(1 mile [1.6 kilometers] NW via Massachusetts Ave.) Established as Newtowne in 1630, this site across the Charles River from present-day Boston served as the first capital of the Bay Colony. The city’s long literary and scholarly tradition is reflected in its current university atmosphere, thanks to world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT (Massachusetts Ave.), and Harvard University (Harvard Square Information Center, +1 617 495 1573. Call for schedules of individual attractions). Founded in 1636, Harvard is the nation’s oldest institution of higher learning. Harvard Yard, the university’s heart, is the location of five of its oldest buildings, all Georgian structures dating from the 18th century: Massachusetts Hall (1720), Wadsworth House (1727), Holden Chapel (1744), Hollis Hall (1763), and Harvard Hall (1764).
Crowning the city’s most distinguished residential street, the Longfellow National Historic Site (105 Brattle St. +1 617 876 4491. May-Oct. Wed.-Sun.; Adm. fee) is a 1759 Georgian mansion. George Washington used the house as his headquarters at one point during the Revolution. For more than 40 years it was the home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). Much of the interior remains as it was in Longfellow’s day.
Cambridge’s oldest church, Christ Church (Zero Garden St. +1 617 876 0200) was built for the town’s elite Anglican community in 1761. George Washington took command of the Continental Army just outside, and during the Revolution the church housed colonial troops. The adjacent Old Burying Ground dates from 1635; early Harvard presidents are among those at rest here.
