Roughly 10,000 years ago, the end of the last ice age meant that the glaciers covering most of what we now call North Cambridge were beginning to recede, leaving in their wake elevations such as Observatory Hill, Strawberry Hill and Avon Hill, along with large accumulations of rock and vast deposits of clay. As the ice melted and the landscape changed over the next several thousand years, the Alewife region came to be known as the Great Swamp, a network of marshes that local Indigenous peoples used for fishing and foraging for centuries. When the colonists descended, starting in 1630, they tried to farm this area. The marshland was high in salt content, though, which meant that the surrounding soil did not produce very well. When they found the clay, the colonists used it for small-scale building and pottery.
The natural landscape of the North Cambridge neighborhood was a major factor in determining the economy, demographics and industrial development of the area, shaping the very character of the neighborhood and the people and businesses that settled there. On June 11, History Cambridge explores the natural and built environment of North Cambridge on a History Hang neighborhood walk.
This informal tour and community gathering begins at Jerry’s Pond (also known as Jerry’s Pit), the site of what was once a large clay pit providing raw material to the area’s thriving brickmaking industry. Beginning in the mid-1840s, at the height of the industrial revolution, there was a huge demand in New England for nonflammable building material. New Englanders turned from wood to brick to build their factories, mills, workers housing and academic and dormitory buildings for Harvard and other nearby colleges. There were clay pits and brickyards all over the area, but the most extensive brick plant was in North Cambridge.
In 1858, around 187,000 bricks were produced each day in North Cambridge, for a total of roughly 24 million bricks in one season. An average-sized house in the late 19th century (around 1,200 square feet) would require somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 to 9,000 bricks, meaning that the bricks in North Cambridge could have been used to build more than 2,500 homes each year. Initially, a lot of small companies enjoyed success; by World War I, in large part due to the Panic of 1893, most of the smaller brick companies had been consolidated into the New England Brick Co. (Nebco, for short). Nebco’s brickyards were laid out mostly along Rindge Avenue and down Sherman Street; the brick industry survived and prospered in North Cambridge for a little over a century.
One of the largest and best-known of the neighborhood’s clay pits, Jerry’s Pit, gets its name from brickworker and Irish immigrant Jeremiah “Jerry” McCrehan. McCrehan arrived in Cambridge sometime in the late 1840s to early 1850s and began working in the area’s brickyards. By 1867, he had saved enough money to partner with another worker, Garret Neagle, to establish their own brickyard on Sherman street and lease what would come to be known as Jerry’s Pit near what is now Rindge Avenue and Alewife Brook Parkway. In just three years, the pit had been exhausted of its clay and was filled with water to become the neighborhood swimming hole. For nearly a century, Jerry’s Pit was a community gathering place for swimming and other forms of recreation; over the past several decades, conversations have continued around the evolving role of the Pit (or Pond, as many now call it) in the neighborhood’s environmental landscape.
This walk also explores aspects of the neighborhood’s rich immigrant and working-class history, including the Dublin area – home to many workers from Ireland who arrived in Cambridge during and just after the Potato Famine of the mid-1800s. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, immigrants from other areas, including French-speaking Canada, arrived to take over the jobs and modest houses left vacant when the Irish moved up the economic ladder. In the decades that followed, North Cambridge has become home to a rich array of cultural traditions, but the neighborhood’s working-class identity has remained strong.
History Cambridge’s History Hangs, including our community walks, are designed as opportunities to explore a particular area of the city with historically curious neighbors. Although our staff will share tidbits about the neighborhood’s past, these walks are also a chance to meet others interested in local history and to listen to and learn from one another’s experiences and perspectives. All are welcome at these free events, but preregistration is requested and can be found here. Subscribe to the History Cambridge newsletter to be notified about our upcoming History Hangs and all of our other programs and events. We look forward to making Cambridge history with you.
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 2026, we are focusing on the history of West Cambridge. Make history with us at historycambridge.org.
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