Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or "Tory Row" before the American Revolutionary War, is the site of many buildings of historical interest, including the modernist glass-and-concrete building that housed the Design Research store, and a Georgian mansion where George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived (though at different times), as well as John Vassall and his seven slaves including Darby Vassall. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 about the seven Colonial mansions of Brattle Street's "Tory Row," called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." "As a fashionable address it is doubtful if any other residential street in this country has enjoyed such long and uninterrupted prestige."
Origins of Brattle Street as a forest path
Even before the settlement known as "Newe Towne" was planted on the site of the modern Cambridge, at the first good Charles River crossing west of Boston, the path or trail from Charlestown to Watertown ran past the site of the current Harvard Square and westward along much of what is now Brattle Street.
In early 17th century Newe Towne, according to historian John Fiske, "On the north side of Braintree Street, opposite Dunster, and thence eastward about as far as opposite the site of Linden, stood a row of six houses, and at their back was the ancient forest. Through this forest ran the trail or path from Charlestown to Watertown, nearly coinciding with the crooked line Kirkland - Mason - Brattle - Elmwood - Mount Auburn; this was the first highway from the seaboard into the inland country." Where the current Ash Street intersects the current Brattle Street stood Newe Towne's West Gate, a palisaded fence to keep cattle out of the town.
Eighteenth-century Brattle Street and "Tory Row"
During the 18th century, seven mansions were built along the main road to Watertown (which included not only the modern Brattle Street but also what is now Elmwood Avenue). Because many of their owners were Loyalists during the American Revolution, these houses got the nickname "Tory Row". During and after the Revolution, many were confiscated by George Washington's army. Some of these were, however, later restored to the families of their former owners.
Even as the Tory Row mansions were being built, however, the forest remained a nearby presence in Cambridge. As late as 1759, a Harvard student writing home reported "many bears killed at Cambridge and the neighboring towns about this time, and several persons killed by them." In the same year, 1759, the house at 105 Brattle Street was built, of which more below.
Provincial militia leader William Brattle, at one time the wealthiest man in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, is thought to be the Brattle for whom the street was named. He had the house at 42 Brattle Street built for him in 1727. Brattle tried to keep peace between patriots and the British, but after the 1774 incident known as the Powder Alarm, an angry mob surrounded his house and forced him to flee.
The Baroness Riedesel, whose husband commanded the Brunswick regiments that supported the British, spent much of the wartime "imprisoned" at 149 Brattle Street, the old Tory Row mansion now commonly called the Lechmere-Sewall-Riedesel House. She has left a charming painting in words of the Tory society on Brattle Street before the Revolution came: "Never had I chanced upon such an agreeable situation. Seven families, who were connected with each other, partly by the ties of relationship and partly by affection, had here farms, gardens, and magnificent houses, and, not far off, plantations of fruit. The owners of these were in the habit of daily meeting each other in the afternoons, now at the house of one and now at another, and making themselves merry with music and the dance,— living in prosperity, united and happy, until, alas! this ruinous war separated them, and left all their houses desolate, except two, the proprietors of which were also soon obliged to flee."
105 Brattle Street, Washington, and the Longfellows
Another Loyalist who fled Cambridge in 1774 was John Vassall, owner of the handsome yellow Georgian house at 105 Brattle Street, built for him in 1759. This vacant house was turned over in 1775 to George Washington, who took command of the Continental Army there. Washington used the rooms at the building's southeast corner, upstairs and down, for his private apartments, where his wife Martha Washington joined him in December, 1775. Washington lived in the house until July 1776.