Elmwood
The Elmwood Mansion was central to Cambridge’s involvement in the first years of the Revolutionary War. At the time of the American Revolution Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver owned the Elmwood Mansion. Elmwood was the last house on “Tory Row.” Tory Row was a name given to the road to Watertown, which today is most closely approximated by Brattle Street, but was defined by a set of seven mansions, which were the grandest houses in Cambridge and were built by some of the wealthiest loyalists in the Colony. The land from the Brattle House to Elmwood was owned by seven families and each estate included land stretching down to the Charles River and back for acres including orchards and formal gardens. The opulence of these houses and the loyalty of their owners to the Crown offended many of the Cambridge locals.
In response to the Boston Tea Party the British Parliament established several new laws to punish the city of Boston. These laws were known as the Intolerable Acts. These acts included the closure of the port of Boston and the abolishment of elected governments to be replaced by a council appointed by the King known as the Mandamus Council. Three Cambridge men were appointed to the Mandamus Council including Judge Danforth, Judge Lee and Lieutenant Governor Oliver. The Mandamus Council consisted of 36 appointed men, 24 of whom accepted, and nine eventually resigned. At the first meeting of the Mandamus Council in 1774 it abolished the Massachusetts’ Great Court, making itself the only governing power. This decision enraged many citizens of Massachusetts.
On September 2, 1774 thousands of people gathered on the Cambridge Common to protested the seizure of Provincial gunpowder in Somerville and creation of the Mandamus Council. The thousands of protestors demanded the resignation of the Cambridge appointees. Judge Danforth and Judge Lee spoke to the crowd and immediately resigned. The crowd then proceeded to march down Tory Row toward Elmwood to demand that Lieutenant Governor Oliver resign. Oliver resigned that evening citing, “My House being surrounded by about four thousand people in compliance with their commands I sign my name.” In fear of his safety, like other Tory families along Tory Row, Lieutenant Governor Oliver abandoned his home within months after the protest.
Once minutemen from all over New England came to Cambridge after the Battle of Lexington and Concord the houses along Tory Row were seized and used as headquarters and hospitals. Elmwood was a hospital throughout the Siege of Boston to tend to those wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Elmwood Today
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