Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register

[208] jury, and the case was continued to December, when the verdict was set aside by the Court, and it was ordered that another jury be empanelled. The case was then continued to March, and again to June, 1811, when Nathan Fiske, Coroner, returned the verdict of the jury, which the Court set aside, and continued the case to the next September, when neither party appeared.

On petition of the town of Cambridge, setting forth that two cases in which said town was petitioner for a jury to assess the damages, if any, suffered by Andrew Craigie and William Winthrop for “land taken for the highway from the Canal Bridge to Cambridge Common,” had accidentally been dropped from the docket of the Court of Sessions, and praying relief, the General Court, June 22, 1812, ordered the Court of Sessions “to restore said cases to the docket,” and to proceed “as if they had never been dismissed therefrom.” Accordingly, on the records of the Court of Sessions, Jan. 5, 1813, the former proceedings are recited, together with the action of the General Court, and a mandamus from the Supreme Judicial Court, requiring the Court of Sessions at this January Term, to “accept and cause to be recorded the verdict aforesaid, according to the law in such case made and provided, or signify to us cause to the contrary.” The record proceeds thus: “And on a full hearing of the parties in the premises, the Court here do accept said verdict, and do order that it be recorded; which verdict is as follows: We, David Townsend jr., Thomas Biglow, Thomas Sanderson, Nathaniel Brown, William Wellington jr., Jonas Brown, Ephraim Peirce, Jacob Gale, Moses Fuller, Thadeus Peirce, Arthur Train, and Gregory Clark, having been summoned, empanelled, and as a jury sworn to hear and determine on the complaint of the town of Cambridge against Andrew Craigie, have heard the parties, duly considered their several allegations, and on our oaths do say, that, by the laying out and establishing of the highway from Cambridge Common to Canal Bridge, and by the passage of the same highway over lands of Andrew Craigie, the said Craigie has sustained no damage.” It may be added, that the same proceedings were had in regard to the damage awarded to William Winthrop; and the jury, in like manner, determined that “the said Winthrop has sustained no damage.”

Thus ended the exciting contest concerning Mount Auburn and Cambridge streets. I have entered so fully into the details, partly because they illustrate the character of the long-continued rivalry between the two bridges, but chiefly because I have been