Early History
The 1,000-acre (4.0 km2) district was granted to the town of Cambridge in 1734 as compensation for that town's responsibility in maintaining the first bridge across the Charles River connecting Boston to towns to the north, built in 1662. Known as the Cambridge Bridge Farm, it remained unsettled until 1770, when John Adams of Menotomy (West Cambridge Parish) became the first settler with his new bride, Joanna Munroe, daughter of the Munroe family of Lexington, Massachusetts, owners of the Munroe Tavern. He was soon followed by other family members, including his father, Thomas Adams, Sr., his brother, Thomas Adams, Jr., his sister, Lucretia Adams Wetherbee, and his nephew, Thomas Russell, a relative of Jason Russell of the Jason Russell House. A community of interrelated settlers from the Adams and Russell families of Menotomy evolved. The principal occupation of many of the early settlers was the tanning of goat or sheep skins into Morocco leather.
Read more about this topic: Cambridge Grant Historic District
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—Alice Walker (b. 1944)
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