First' From a Cambridge Original

There is a most definite air of history surrounding Charles Eliot. On the brass plate on the door of the house he grew up in, the inscription of the family name is gradually fading away. The 106-year-old house is being repainted now, but not even the smell of lacquer could hide the mustiness of the library where Eliot sits, clad in a kind of somber pinstripe suit he wore when he taught at Harvard.

In a tattered armchair, Eliot sits, facing the black, leather chair that his grandfather--President Charles Eliot of Harvard--once took to college. The name Eliot is practically synonymous with historical Cambridge. His father wrote the official history of the town and was president of the Cambridge Historical Society, but now--one year after he gave up his official position--he studies the history of Cambridge only as a hobby.

Eliot says that in the 80 years he's been in and out of Cambridge a lot of things have changed. His timeline of important dates in Cambridge's history is evidence enough. But one thing hasn't changed--for a relatively small city, Cambridge has an unusually strong record of producing important people, inventions and ideas. Always an intellectual and ethnic mecca, Cambridge has brought the United States everything from the porterhouse steak (served in the 19th century at Porter's Tavern) to the sewing machine to frozen yogurt. Eliot has compiled an unofficial list of "Cambridge firsts."

1631: First town plan in America.

Long, long before they decided to design the nation's capital city, the residents of Newtowne had come up with an idea that their city should be organized. Eliot, a former professor of Landscape Architecture and Plannig, says they designed a gridiron layout iwith a town center--a market place of sorts--where Winthrop Square stands today. Of the eight houses in the square, one was destined for Gov. Winthrop but it collapsed while under construction. Winthrop decided to stay in Boston.

1636: First college in America

In the same year that 90 of Newtowne's 100 families fled the city for Hartford, Conn. (they were following the Rev. Thomas Hooker), the General Court ordered 400 pounds (a princely sum then) put aside for the establishment of a college.

1639: First printing press in America

1774: American Revolution begins

Although everybody likes to talk about the battles at Lexington and Concord, it actually started here. The British Mandamus councillors Lee and Danforth--closely followed by Lt. Governor Oliver--were forced to resign by the angry townspeople. The die was cast.

1775: First American Army organized

It was under a tree on the Cambridge Common, or so legend has it, that General George Washington took command of the first battalion of American Troops. Shortly thereafter, Cambridge was proclaimed the army's headquarters.

1775: First American flag

So you believe all those rumors about Besty Ross and the late nights? The American flag was actually conceived in Cambridge, where a seamstress was asked to put together the familiar 13 bars with a British emblem of some kind. Nobody's really quite sure exactly why it was done, but the army needed something to march under.

1780: First constitution in America

A group of firebrands and revolutionaries gathered in a meetinghouse foreshadowed the later work in Philadelphia by the "fathers of the country." The constitution was approved and became the world's oldest document of its kind.

1785: First smallpox vaccination

Cambridge has produced a number of famous scientists--Louis Agassiz and Asa Gray to name two--but perhaps none so concerned with human welfare as Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse. Working in an office-lab, he laid the ground for the cure to smallpox.

1805: First botanic gardens

In the same year that Cambridgeport became an offical port of entry and trade, Professor Asa Gray of Harvard developed the nation's first botanical garden. There is some confusion over the date, however, because some believe it did not actually "open" until 1842.

1813/1818: First glass factory in America

The New England Glass Company opened in East Cambridge.

1832: First garden cemetery

Although high school and college students frequently prowl on the grounds of Mt. Auburn Cemetery, few know its historical significance. An enormous number of famous people--professors, Massachusetts politicians, authors, artists and the like are buried there, in the nation's first open-space garden cemetery.

1846: First sewing machine in America

One Elias Howe, who tinkered a lot in his basement, produced America's first sewing machine.

1842: First railway cars in United States

Davenport Inc. of Cambridge manufactured the first railway cars in the United States, marking the establishment of the rails as a primary mode of transportation.

1860: First volunteer regiment for Civil War

Capt. Richardson of Cambridge organized the first volunteer regiment to fight for the Stars and Stripes. The Cambridge company left shortly--few of its original members returned.

1876: First telephone conversation in America

The father of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, brought his invention to Cambridge and conducted the first telephone converstation in the United States. New England Telephone Co. immediately sought patent rights.

circa 1920: First atom split

Professor Theodore Richards of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told his colleagues he split the atom. Twenty years later, many of the men responsible for the Manhattan Project left Cambridge for Los Alamos, N.M.

1924: First radio tubes

MIT scientists foreshadowed their later discoveries of radar and the micro computer (1948) by developing the first radio tubes. Willie Marconi was not present.

1940: First commercial varnish

People had to use home-mixed brews until inventors at the Blacksmith Shop--near the present site of the coffee shop--mixed the first batch.

1947: First automatic camera developed

After formulating his ideas on the camera as a Harvard student, Edwin Land '26 opened a research laboratory in Cambridge. In late 1947 or early 1948, the instant camera was developed. Several months later, in November 1948, the first Polaroid cameras went on sale at the retail counters of Jordan Marsh.

1971: First frozen yogurt

Until it closed, the Spa of Harvard Square proudly proclaimed in its windows that on Feb. 13, 1971, the first frozen yogurt cone was served right there.

1977: First DNA regulations

After a long battle, City Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci saw his dreams come true when the Cambridge city council voted to limit recombinant DNA research within the city limits. Certain experiments would be allowed, the council told a shocked and angry audience from MIT and Harvard, but only under the strictest laboratory conditions.