Preserved on Bridge Land скачать в хорошем качестве

Preserved on Bridge Land

Please use this URL to support this project https://forms.gle/GK9jkVfvQNtecfp79 For more than three hundred years, three houses built by the Bridge family have stood on Lexington soil. In the early decades of New England’s settlement, Deacon John Bridge emerged as one of the most influential figures in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A respected civic and religious leader in Cambridge, he helped establish the first church there and was a key supporter of the fledgling Harvard College. His statue still stands today at the northeast corner of Cambridge Common. John Bridge acquired farmland on the eastern edge of Cambridge’s territory, land that lies within present-day Lexington, extending westward from Lincoln Street, across Marrett Road, and beyond. That land remained in the Bridge family for generations. A century later, the houses of John, Samuel, and Joseph Bridge stood on that land. When the American Revolution began, Joseph, the eldest of the three, was in his mid-seventies. When fighting broke out on Lexington Green, the Bridge homesteads stood within earshot of the alarm, as their children and grandchildren answered the call under Captain John Parker. Remarkably, these eighteenth-century witness houses still stand today. In the twentieth century, the Bridge name entered daily life in new ways. The Bridge Elementary School opened. Bridge Street carried traffic through town. As transportation patterns changed, Bridge Street was cut off from Marrett Road and a traffic light was installed at the intersection. The Joseph Bridge House was screened by trees, altered by additions, and gradually obscured from public view. Last year, under pressure from zoning changes and modern development, the Joseph Bridge House again faced a moment of consequence. Working with the Lexington Historical Commission, a plan was secured to preserve the Joseph Bridge House by relocating it further along Marrett Road, overlooking the Old Reservoir, where it will continue to stand on Bridge land.