Eagle Feathers #254 – The Path to Newtowne

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

To us, it is venerably called Washington Street, in honor of George Washington, who was the leader of America’s Colonial Army and the nation’s first President. In colonial times, it was first called the Path from Charlestown to Watertown and later the Road to Newtowne. The original name for the city of Cambridge, the home of America’s first college, Harvard, was Newtowne.

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• Harvard was founded in 1636 by Governor John Winthrop and a group of men from Charlestown and Boston.
• Two years after the founding of the college, the name of Newtowne was changed to Cambridge because most of the governing men and clergy had roots in Old Cambridge, England.
• Upon his death in 1638, John Harvard, a young minister in Charlestown, left the college half of his estate of almost 1,600 pounds and his entire library. In gratitude of his gift, our first college was named after him.
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• Near the Road to Newtowne lies a granite shaft in Charlestown’s historic cemetery, Phipps Street Burying Ground, in memory of John Harvard which was built by former Harvard students.
• The first printing press in America went to print on September 25, 1639. It was Harvard College’s press; and for forty years, it was the only one used in the British Colonies.
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  Washington Street, the oldest road in Somerville, runs from the Charlestown/Somerville line near Sullivan Square, across Union Square and Beacon Street at the Cambridge line. Here, it changes into Kirkland Street, the oldest road in Cambridge and presses on, emerging into the historic Cambridge Common or the end of the Road to Newtowne. Kirkland Street was named after John Thomas Kirkland who was president of Harvard from 1810 to 1828.
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• During the British retreat from the Battle of Lexington, three Cambridge Minutemen were killed. They were buried close to the Cambridge Common.
• Two months after the Battle of Lexington, Patriots left the Common for the defense of Bunker Hill.
• The Common was then occupied by Continental troops for nine months during the siege of Boston.
• Under the old Elm tree on Cambridge Common on July 3, 1775, General George Washington took command of the Continental Army.
• On January 1, 1776, General Washington raised the first American flag at the summit of Somerville’s Prospect Hill.

The Road to Newtowne, Washington Street, is one of the most historic paths in the country.
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