The Cambridge of eighteen hundred and ninety-six: a picture of the city and its industries fifty years after its incorporation
Arthur Gilman, Ed.

[137] some modern Old Mortality, with the records of the first proprietors and the town, together with the needed tools of his profession in hand, will yet be commissioned to scan every stone, monument, and all records, for the names of those resting in this consecrated ground of the Fathers. We certainly owe this, ere it is too late, to those who shall come after us.

The city of Cambridge should add an honor to its semicenten-nial this year by erecting a simple monument or tablet near that of Jonathan Mitchel, in commemoration of Rev. Thomas Shepard, who died August 25, 1649. He made it possible for Cambridge to be honorably known everywhere as the ‘University City.’ An eye-witness and historian of his time says, ‘To make the whole world understand that spiritual learning was the thing they chiefly desired, to sanctify the other, and make the whole lump holy, and that learning, being set upon its right object, might not contend for error instead of truth, they chose this Place, being then under the orthodox and soul-flourishing Ministry of Mr. Thomas Shepheard.’

In 1885 the City Council placed this ancient burial-ground in charge of the Board of Cemetery Commissioners. By their direction it was thoroughly renovated, ornamental trees and shrubs were planted, the gravestones were righted and otherwise put in a condition suitably becoming the resting-place of so many of our honored dead.

About the year 1811, with the continued growth of East Cambridge and Cambridgeport, the old ground had become crowded, and ‘more than once’ entirely filled; then an urgent call was made for another burial-place. Two and one fourth acres of ground were purchased on Broadway, at the corner of Norfolk Street. This was used nearly a half century, mostly by the inhabitants of those sections of the town, until the year 1854, when the present cemetery on Coolidge Avenue was laid out under the direction of a committee appointed by the city government.

The services of consecration were held on the premises November 1, 1854, and this beautiful spot was sacredly set apart for its new purpose. Remarks on the occasion were made by Hon. Abraham Edwards, then mayor, and the consecration address was given by Rev. John A. Albro, D. D., who aptly said in reference to the place: ‘Its locality,—its natural features,—its seclusion from the great thoroughfares of life, make ’