Ave, to go past Marsh Chapel, MLK statue, and BUSTh Building.