Last updated: February 3, 2025
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A Window Into the 1700s: The Marrett House and Family of Cambridge
NPS Photo / Kate Hanson Plass
Before the construction of the Georgian mansion that stands at 105 Brattle Street today, this spot on the road to Watertown was the site of an earlier English colonial house. Archeological excavations in 2003 and 2022 uncovered the foundation of the Marrett house in the present forecourt (front yard) of the Vassall-Craigie-Longfellow House. Combining the tools of archeological investigations, ground penetrating radar and other geophysical imaging, and research in the historical record produce a picture of life in Cambridge for two generations of this settler family.
The Marrett Cellar Hole Excavation
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Hear from archeologists and park staff about the 2022 excavations of the Marrett House Cellar and the relationship of historical research and geophysical imaging technology.
The story of the Marretts in Cambridge begins with Thomas Marrett (1589-1664) and his wife Susanna Craniwell Marrett, who brought their family from Ipswich, England to settle in Cambridge, Massachusetts around 1635. The lives of Thomas, Susanna, and their descendants can be traced through entries found in the registry of deeds, probate records, church and vital records, and the town records of Cambridge.
Thomas Marrett, a shoemaker, owned property around today’s Widener Library at Harvard University and held leadership roles in the colonial town. Thomas and Susanna Marrett had at least five children; their son John and his wife Abigail Richardson had 11 children, including the builder of the Marrett house on today’s Brattle Street, Amos Marrett.
Lieutenant Amos Marrett (1658-1739)
Amos Marrett, born February 25, 1657, continued the legacy of his father and grandfather before him by serving the Town of Cambridge while building up his personal estate.
On November 2, 1681, at age twenty-three, Amos Marrett married Bethia Longhorn. Bethia and Amos remained married for nearly fifty years but had no children. Like many of his contemporaries, Amos Marrett worked in a variety of trades, cultivating his land as a yeoman, and working as a brickmaker and cooper, or barrel maker. In addition, he served in several different roles for the town: a hogreeve (responsible for making sure that local hogs had a ring placed in their nose to discourage destructive rooting behaviors), fence-viewer, constable, surveyor of highways, and Selectman. In the 1700s, Amos Marrett used the title “Lieutenant.” This title was likely an honorific based on his status in the town. Amos Marrett’s military career consisted of about two weeks supporting a militia supply convoy in King Philip’s War in December 1675.
After his father’s death, Amos started working to grow the family estate on the road to Watertown. In 1698, Amos purchased a twenty-acre tract of land that contained meadow, marshland, and upland. This was the first of over twenty tracts of land Amos purchased over the next thirty years.
In 1704, Amos bought a ten-acre tract of land from Francis Foxcroft characterized by its orchards and being bounded westerly by his brother Edward Marrett’s land and southerly by the road to Watertown. This tract, known to Foxcroft’s contemporaries as the Willis orchard, contained the lot that Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site occupies on Brattle Street today. The deed for this purchase does not mention a house – the historical record does not document the existence of structures until 1732. The physical evidence uncovered in the foundation suggests that Amos Marrett built a small house on the property around this time.
Over the next two decades, Amos continued to make real estate investments. Amos’ ability to make land purchases was no doubt aided by his role as a Selectman. His seat on a committee in 1706 put him in the position of selling land on behalf of the town. In 1707, when it came time to grant the lands laid out by the committee, Amos acquired nine and a quarter acres in the “2nd Squadron”, nine and a quarter acres “In the Ware Field,” and fifteen acres in the “tenth Squadron. . . a tract of Land Called Jackson’s Corner.” Amos again played a role in shaping the town when he served on a committee that laid out the boundary between Cambridge and Billerica in 1709 and between Cambridge and Lexington in 1714. He continued to serve on committees like these throughout the 1710s and 1720s as he built up his lands, wealth, and prestige.
NPS Photo / Kate Hanson Plass
Amos’ wife Bethia passed away on November 20, 1730. Without his own children, Amos Marrett named his nephew and namesake as his heir. On September 14, 1732, Amos deeded the northern half of his house, the western half of his barn, 8.5 acres of orchard land in Cambridge, and seven acres of pastureland in Watertown, to his brother Edward’s son Amos, “for and in consideration of the love good will and affection which I have and do bear towards my loving nephew Amos Marrett Jr.” A week later, on September 21, 1732, Amos Jr. married Mary Dunster. Amos Jr. and Mary most likely moved into Amos Sr.’s home with him on the road to Watertown in 1732.
Two months after his nephew wed Mary Dunster, Amos Sr. married a relative of Mary’s, Ruth Dunster. Ruth Dunster, born Ruth Pierce, had outlived two spouses: Joshua Eaton, and lately Jonathan Dunster. In 1739, Amos Sr. passed away. He was buried in the Old Burying Ground next to his first wife, Bethia Marrett. He left the remainder of his house and lands to Amos Jr., with some exceptions made on behalf of Ruth while she remained his widow. Ruth outlived Amos and married a fourth and final time, to Peter Hayes, on October 29, 1742.
NPS Photo
Mr. Amos Marrett (1703-1747)
Amos Marrett Jr. was by trade a glazier, or someone who cuts and installs glass, like his father Edward Marrett. He was also a gentleman farmer or “husbandman.” Throughout his life, he continued the tradition of real estate investment he inherited from his forebears.
As newlyweds, Amos and Mary Marrett likely lived in a portion of the house deeded to him by his uncle. From 1733 to 1741, the couple had six children, two of whom died young.
Amos, Mary, and their surviving children—Ruth, Amos, Mary, and John—lived in the house “on the King’s Road to Watertown” until 1747, when Amos sold Colonel John Vassall six and a half acres containing “the dwelling house and another edifice thereon” for a sum of 1320 pounds. He had also sold Colonel John Vassall another tract of land containing fifty acres in Cambridge and Watertown the previous year. Amos and the family moved to a piece of land nearby over the Watertown line.
Amos passed away suddenly in 1747 at the age of forty-four. One of his sons, John Marrett, would be the first person in the family to graduate from Harvard College in 1763. In the span of about one hundred years, the Marretts had gone from being immigrant shoemakers to established middle class tradespeople with access to wealth, land, and education – and they continued to be a prominent family in the area for the next hundred years.
NPS Photo / Kate Hanson Plass
The Cellar Hole
Shortly after buying the Marrett estate, Colonel John Vassall passed away. He owned other property in Boston and probably never lived in the Marretts’ house on the King’s Road. After he died the house and lands passed to his minor son, also John Vassall. The younger John Vassall likely had the Marrett house demolished around 1759 to make way for the house that stands at 105 Brattle Street today. This Georgian mansion symbolized the immense wealth and elite status of the Vassall family, derived from the enslaved labor on their Jamaican sugar plantations. Though the more modest Marrett house no longer stands, the foundation it left behind remains, a symbol of the mark the Marretts made on Cambridge.
The footprint of the cellar hole itself illustrates the timeline. In 2022, archeologists found the wall along the road to be about 36 feet long – much longer than expected for a 24 x 18-foot house of the period. Differences in the east and west sides suggest two different stages of construction. The eastern side, built with smaller, local glacial cobbles and a shallow two-foot cellar, matches the expected 24 x 18-foot footprint. The western side consists of a 300 square foot addition, built with larger argillite stones brought from Somerville, a deeper four-foot cellar, and painted plaster finishes. The construction date of the addition is uncertain. Perhaps it aligned with the 1732 marriage of Amos Marrett and Mary Dunster and the transfer to him of half of his uncle’s house. Perhaps it was built by Amos and Mary following his uncle’s 1739 death to accommodate their growing family. Or perhaps Amos Marrett expanded the house following his aunt’s 1742 remarriage. In any case, its size and construction materials indicate a wealthier status than the original portion, built decades earlier.
NPS / Northeast Archeological Resources Program
The history of the Marrett house and its surrounding lands offers a glimpse into the evolution of life, trade, and family in colonial Cambridge across generations. Though the Marrett house no longer stands, its foundation, the artifacts unearthed there, and the documentary record highlight the legacy of ordinary families who played extraordinary roles in shaping the early history of New England. The physical remains of the Marrett cellar hole serve as a tangible connection to the past, a testament to the labor, aspirations, and resilience of the Marrett family. The Marrett family’s journey provides insights into the dynamic social and economic transformations of the 1700s and their lasting impact on the region. Further research is certain to illuminate more about the Marrett family and their life in Cambridge.
Sources
Dukes, Joel. “Unearthing the Past at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.” Public lecture at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, Cambridge, MA, November 17, 2022.
Dunster, Samuel. Henry Dunster and His Descendants. Central Falls, RI: E.L. Freeman & Co., Steam Book and Job Printers, 1876.
“Massachusetts: Vital Records, 1620-1850.” Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2001-2016.
“Massachusetts Land Records, 1620-1986.” Online Database: FamilySearch.org.
Maycock, Susan E. and Charles M. Sullivan. Building Old Cambridge. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016.
“Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871.” Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. Probate Files 1334, 14662, 14671, 14674.
The Records of the Town of Cambridge (formerly Newtowne) Massachusetts: 1630-1703: The Records of the Town Meetings, and of the Selectmen, Comprising All of the First Volume of Records, and Being Volume II. of the Printed Records of the Town. Cambridge, MA: City Council, 1901.
Womack, Amanda. “The Marretts of Massachusetts: Life in Cambridge.” November 2022. Report on file at Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters NHS.