Cannon and Grass Seed

No plot of public ground reeks of history like the Cambridge Common. On the very turf where couples romp in the spring, where amateur baseballers and skaters amuse themselves, George Washington took command of the first American army in 1775. But for a few rusty cannon, two monuments, and a plaque, however, the Common is hardly a symbol of patriotism. Yet scholars have tried to build these memorial remains into a glorious tradition which ignores the pageantry of blood and rum spilled on the Common's scraggy swade.

Settled in 1630, the Common was a "rough frontier camp" which extended as far as Linnaean St. and covered Harvard Square. It was the scene of garrison maneuvers and town elections. One year, Cambridge fell victim to its first political stalemate when the chairman of the election assembly, believing that his man could not win, refused to open the meeting. A man sitting in one of the traditional elms suddenly yelled out that those present should open the show; they did. This was the first exhibition of free, popular government in Cambridge.

Liberal government was slow-footed, however. In 1775, a riot broke loose on the Common when two slaves were executed; a young man on the gallows and an old woman at the stake in the present Radcliffe quad. They were sentenced for murdering their masters who happened to live on "Tory Row" (Brattle St.), a despised section of town. A second orgy, just as violent yet jubilant, occurred when the citizens built a marvelous bonfire into which they contemptuously cast a printed speech of George III. Another attraction was the frequent sermons of the celebrated English clergyman, Rev. George Whitefield who, being refused the use of the meeting house, turned the Common into a miniature Hyde Park.

As the Revolutionary War approached, the Common's proprietors granted it to the town for use as a training field. About 8000 men responded to the call of arms, some of whom were billeted in the four Harvard Halls standing at that time, some in abandoned "Tory Row" houses, and the rest in barracks which bulged out on the Common. Then came that memorable day, July 2, 1775, when General Washington--decked out in "blue cost, buff under-dress, and rich epaulette on each shoulder"--marched down the road from Watertown. At this point, historians have gone to all extremes to affirm or deny that Washington accepted command from Artemus Ward under a certain elm (The Washington Elm). The most convincing account shows that because of poor weather and other complications, Washington could not have accepted command under this elm. Yet for years afterward, the tree was nursed and trimmed to a ripe old age of 202. Then in 1923, the poor, wretched elm, filled with cement and braced with iron, crashed to the ground. Unwilling to give up its symbolic ghost, the city government sent bunks of the main trunk to the governors of the forty-eight states and gave out at least 1000 pieces in all, each with a metal tag. The only evidence of the tree nowadays is a bronze on cement panel in the middle of Garden St.

Even more ludicrous is the controversy over the three cannons which squate in the Common. No one can agree whether they were captured and presented by General Knox in the siege of Boston or not. But nobody has denied that Francis C. Barlow '55, discharged at least one of them in the opening blows of the Civil War. In the confusion and excitement, one cannon ball was lodged in a brick foundation on Brattle St.

When World War I broke out, the U.S. Government took possession of the Common. A barbed wire fence encircled several barracks where the Naval Radio School held maneuvers. After a brief period when the plot became a playground, the second World War brought the Navy back again.

In retrospect, the old Common is one of the best examples of the cyclical theory of history. It is unfortunate however that destiny has never allowed the Common to become more than a dust-bowl. One writer of local history has suggested that the next monument be "not of marble or bronze but good, stubborn grass seed."