History Cambridge has spent 2024 focused on the history of North Cambridge, including the people who have inhabited the neighborhood, the occupations that employed them and the buildings, streets and public places they created. This is the story of an industry that was once prominent in North Cambridge – the manufacture of horse-drawn carriages – and a building it left behind.
In the 1800s, most New England towns had one or two village blacksmiths fashioning everything from door latches to axes to wagon wheels. In Cambridge at midcentury, blacksmith shops were concentrated on Church and Palmer streets in Harvard Square. Though many blacksmiths handled a variety of metalworking assignments, some began specializing in the manufacture of carriages, according to Susan Maycock and Charles Sullivan, authors of Building Old Cambridge.
Fire was a constant threat for blacksmith shops, where metal was heated and shaped in charcoal- or coal-fired forges. A fire in Harvard Square in 1856 leveled nearly a whole block of wood-framed buildings used by carriage makers, wheelwrights and carpenters. They quickly learned to rebuild in brick or relocate to less densely developed parts of town.
Blacksmith Robert Henderson set up shop in a sparsely populated part of North Cambridge in 1841, and members of his family joined him in making carriages in the 1860s. His son John Henderson recalled in a 1919 reminiscence, “May 1, 1856 started a Wheelwright Shop in the rear of Father’s Blacksmith Shop in a barn. I worked for Father for two years without wages. When I was twenty-one years old Father wanted me to take the Shop and pay rent and board which I did. Robert Jr. and I started to buy and sell, repair, and build wagons, carriages, etc.” In 1869, the sons, operating as Henderson Brothers, built a large carriage showroom and storage building, called a “repository,” on what is now Massachusetts Avenue, just north of Porter Square. It was the largest building in North Cambridge at the time. They added woodworking, painting and blacksmith shops at the rear of the lot.
In the 1800s, this section of Massachusetts Avenue – then known as North Avenue – was part of an important overland link between the farms of northern Middlesex County and the markets of Boston, making it a good location for manufacturers of horse-drawn conveyances. In 1848, a man named Walter Allen built a carriage shop at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and what is now Allen Street. In 1863, Francis Ivers took over Allen’s business, operating it until World War I. Other carriage makers opened for business on Cedar Street in North Cambridge, capitalizing on the economic prosperity of the early 1870s.
On a wintry night in March 1892 with deep snow covering the ground, the original Henderson Brothers repository on Massachusetts Avenue burned to the ground. Neighbors struggled to save some of the carriages stored in the building before its walls collapsed. Several houses on neighboring Hadley Street became uninhabitable as a result of the fire, and small businesses occupying storefronts in the Henderson building – including a jeweler, a stationery dealer, a plumber, a paper hanger and a shoe store – were displaced. The Cambridge Tribune reported a loss valued at $200,000.
(Image: History Cambridge)
The company then erected the building that exists today, using robust “mill-construction” techniques – thick brick exterior walls with heavy timber posts and beams inside. This type of construction was common in the textile mills of Lowell and Lawrence in the Merrimack Valley, because brick walls resisted the spread of flames from building to building and heavy wood beams were slow to burn, allowing workers to escape in case of fire. The new Henderson Brothers building was even larger than the one it replaced – five stories tall and 250 feet by 85 feet in plan. The Cambridge Tribune reported in 1893 that the firm employed between 40 and 60 skilled craftspeople.
During its heyday in the late 19th century, Henderson Brothers served a national market, producing a wide variety of carriages, wagons, sleighs and other horse-drawn vehicles. The firm offered seasonal carriage and sleigh storage in its repository, and in 1905 the Cambridge Chronicle reported that it had the capacity to house 2,400 vehicles. The article boasted that “no exposition in the world has ever exhibited one-half the vehicles which are shown in these immence [sic] repositories. There is here a splendid stock of both new and secondhand vehicles, from which to select.”
But soon, a new technology – the automobile, powered by the internal combustion engine – overtook the carriage business. In 1895 the first U.S. producer of gas-powered cars — the Duryea Motor Wagon Co. — began operations in Springfield. In 1908, Henry Ford introduced the Model T, the first widely affordable car using mass production techniques, and by 1913, Ford Motor Co. was producing vehicles in a newly built factory on Memorial Drive, near the Boston University Bridge.
The Henderson company did its best to adapt to the new reality, shifting in the 1910s from making carriages to developing truck bodies. The company still had as many as 35 employees in the 1920s. But by 1930, the company had ceased operations. Despite the number of carriage makers operating locally at the turn of the century, Cambridge did not become a national center of automobile manufacturing.
Coincidentally, the Henderson Carriage Building became the site of a Ford dealership in 1929, a function it served through the late 1970s.
In the decades after World War II, many of the mill buildings that once formed the backbone of New England’s manufacturing economy were lost to fire or neglect or site redevelopment. Some have been adapted to new uses and stand as visible reminders of earlier times. In the 1980s, the Henderson Carriage building was renovated by a private developer, creating the office and retail spaces that exist today. Though you can no longer shop for a horse-drawn sleigh here, the building lobby contains a vintage Henderson carriage that speaks to its role in the life of North Cambridge.
About History Cambridge
History Cambridge started in 1905 as the Cambridge Historical Society. Today we have a new name and a new mission. We engage with our city to explore how the past influences the present to shape a better future. We recognize that every person in our city knows something about Cambridge’s history, and their knowledge matters. We listen to our community and we live by the ideal that history belongs to everyone. Throughout 2024, we are focusing on the history of North Cambridge. Make history with us at historycambridge.org.
History Cambridge is a nonprofit organization. Our activities rely on your financial support. If you value articles like this one, give today.
Michael Kuchta is a volunteer with History Cambridge. This article contains material developed for “Born in Cambridge: 400 Years of Ideas and Innovators,” co-written by Kuchta and published by the MIT Press in 2022.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
Oh no! Someone should have stopped this. The automobile was bad for a local business.