Recording of “The First Commander Remembered” Panel

The Cambridge Room at the Cambridge Public Library has shared the video recording of last week’s panel discussion on “The First Commander Remembered: Washington’s Legacy in Cambridge.”

This event was organized by a group of local historical organizations and moderated by Christopher Beagan, site manager of the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site.

The first part of the event is my fast analysis of why George Washington was in Cambridge from different perspectives: how that town became the headquarters of the provincial and then Continental army, why the Continental Congress chose Washington to lead that army, what he thought his mission was, what he really learned during his months in Cambridge, and how historians of the nineteenth century portrayed his work.

Then Charles Sullivan, executive director of the Cambridge Historical Commission, discussed how the city has commemorated Washington, particularly the long life, death, and latter-day commemoration of the Washington Elm.

We then discussed themes of memory and answered questions from the audience. Though this event happened on a night with a somewhat gloomy weather forecast, there was a robust and curious crowd.

I think my favorite part was getting the inside story of how William Dawes’s ride through Cambridge came to be commemorated through the unique bronze horseshoes in the sidewalk at Harvard Square rather than a conventional equestrian statue.

Though I suppose an equestrian statue might have been unconventional, too, if it were really modeled after the description traced back to Dawes’s cousin Josiah Waters, Jr.: “mounted on a slow jogging horse, with saddle bags behind him, and a large flapped hat upon his head, to resemble a countryman on a journey.”

The recording of the series’s first event, “From Revolution to Remembrance: Memory of the American Revolution” with Michael Hattem, Nikki Stewart, and Beth Folsom is also available for viewing.