Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/324

 livelier than we associate with ministerial utterances of those days:

But as cold weather drew on, and it became evident that the British shut up in Boston were playing a waiting game which might last almost indefinitely, the necessity arose of providing more permanent and suitable quarters for the “army,” the Cambridge section of which had grown to more than 4000 men. A regular series of temporary barracks was therefore begun, including some on the Common and some apparently in the College Yard. From a ‘‘return” dated April 4, 1776, it appears that in “Cambridge Town” and at “Number Two” (the fort at Putnam Avenue and Franklin Street) there were no less than 44 of these structures—not only barracks but “Shops and Stores,” “Gard houses,” “Offices,” a carpenter shop, and an armorer’s shop.