Tory Row

Henry Vassall House

Tory Row is the nickname historically given by some to the part of Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where many Loyalists had mansions at the time of the American Revolutionary War, and given by others to seven Colonial mansions along Brattle Street. Its historic buildings from the 18th century include the William Brattle House (42 Brattle Street) and the Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site (105 Brattle Street). Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 of the seven Colonial mansions making up Tory Row, called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America."[1] Owners of Caribbean slave plantations, including the Vassall and Royall families, built the mansions as a statement of the "incredible wealth" they had amassed from slave labor in Jamaica and Antigua, and they enslaved an unusually high number of people on the premises.[2]

  1. ^ Samuel Atkins Eliot (1913). A history of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913. Cambridge Tribune. p. 75. Tory Row.
  2. ^ ""Though Dwelling in a Land of Freedom."". Longfellow House Washington's Headquarters, National Park Service. Retrieved 10 October 2022.