This article is reprinted from the June 2024 issue of “N.C. Postscripts to Growing Up in North Cambridge,” with thanks to editor Stephen Surette and author Anne Trant Sirois.
The humble worker’s cottage in North Cambridge that was my childhood home was bought by my great-grandparents, David M. Trant and Annie L. Griffin Trant, on Jan. 18, 1897. It was just sold by his remaining family.
The house had been built around 1844 on what was then called Spruce Street, and what had been formerly known as Kidder’s Lane and, before that, Poor House Lane. That street would get its final name change in honor of Frederick H. Rindge, a businessman, philanthropist and writer who was a major benefactor to his hometown of Cambridge. Thus, my family’s home address would ultimately become 315 Rindge Ave.
There are conflicting records, but my research showed that the house was built on land that had been a farm owned by Jonathan Bush. The Bush farmland and home were bought in 1852 by Peter Hubbell, a prominent Charlestown businessman who had established a brickyard around the same time the house was built on adjacent North Cambridge land, which was rich with clay.
Hubbell’s Brickyard became the largest brick-making establishment in the country at that time, producing 24 million bricks each season and employing 250 workers from April 1 to the middle of October.
There are so many questions left unanswered with the passing of the generations. David Trant was one the first American-born children in my direct line of descendants, along with his three siblings, John, Ellen and Johanna. On Oct. 1, 1863, their parents, James and Mary, bought two houses on Kidder’s Lane, now known as 340-342 Rindge Ave. and 344 Rindge Ave., for $600. The couple are buried in the North Cambridge Catholic Cemetery. Their two houses were conveyed to their four children upon my great-great-grandmother’s death, with their daughters sharing ownership of the bigger house in front and their sons co-owning the smaller house behind it. David eventually bought out John’s interest in that small house, and I believe he sold it five years later to purchase 315 Rindge Ave.
House was moved
The Cambridge Historical Commission reported that No. 315 was built for or by Peter Dorey, a brick maker at Hubbell’s Brickyard, but previous records show that Jonathan Bush built the house. With the passage of time, these records can become confusing, depending on who is doing the recording. What is known for certain is that the 1870 census listed Dorey and his wife and eight children living in the house. He conveyed it to Honora O’Riley in 1881. Her children sold it to my great-grandfather David, and thus it became the Trant Homestead for the next 127 years. The commission named it the Dorey-Trant house in its January report.
The house had originally been on the southerly side of Rindge Avenue next to Hubbell’s clay pit. There were other worker’s cottages built next to this one and used to house the Irish laborers who were the first wave of immigrants to work in the pits. A landslide reported in The Boston Herald on June 1, 1857, destroyed several houses, and left this one on the edge of a 40-foot deep pit. Yet it remained in place until 1867, when it was moved almost directly across to the northerly side of the street where it has stood ever since near the corner with Clifton Street. David passed away at the young age of 50. The house was inherited by his children Alice, Louis, Grace, James, David F. and my grandfather, Warren. The children transferred all the rights to the house back to their mother in 1915. Thus, Annie L. Trant, my father’s beloved grandmother, and the woman for whom I was named, became the sole owner.
My grandfather, Warren, made some improvements for his mother, including a 1930 addition to the front of the ell-shaped house. This large room with six windows and ornate columns leading into the parlor became a favorite spot for family gatherings. My parents turned it eventually into our dining room, though my mother always called it the sun parlor because the windows made it the brightest room in the house. It was my mother’s favorite spot to read while she sat in her rocking chair in the corner, the sunshine making it a welcoming retreat. My father had told me that the stairs to the second floor were moved from the kitchen to the center of the house and a stairway to the cellar was added below it. I don’t know if my grandfather did those renovations, but when walking into the cellar I see where the joists were cut – so it was a pretty big job, and he may have had help.
Changing and changing hands
Through my father’s many family stories, I learned that my grandfather, Warren – the youngest and the last child to leave home – was a devoted and doting son to Annie, and known to be her favorite. Not many years ago, as I was searching in the cellar for something else, I found a wooden chest that contained some of my grandfather’s things. Among them were letters Annie had written to Warren in January and February 1932.Annie provided in-home care to a woman in Norwood. I was told she had no formal training as a nurse. My mother told me she was also a midwife at one point. When Annie passed away in 1944, the house was left in her will to Warren, exclusively, for all the care he had provided her, especially after his father’s death. He and my grandmother, Catherine Margaret (Morrissey) Trant, known as Peggy, became the next owners of the home.
A bathroom was added where the pantry had been, a big improvement over the chamber pot Annie used while she lived there. Wood shingles were laid over the existing clapboard. Warren built the simple plywood kitchen cabinets that my mother was still using to store her dishes and all the boxes and cans of food she brought home from Market Basket.
My Gramma Peggy was not as enamored with the house as Grandpa Warren. According to my mother, she had always felt that it was still her mother-in-law’s house. Peggy’s mother, Brigid Fallon Morrissey, lived in East Cambridge but was born in Ireland, the daughter of a schoolmaster, and was highly educated. She spoke Gaelic and considered herself an Irish Patriot. My father wrote that “She had all the old Irish Republican speeches down pat.”
Before getting ownership on Rindge Avenue, Warren had bought a cottage at Nuttings Lake in Billerica at an auction in 1940 for the bargain price of $265. He moved his wife to the country each summer. I don’t know what that cottage looked like when he bought it, but when I started spending time there, it was painted in the same brown and white paint that covered No. 315, so it almost looked like a replica. In later years, the summer house became a favorite place for me to have sleepovers, my treasured weekends in the woods with my beloved Gramma.
The soul of that house
When my parents began dating in 1950, my mother was living in Central Square but came to North Cambridge often to spend time with my father. In my mother’s final year, I started recording some of her stories on video. One account, taken while she was in the hospital, was told with a sparkle in her eye and a little catch in her voice. She said that rather than make her go home to Central Square, my Gramma Peggy would insist she sleep over. She would make her warm milk and tuck her into the extra bed in my aunt’s bedroom. My mother was 17 years old then, but I know she cherished feeling that motherly love that my Gramma was so well-known for dispensing.
Clearly, my mother earned a place in both of my grandparents’ hearts, and vice versa. She was as much a Trant as any of those born into the family. My father loved the home on Rindge Avenue, where he had spent so much time with his grandmother and subsequently lived with his mother, father and siblings. The siblings were not interested in buying it, so in 1964, my parents became the third generation of Trants to own the house. They took a mortgage of $9,000 from my grandmother. My mother deposited a check for $50 into Peggy’s account at North Cambridge Cooperative Bank every month, amounting to $600 per year. It was an interest-free loan, to be paid in 15 years. Gramma passed away in 1974, five years before the mortgage was paid up, but, by agreement with his siblings, my father continued to make payments on the same schedule until they fulfilled their financial obligation.
Oh, to go back, even for a day to that feeling of safety and innocence from within these walls! My heart says that the soul of that house came from the people who lived together in it. Wood and nails may have held it together, but it was our love for each other that built it into a home. And no one can ever tear that down.
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Absolutely wonderful. Thanks so much for writing.