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Changing Course home

Introduction
 
Assignments
 
The Native Americans' River
 
The River in the Revolution
 
Mills and Dams: An Engine of Economic
Development

 
Shaping The Environment: Mapping, Moving
and Bridging the Charles

 

The Harvard Ferry

The first ferry across the Charles River linked the peninsulas of Boston and Charlestown. This water-route offered the shortest route from Boston to Cambridge and other points west. In 1640, Massachusetts awared the privilege to operate this ferry to Harvard, to help the struggling and newly founded college financially. Harvard leased out the facilities and collected rent until 1785. The amount was probably about 30 pounds at first, and gradually increased. The ferry privilege provided Harvard's only regular income from outside sources.

In 1662, the "Great Bridge" opened which connected Cambridge to Brighton, about where the Anderson bridge carries JFK street across the river today. It was said to be the first large bridge in the colonies. Because much of the area below today's Harvard Square was marshland, a causeway was built to connect the bridge to more solid ground.

The distance from Harvard to Boston via this bridge was 8 miles, and the route took almost twice as long as taking the ferry through Charlestown. The major threat to Harvard's ferry service came in 1785, when John Hancock and 83 others received a state charter to build the Charles River Bridge at the site of the ferry. The 1,503 foot-long bridge opened on the eleventh anniversary of Bunker Hill, in 1786, and was hailed as the greatest American bridge. It crushed Harvard's ferry service, but Harvard, claiming that its grant was perpetual, was paid the equivalent of 200 pounds per year for 70 years by the corporation running the new bridge.

Several bridges now cross the Charles between Boston and Charlestown, most recently the appropriately and historically named Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, created as part of the Big Dig.

   

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