Headquarters of a Revolution: The 250th Anniversary of Washington’s Arrival in Cambridge

Explore the people, ideas, and questions that shaped General George Washington’s first revolutionary headquarters 250 years ago this July. Choose a path through this free, all-ages event featuring historic house and outdoor walking tours with J.L. Bell; family activities; talks by historians; living historians portraying George Washington (John Koopman), William Lee (Quinton Castle), and Martha Washington (Sandy Spector); Cambridge Open Archives, a Story Walk, and more.

The house at 105 Brattle Street, now Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, served as Washington’s first military headquarters of the American Revolution from July 1775-March 1776. Headquarters was a testing ground for many of the ideals, institutions, and questions that still define our country. This event will reveal Cambridge Headquarters as a complex hub of revolutionary activity, where generals, enslaved people, paid laborers, poets, Indigenous diplomats, politicians, self-emancipated families, and soldiers shaped history.