Our Legacy
We are sometimes asked what prompted us to name the firm the Cambridge Legacy Group. As is often the case, the answer is rather mundane. We didn’t want to name it after ourselves and we wanted it to have a feeling of tenure and tradition. Ben is of Scotch Irish decent and so we borrowed from the Cambridge name and, used Ben’s Scotch Irish Crest (Firm in Faith and War) and christened the firm, The Cambridge Legacy Group. Like its namesake, Cambridge Legacy started from humble beginnings. We expect it to develop into a global influence as a community for Trusted Advisors, and through the influence of the Cambridge Legacy Foundation and the International Student Foundation (see Cambridge Charities).
There are a number of communities throughout the United States that were influenced and named for Cambridge. The origins of Cambridge and some of its continuing legacy are listed below for those who share our interest in history and our passion for legacy. Like our country, much of what we hold dear and know to be true, is rooted in our faith based values… just as it was true for Cambridge, England… and Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Cambridge, England & Cambridge University
Cambridge is most famous for its historic university. However, Cambridge is far older than the university.
The original settlement was north of the river, on Castle Hill. There is evidence for pre-Roman activity in the area, but the Romans built the first town. It was a convenient crossing point of the river Cam, on the edge of the marshy fen land. The town was a port, since it was the head of the navigation of what was then known as the River Granta. The area by Magdalene Bridge is still known as Quayside, although now it only has punts.
In Anglo Saxon times, there was a settlement on Castle Hill, since it could be defended, and another close to St Benedict's Church (or St Bene't's as it's known in Cambridge). The tower of St Bene't's is Saxon, which makes it the oldest building in Cambridge. The city at the time was called Grantabrycge. At one time it came under Danish rule. St Clement's Church is near Quayside, and this dedication is common in Danish settlements. The Great Bridge (later replaced by Magdalene Bridge) may have built by King Offa (756 - 793). It was the last river crossing until King's Lynn. Cambridge had good trading links to the Continent and a market, and became prosperous.
The Normans built a castle on Castle Hill in 1068. It was particularly important to fortify Cambridge, since Hereward the Wake was defying Norman rule in Ely. All that is left of the castle is Castle Mound in the grounds of Shire Hall, off Castle Hill, belonging to Cambridgeshire County Council. If you climb to the top of the mound, you get a good view of Cambridge. It is the highest point of Cambridge, and allegedly, if you go north in a straight line, there is no higher ground until you reach the North Pole!
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre (usually known in Cambridge as the Round Church) is one of only four round Norman church in England. They were built by the Knights Templar. The round arches are typical of Norman church architecture.
By now, the town was known as Grentebrige or Cantebrigge. Eventually the name became Cambridge. However, the river was still called the Granta. Someone thought "Cambridge must be the bridge over the Cam, so the river should be called the Cam instead of the Granta", and so the river's name was changed! Upstream, where it flows through Grantchester, the River is still called the Granta. The Latin name for Cambridge is Cantabrigia, which is why degrees are called Cantab. However, this was not the Roman name for the town, which is unknown.
Barnwell Priory was founded in 1092, originally on Castle Hill, but later moved to area now known as Riverside, by the Elizabeth Way bridge. There is little left now apart from a church, St Andrews the Less, and a building known as the Cellarer's Checker. There were many other religious houses founded in Cambridge, including St Rhadegund's Nunnery, which gave its name to Maid's Causeway, and later became Jesus College. King John granted a charter to Cambridge in 1201 and the charter of 1207 is still in the possession of the city council.
The first recorded date connected with Cambridge University was 1209, when some Oxford students moved to Cambridge. Peterhouse, the first college, was founded in 1284. From this point, various colleges were founded. Some amalgamated previous colleges, or took over from priories (such as St Rhadegund). Corpus Christi was founded by the Guilds of Cambridge. As the university grew, trouble broke out between Town (the people who lived in Cambridge) and Gown (the students). The centre of the town was now definitely within the loop of the river, although you can still see older houses on the lower parts of Castle Hill, such as the Cambridge Folk Museum.
Henry VIII removed control of the university colleges from the religious bodies which had previously controlled them. There was much building at this time, including most of the splendid gatehouses, and Kings College Chapel was finished.
Oliver Cromwell was educated at Sidney Sussex College, and was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge in 1640 (previously he had been MP for Huntingdon). He became Lord Protector of England, and beheaded King Charles I. After Cromwell died, Charles II became king, and Cromwell's head was displayed as the head of a traitor. It is now buried in Sidney Sussex college, but they won't say where! Cromwell now has a statue outside the House of Commons in London.
In 1614, Cambridge needed a new water supply. Thomas Hobson built a causeway bringing water from springs at Nine Wells near Shelford outside Cambridge into the city centre. The channels still run along Trumpington Street, although the conduit head has been moved from the market place to the corner of Lensfield Road. Thomas Hobson hired out horses, but hirers had to take the horse closest to the door. This led to the expression "Hobson's Choice" meaning "No choice"!
There were no colleges founded from 1594 to 1800, and this was a time of decline, both in the university and the town. However, in late Victorian times, there were several colleges founded, including the first women's colleges (although degrees were not awarded to women until 1948). The university was developed as a centre of scientific research, based at the Cavendish Labs and the Downing Site. Famous scientists at Cambridge include:
- William Harvey - discovered the circulation of the blood in 1628
- Isaac Newton - worked on gravitation in 1687
- Charles Darwin - described mechanism of evolution in 1859
- Ernest Rutherford - split the atom in 1903
- Crick and Watson - discovered the structure of DNA in 1953
- Professor Stephen Hawking - wrote Brief History of Time in 1988
However, there have been many famous writers connected with Cambridge as well.
In 1845 the railway reached Cambridge, and the Barnwell Enclosure Act of 1806 allowed development of the town to the south and east. Cambridge became a city in 1951. Twentieth century development has been to the north, east and south, although the size of the city has not grown for some time, because of planning restrictions. There is some striking modern architecture in Cambridge, such as the Judges Institute. Future development of the city is under consideration, and the university is expanding to the west. For an account of modern Cambridge, see Cambridge economy.
Some websites for further information:
Cambridge, Massachusetts & Harvard University
In 1630, a fleet of 11 ships carrying 700 passengers, set sail from England, bound for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This dedicated band of Puritans hoped to build their community around a purer, more Biblical church.
The newcomers settled several villages around Massachusetts Bay, but could not agree on a capital. Seeking a protected site, John Winthrop and his assistants chose a small hill on the north bank of the Charles River, at the entrance to a small creek, 5 miles upstream from Boston. The Charles was deep enough to accommodate the era's large ships, yet the passage was treacherous for those unfamiliar with the narrow channel. Later, a "pallysadoe," a series of stockade fences and a trench, was built around the town.
Newtowne, as Cambridge was known until 1638, was laid out in an orderly grid of streets, bounded today by Eliot Square and Linden Street, Massachusetts Avenue and the River. Each family owned a house lot in the village, planting fields outside, and a share in the common land. Boston was eight long miles away: a ferry at the foot of JFK Street carried passengers over the river to a path -- now North Harvard Street -- that led through Brookline and Roxbury, eventually traversing the spit of land that is now Washington Street. Until the Great Bridge was built in 1660-62, this was the only way to Boston, except via the ferry from Charlestown.
Soon, Newtowne had a meetinghouse, a school, and a marketplace (Winthrop Square). Harvard College, one of the first colleges in America, was founded in 1636, to train young men for the ministry and for positions of leadership within the godly community.
By the time of the American Revolution, Cambridge was a quiet New England farming village clustered near the Common and the College. The majority of residents were descendants of the original Puritans -- farmers, artisans, and tradesmen, whose lives focused on Cambridge. Distinctly different were a small group of Anglicans -- barely a dozen households -- who lived apart from village affairs, relied on outside incomes, and entertained lavishly in grand homes along Tory Row (now Brattle Street). The Tories' houses and their church, Christ Church, still survive.
William Dawes rode out Massachusetts Avenue on his way to Concord on April 18, 1775. The following afternoon, four Cambridge Patriots died in a skirmish with retreating British regulars at the corner of Massachusetts and Rindge Avenues. The provisional government confiscated many Loyalist estates -- George Washington used the Vassal-Craigie-Longfellow House as his headquarters for nine months in 1775-6. During the Siege of Boston, the General supervised the construction of three earthenwork forts along the Cambridge side of the Charles River. The remains of one, Fort Washington, can still be seen in Cambridgeport. (For more on Revolutionary-era Cambridge, click here).
Cambridge became a city in 1846, uniting three rival villages -- Old Cambridge, Cambridgeport and East Cambridge.
Old Cambridge had grown slowly and still retained its charming rural character. Small shops catered to the community and to students. Drawn by Harvard, and later Radcliffe College, brilliant men and women imparted an intellectual luster to the village. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz (founder of Radcliffe), William Dean Howells -- all were seen on the streets of the village.
Before the opening of the West Boston (now Longfellow) Bridge in 1793, only three families lived east of Quincy Street. The bridge offered the first direct route from Cambridge to Boston and cut the distance between the two from 8 to 3 miles. Cambridgeport grew up along the roads leading to the bridge. Pleasant residential neighborhoods spread out from Massachusetts Avenue, while Central Square became the city's true downtown. Margaret Fuller, writer and editor -- and the first woman allowed to use the Harvard library -- grew up in Cambridgeport, as did Richard Henry Dana, author of Two Years Before the Mast. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison was a resident.
East Cambridge was opened for development in 1809, when the Canal Bridge, adjacent to the present Museum of Science, was completed. The area was the city's major industrial center until the 1880s. Furniture and glass factories were among the industries attracted to East Cambridge by cheap land, water transportation, and close proximity to Boston. Andrew Craigie, a leading Cambridge speculator, lured the Middlesex County courthouse and jail to East Cambridge by offering to donate new buildings in 1813. In 1841, social activist Dorothea Dix was outraged by conditions in the jail and began her pioneering work in prison reform.
The devastating potato blight that struck Ireland in 1845 caused many of that country's rural population to flee. Thousands landed in Boston and Cambridge, destitute and without resources. Many Irish immigrants worked in the clay pits and brickyards of North Cambridge, housed in crowded workers' cottages. The majority of the city's Irish lived in East Cambridge, laboring at unskilled jobs in the glass works and furniture factories. They developed a close-knit community, centered on and supported by the Catholic church. By 1855, twenty-two percent of the adults in East Cambridge were Irish-born.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, immigrants from Italy, Poland, and Portugal began to arrive in the city, settling primarily in Cambridgeport and East Cambridge. French Canadians and Russian Jews came at this time, as well, settling in North Cambridge and Cambridgeport, respectively.
A small population of African Americans had lived in Cambridge from the earliest Colonial days, and in the early nineteenth century Cambridge's integrated schools attracted many families from Boston. Harriet Jacobs, born a slave in North Carolina, ran a boarding house in Cambridge in the 1870s. She had lived in hiding for 7 years before escaping to the North and later wrote an account of her years in bondage, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Educator Maria Baldwin, a native Cantabrigian, held home study classes for Harvard's black students, including W.E.B. DuBois. In 1889, she was appointed headmaster of the Agassiz School, the first African American to hold such a position in the North. Twenty markers commemorating prominent Cambridge African Americans have been erected throughout the city. (For more information on the Cambridge African American Heritage Trail, click here).
Today, Cambridge is home to a culturally diverse population of over 95,000. Over fifty languages may be heard on the streets of the city, including Spanish, Creole, Portuguese, Chinese, Amharic, and Korean. Children from 82 different countries of origin attend the public schools. College students from around the world study at Harvard, Radcliffe, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lesley College. The heavy industries of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been replaced by technology-based enterprises, including electronics, self-developing film and cameras, software and biotechnology research.
--Cambridge Historical Commission
The Legacy Continues
Other states that have communities named for Cambridge include Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. In all, there are reported to be thirteen. Warships also have been named for Cambridge.
The Cambridge Legacy Group currently serves clients as Trusted Advisors in twenty states and the number is growing. In five years, we expect to be in all fifty states with an international presence. And thus, the Cambridge Legacy continues…
