Lucius R. Paige, History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1877, with a genealogical register, Chapter 18: education., page 370

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The first school-house known to have been erected in Cambridge stood on the westerly side of Holyoke Street, about midway between Harvard and Mount Auburn streets.¹ The lot was owned in 1642 by Henry Dunster, President of the College; it contained a quarter of an acre of land, on which there was then a house, which was not his dwelling-house. There are reasons for believing that the ‘faire Grammar Schoole’ had been established in that house, and that it remained there five or six years. It seems probable that the ‘school-house’ mentioned in the following ‘agreement’ was afterwards erected on that lot, and designed for that school:—

Articles of agreement between Henry Dunster and Edward Goffe on the one party and Nicholas Withe and Richard Wilson, Daniel Hudson, masons, on the other party, witness as followeth:²

1. Impr. That we Nicolas Wite, Richard Wilson and Daniel Hudson, masons, have undertaken to get at Charlestowne Rock one hundred and fifty load of rock stone, and to lay them in convenient place whence they may be fetched with carts, and that betwene this present third month 1647 and the tenth of the ninth month next ensuing, for the which stones Henry Dunster and Edward Goffe covenant to pay to us sixe pence the load.

2. Item. That we the foresaid three masons will wal or lay the said stones in wall for twelve pence the yard, so long as we lay any side of the said wall within the ground, and the other answering wals at the same price until they come to the hight of the wal that lieth within the grounde, albeit that these wals should ly both sides of the ground to the open ayre, and that wee will measure all this cellar or in ground wall within the house.

3. Item. That we will lay in wal the saide stones above ground a foote and a halfe thick at the least, at the middle story, and soe proportionally gathering in until it end in the wal plats

1 This lot was used for a school-house until 1769; not many years later, a printing office was erected on nearly if not precisely the same spot, which has thus been devoted almost continuously to the cause of literature.

2 For a copy of these ‘articles of agreement,’ made by him from the original in 1845, I am indebted to John Wingate Thornton, Esq., of Boston.

Boston. Houghton and Mifflin. 1877.

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

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