Abby Epplett, Historian

Back in August 2023, I spent a day exploring historic sites in Cambridge, MA. While my main stops were Longfellow House Washington Headquarters , Cooper-Frost-Austin House , and Harvard Art Museums , I also visited several quick history stops during my adventure. While Part 1 covered the houses of Brattle Street, Part 2 focuses on Cambridge Water Works, Watertown Cambridge Greenway, and Mount Auburn Cemetery, along with houses of worship in Cambridge. Cambridge Water Works & Watertown Cambridge Greenway According to WaterWorksHistory.us: Documentary History of Water Works , a delightfully niche barebones website with a wealth of information on aquatic infrastructure, Cambridge Water Works began in 1852 as a private company. By 1861, it bought its rival Cambridge Port Aqueduct Company , which had begun in 1837. Both companies laid pipe and built aqueducts to funnel fresh springwater into the city. In 1865, the City of Cambridge bought the water works and uses the syst

Back in August 2023, I visited Cambridge, MA for a history adventure. My main three stops during the trip were Longfellow House Washington Headquarters , Cooper-Frost-Austin House , and Harvard Art Museums , but I had plenty of quick history stops along the way. In Part 1 of this three-part miniseries, I visited historic homes in the Brattle Street area, a part of Cambridge once called Tory Row , and used walking tours from History Cambridge (formerly Cambridge Historical Society) as my guide, including Loyalist Women of Cambridge and The Work of the Revolution in Cambridge . Elmwood The first house on my tour was Elmwood, also known as Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House , a three-story Georgian style mansion with a spacious green lawn and covered with scaffolding, as the building was undergoing renovation. Thomas Oliver , a British Loyalist and the final royally appointed lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, and his wife Elizabeth Vassell Oliver , who had grown up in

In August 2023, I took a day trip to Cambridge, MA. My first major stop on my adventure was Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service (NPS). The double name of the property explains that the home was not only used leading up to the American Revolutionary War as a military headquarters for  General George Washington , but also as a family dwelling owned by poet and abolitionist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . The standard tour of the interior, led by a park ranger, explored both time periods along with telling the story of how the house was lovingly preserved. Harry Dana & the Longfellow Legacy With a fully name of Henry “Harry” Wadsworth Longfellow Dana , the Harvard academic and expert on Russian drama preserved his family’s story, including extensive documentation and their historic home. Besides his love of literature and history, Dana was an early LGBTQ rights activist and union supportor. Du