Gunite Pool Opening Service Cambridge MA

Cambridge, Massachusetts
City
City Hall Widener Library Stata Center Central Square Harvard Yard Fresh Pond
Flag Seal
Motto:  Literis Antiquis Novis Institutis Decora (Latin) “Distinguished for Classical Learning and New Institutions”“
Location of Cambridge in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts Location in Boston Metro Show map of Greater Boston area Cambridge, Massachusetts Location in Massachusetts Show map of Massachusetts Cambridge, Massachusetts Location in the United States Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 42°22′25″N 71°06′38″W / 42.37361°N 71.11056°W / 42.37361; -71.11056
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
County	Middlesex
Region	New England
Settled	1630
Incorporated	1636
City	1846
Named after	University of Cambridge
Government
• Type	Council–manager
• Mayor	Sumbul Siddiqui
• Vice mayor	Burhan Azeem
• City manager	Yi-An Huang
Area
• Total	7.10 sq mi (18.40 km)
• Land	6.40 sq mi (16.57 km)
• Water	0.71 sq mi (1.83 km)
Elevation	39 ft (12 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	118,403
• Density	18,510.7/sq mi (7,147.01/km)
• Demonym	Cantabrigian
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (Eastern)
ZIP Codes	02138–02142
Area code	617 / 857
FIPS code	25-11000
GNIS feature ID	0617365
Website	cambridgema.gov

Cambridge ( KAYM-brij) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city’s population as of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the most populous city in the county, the fourth-largest in Massachusetts behind Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, and ninth-most populous in New England. The city was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, which was an important center of the Puritan theology that was embraced by the town’s founders.

Founded in December 1630 during the colonial era, Cambridge was one among the first cities established in the Thirteen Colonies, and it went on to play a historic role during the American Revolution. In May 1775, approximately 16,000 American patriots assembled in Cambridge Common to begin organizing a military retaliation against British troops following the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On July 2, 1775, two weeks after the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia formally established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington commander of it, Washington arrived at Cambridge Common to take command of the Patriot soldiers camped there. Many of these soldiers played a role in supporting Washington’s successful siege of Boston, which trapped garrisoned British troops from moving by land, forcing the British to ultimately abandon Boston. Cambridge Common is thus celebrated as the birthplace of the Continental Army.

Harvard University, an Ivy League university founded in Cambridge in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lesley University, and Cambridge College also are based in Cambridge. Radcliffe College, a women’s liberal arts college, was based in Cambridge from its 1879 founding until its assimilation into Harvard in 1999.

Kendall Square, near MIT in the eastern part of Cambridge, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet” due to the high concentration of startup companies that have emerged there since 2010. In 2022, Cambridge was home to over 250 biotech companies, with more than 120 located within the Kendall Square ZIP Code.

Native Americans inhabited the Charles River basin for thousands of years prior to European colonization of the Americas, as confirmed by archaeological remains in neighboring Watertown and Boston. At the time of European contact, the area was inhabited by Naumkeag of the Pawtucket Confederacy to the north and Massachusett to the south.

The contact period introduced a number of European infectious diseases which would decimate native populations in virgin soil epidemics, significantly depopulating the Charles River basin upon the arrival of large groups of English settlers in the 1630s. A deed for the land that includes present-day Cambridge was ultimately obtained from the Naumkeag Squaw Sachem of Mistick in 1639, after a leptospirosis epidemic in 1616-19 and a smallpox epidemic in 1633 killed large portions of her tribe, including two of her sons.

Some sources list Cambridge as the English toponym for Anmoughcawgen, meaning ‘fishing weir’ or ‘beaver dam’ in Natick, however this misconception arises from John Smith’s 1617 Description of New England, in which Cambridge was one of several English place names arbitrarily applied by Smith and Prince Charles I of England, in this case to a location on the Kennebec River in Maine, far to the north of the later settlement of Cambridge, which was not so named until 1638. An indigenous place name for the present day location of Cambridge is not known, though other native place names along the Charles in the 1600s included Pequoset and Nonantum upstream and Mishawum and Shawmut downstream, while the Charles River (also named by Smith) was known as the Quinobequin.

The first settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established in Salem, in June of 1626. That December, the site of present-day Cambridge was chosen for development because it was safely upriver from Boston Harbor, making it easily defensible from attacks by enemy ships. The city was founded by Thomas Dudley, his daughter Anne Bradstreet, and his son-in-law Simon Bradstreet. The first houses were built in the spring of 1631. The settlement was initially referred to as “the newe towne”. Official Massachusetts records show the name rendered as Newe Towne by 1632, and as Newtowne by 1638.

Located at the first convenient Charles River crossing west of Boston, Newtowne was one of several towns, including Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, and Weymouth, founded by the 700 original Puritan colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who arrived on the Winthrop Fleet. Its first preacher was Thomas Hooker, who led many of its original inhabitants west in 1636 to found Hartford and the Connecticut Colony; before leaving, they sold their plots to more recent immigrants from England. The original village site is now within Harvard Square. The marketplace where farmers sold crops from surrounding towns at the edge of a salt marsh (since filled) remains within a small park at the corner of John F. Kennedy and Winthrop Streets.

In 1636, Newe College, later renamed Harvard College after benefactor John Harvard, was founded as North America’s first institution of higher learning. Its initial purpose was training ministers. According to Cotton Mather, Newtowne was chosen for the site of the college by the Great and General Court, then the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, primarily for its proximity to the popular and highly respected Puritan preacher Thomas Shepard. In May 1638, the settlement’s name was changed to Cambridge in honor of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.

In 1639, the Great and General Court purchased the land that became present-day Cambridge from the Naumkeag Squaw Sachem of Mistick.

The town comprised a much larger area than the present city, with various outlying parts becoming independent towns over the years: Cambridge Village (later Newtown and now Newton) in 1688, Cambridge Farms (now Lexington) in 1712 or 1713, and Little or South Cambridge (now Brighton) and Menotomy or West Cambridge (now Arlington) in 1807. In the late 19th century, various schemes for annexing Cambridge to Boston were pursued and rejected.

Newtowne’s ministers, Hooker and Shepard, the college’s first president, the college’s major benefactor, and the first schoolmaster Nathaniel Eaton were all Cambridge alumni, as was the colony’s governor John Winthrop. In 1629, Winthrop had led the signing of the founding document of the city of Boston, which was known as the Cambridge Agreement, after the university. In 1650, Governor Thomas Dudley signed the charter creating the corporation that still governs Harvard College.

Cambridge grew slowly as an agricultural village eight miles (13 km) by road from Boston, the colony’s capital. By the American Revolution, most residents lived near the Common and Harvard College, with most of the town comprising farms and estates. Most inhabitants were descendants of the original Puritan colonists, but there was also a small elite of Anglican “worthies” who were not involved in village life, made their livings from estates, investments, and trade, and lived in mansions along “the Road to Watertown”, present-day Brattle Street, which is still known as Tory Row.