  The riches of the Commonwealth Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health; And more to her than gold or grain, The cunning hand and cultured brain. For well she keeps her ancient stock, The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock; And still maintains, with milder laws, And clearer light, the Good Old Cause! Nor heeds the skeptic's puny hands, While near her school the church-spire stands; Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule, While near her church-spire stands the school. —John Greenleaf Whittier. ONE: IN THE LAND OF THE PILGRIMS Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company, Boston I THE OLD STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, |
| "Take three fourths of a Paine that makes Traitors Confess | (RAC) |
| With three parts of a place which the Wicked don't Bless | (HEL) |
| Joyne four sevenths of an Exercise which shop-keepers use | (WALK) |
| Add what Bad Men do, when they good actions refuse | (ER) |
| These four added together with great care and Art | |
| Will point out the Fair One that is nearest my Heart." |
Thus wrote Paul Revere, the Boston goldsmith, on the back of a bill to Mr. Benjamin Greene for "Gold buttons," "Mending a Spoon," and "Two pr. of Silver Shoe Buckles," which was made out one day in 1773 in the old house in North Square, built in 1676. To this house he planned to lead as his second wife Rachel Walker; his eight children needed a mother's care, and he wanted some one to share the joys and the burdens of his life.
Before his first marriage, in 1757, he had served as a second lieutenant in a company of artillery, in the expedition against Crown Point. Soldiering was succeeded by work at his trade of goldsmith and silversmith, learned from his father. He was a skilled engraver; most of the silverware made in Boston at this period testified to his ability. Later, when the rising patriotic tide seemed to call for lithographs and broadsides, he engraved these on copper with eager brain and active hand.
He began his patriotic work as a member of the secret order The Sons of Liberty, which had organizations in nearly all the colonies, held frequent meetings, and laid plans for resisting the encroachments of Great Britain. Once, when some three hundred of these Sons dined at Dorchester, Paul Revere was present, as well as Samuel Adams, John Adams, and John Hancock.
It was necessary to have a trusted messenger to carry tidings of moment from place to place, and Paul Revere was one of those chosen for the purpose. His first important ride was at the time of the destruction of the tea in Boston harbor. He had a leading part in bringing together the patriots who gathered on November 29, 1773, first at Faneuil Hall, then at Old South Meeting House, to protest against the landing of the tea from the ship Dartmouth, and he was one of the men who, on December 16, in Indian disguise, threw £18,000 worth of tea into the harbor. In preparation for the rallying of the men of the tea party at the "Green Dragon," the following ditty was composed:
"Rally Mohawks! bring out your axes,
And tell King George we'll pay no taxes
On his foreign tea.
His threats are vain, and vain to think
To force our girls and wives to drink
His vile Bohea!
Then rally boys, and hasten on
To meet our chief at the Green Dragon.
"Old Warren's there, and bold Revere,
With hands to do, and words to cheer,
For liberty and laws;
Our country's brave and free defenders
Shall ne'er be left by true North-Enders
Fighting Freedoms cause!
Then rally boys, and hasten on
To meet our chiefs at the Green Dragon."
The enactment of the Boston Port Bill was the cause of Revere's next ride. A meeting of citizens in Boston decided to ask the other colonies "to come into a joint resolution to stop all importation from, and exportation to, Great Britain and every part of the West Indies till the act be repealed," in the thought that this would "prove the salvation of North America and her liberties."
These resolutions were given to Paul Revere by the selectmen of Boston, and he was urged to ride with all speed to New York and Philadelphia. On May 30, 1774, the Essex Gazette told of the return of the messenger, and announced, "Nothing can exceed the indignation with which our brethren of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Philadelphia have received this proof of Ministerial madness. They universally declare their resolution to stand by us to the last extremity."
Four months later another ride to Philadelphia was taken, to carry to the Continental Congress the Suffolk Resolves. Six days only were taken for the journey. When Congress learned of the protest in New England against the principle "that Parliament had the right to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever,"
Once more during the historic year 1774 the Boston silversmith turned aside from his shop long enough to ride to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to give information of the prohibition by Great Britain of further importations of gunpowder, and to tell of the coming of a large garrison to Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth. The immediate result of the ride was the sending of a party of four hundred patriots against the fort, which surrendered at once. Little attention has been paid to this event by historians, yet it was one of the most potent of the events preceding the Revolution. One hundred barrels of gunpowder were seized at the fort, and this was a large part of the ammunition used later at Bunker Hill.
Then came April 18, 1775, the date of "that memorable ride, not only the most brilliant, but the most important single exploit in our national annals." The Provincial Congress and the Committee of Safety were in session at Concord. General Warren had remained in Boston to watch the movements of the British, and Revere had been holding himself in readiness to carry tidings as soon as there was anything of importance to be told. Now word was to be sent to John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were at the residence of Rev. Mr. Clarke at Lexington, "that a number of soldiers were marching towards the bottom of the Common, ... and that it was thought they were the objects of the movement." Revere had foreseen the necessity for
On the night of April 18 Revere was rowed by two friends across Charles River, passing almost under the guns of the Somerset. After conferring with the Charleston patriots, who had seen the signals, he secured a horse, and started toward Lexington, proceeding with extreme care, because he had been told that ten mounted British officers had been seen going up the road. Once he was chased by two British officers. At Medford he awakened the captain of the minute men. "After that I alarmed almost every house till I got to Lexington," the patriot rider later told the story. Messrs. Hancock and Adams were aroused. Then Revere went on to Concord, accompanied by two others, that the stores might be secured. Once more residents by the roadside were awakened. He himself was soon surrounded by four mounted British soldiers, but his companions were able to proceed. After a time he was released by his captors, and he made his way to the Clarke house, where Hancock and Adams still were.
Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company
HANCOCK-CLARKE HOUSE, LEXINGTON, MASS.
Thus the way was prepared for Concord and Lexington. That the patriots were not taken by surprise, and the stores at Concord taken, as the British had hoped, was due to the courage and resourcefulness of Paul Revere.
Revere's rides as messenger did not end his services to the colonists. In 1775 he engraved the plates and printed the bills of the paper money of Massachusetts, and later he built and operated a powder mill. He
The old house in North Square was the home of the Revere family until about 1795.
III
FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON
"THE CRADLE OF AMERICAN LIBERTY"
Andrew Faneuil was one of the Huguenots who fled from France as a result of the Edict of Nantes. By way of Holland he came to Boston. It is a matter of official record that on February 1, 1691, he was admitted by the Governor and Council of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Within a few years the refugee was looked upon as a leader both in the French church and in business. Copies of invoices of merchandise consigned to him show that he was a dealer in all kinds of supplies of food, household furnishings, and dress goods.
When he died, in 1738, the Boston News Letter said that "1,100 persons of all Ranks, beside the Mourners," followed the body to the grave. "And 'tis supposed that as the Gentleman's fortune was the greatest of any among us, so his funeral was the most generous and expensive of any that has been known here."
Peter Faneuil, the heir and successor to the fortune
His proposition to provide the market by gift to the town stirred up a spirited controversy. At a town meeting called to consider the proposition, held on July 14, 1740, the attendance was so large that the company adjourned to the Brattle Street Meeting House.
There the people set themselves to consider the proposition of Peter Faneuil, who "hath been generously pleased to offer at his own cost and charge to erect and build a noble and complete structure or edifice to be improved for a market, for the sole use, benefit and advantage of the town, provided that the town of Boston would pass a vote for the purpose, and lay the same under such proper regulation as shall be thought necessary, and constantly support it for the said use."
The gift had a narrow escape from the 727 voters who cast the ballots. The majority in favor of accepting the market was only seven!
The average giver would have been discouraged by such a reception; but Peter Faneuil, on the contrary, did more than he had proposed. When the selectmen were told in August, 1742—seven months before Faneuil's death—that the building was ready, there was
"I hope that what I have done will be of service to the whole country," was the donor's response to this graceful act.
At once the Hall became a Boston institution. The town offices were removed to the building, town meetings were held there, and a series of public concerts was given in it. The market, however, was not popular.
The fire of January 13, 1761, destroyed the interior of the building. The money for rebuilding was raised by a lottery.
Faneuil Hall began its career as a national institution on August 27, 1765, when the voters, in mass meeting, denounced the lawless acts of "Persons unknown" by which they had shown their hatred of the iniquitous Stamp Act. At a second meeting, held on September 12, the voters instructed their Representatives "as to their conduct at this very alarming crisis."
"The genuine Sons of Liberty" gathered in the Hall March 18, 1767, that they might rejoice together because of the repeal of the Stamp Act. The Boston Gazette reported that "a large company of the principal inhabitants crowded that spacious apartment, and with loud huzzas, and repeated acclamations at each of the twenty-five toasts, saluted the glorious and memorable heroes of America, particularly those who distinguished themselves in the cause of Liberty, which was ever growing under the iron hand of oppression."
What has been called "perhaps the most dramatic scene in all history" was staged in this Cradle of Liberty
Then came the tea meetings. The first of these was held in the Hall on November 5, 1773. At this meeting committees were appointed to wait on the several persons to whom tea had been consigned by the East India Company, "and in the name of the town to request them from a regard to their character, and to the peace and good order of the town, immediately to resign their trust." The response made to these committees and to subsequent tea meetings was unsatisfactory, and on December 16 a number of disguised citizens gathered at the waterfront and held the "Boston Tea Party."
The occupation of Boston by the British interrupted the Faneuil Hall town meetings, but soon after the evacuation of the city the people turned their steps thither for public gatherings of many sorts. Fortunately the building had not been seriously injured. When Washington entered the city he spoke with feeling of the safety of the structure that had meant so much to the people.
It was fitting that, in the stirring days that preceded the War of 1812, meetings to protest against the acts of Great Britain should be held here. Historic gatherings followed during this war, as also during the War of 1861-65.
Three times Faneuil Hall has been rebuilt since its donor turned it over to his fellow-citizens. The first reconstruction came after the fire. In 1806 the building was enlarged and improved. Again in 1898 it was
"May Faneuil Hall ever stand, a monument to teach the world that resistance to oppression is a duty, and will under true republican institutions become a blessing."
Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company
OLD NORTH CHURCH, BOSTON
IV
THREE HISTORIC CHURCHES OF BOSTON
THE STORY OF OLD NORTH, OLD SOUTH, AND KING'S CHAPEL
The First Church of Boston would have been large enough for all its members for many years longer than they worshipped together, if they had been of one mind politically. But the differences that separated people in England in the troublous days of Charles I were repeated in Boston. For this reason some of the members of the First Church thought they would be better off by themselves, and in 1650 they organized the Second Church. Later the church became known as North Church, by reason of its location. As it grew older the name Old North was applied to it.
From its organization Old North became known as the church of spirited reformers, a real school for patriots. Increase Mather, one of its early pastors, was responsible for developing and directing the peculiar
Many mass meetings to protest against the acts of Great Britain were held in this church. The corporation used it for a time as a fire house and a public arsenal, and when signals were given by the direction of Paul Revere on the night of his famous ride the lanterns were hung in the steeple of Old North.
The original building of 1652 was burned in 1673. The second building was also burned, but by the British, who tore it down and used it for firewood during the cold winter of the occupation of the city.
After the destruction of the building the members of New Brick Church, an offshoot of Old North, invited the congregation to worship with them. The invitation was accepted, and soon the congregations came together, under the name Old North. The building occupied ever since by the reunited congregation was erected in 1723. Ralph Waldo Emerson served as pastor and conducted services in this structure.
In 1669 there were many earnest people who felt that the teachings of the older church were not liberal enough for them, and they decided to have a church after their own heart. They felt that all who had been baptized might be citizens of the town; they were unwilling to be associated longer with those who insisted, as the General Synod of Massachusetts recommended, that all citizens must be church members, as formerly. So permission to organize was asked of the other churches. On their refusal appeal was taken to the Governor. The next appeal, to the selectmen of Boston, was successful.
Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company
OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON
The new church, which was called the South Meeting
In 1685 Governor Andros insisted that the Old South building should be used for the Church of England service, as well as for the services of the owners of the building. For two years Churchmen and Congregationalists occupied it harmoniously at different hours on Sunday.
On a Fast Day in 1696 Judge Sewall stood up before the congregation while they heard him read his prayer for the forgiveness of God and his fellow-citizens for any possible guilt he had incurred in the witchcraft trials.
Ten years later, on the day he was born, January 17, 1706, Benjamin Franklin was baptized in the church, though not in the present building.
The building made famous by the series of town meetings before and during the Revolution was erected in 1730. When Faneuil Hall was too small to hold the crowds that clamored for entrance, Old South was pressed into use. On June 14, 1768, at one of these meetings, a petition was sent to the Governor asking that the British frigate be removed from the harbor. John Hancock was chairman of this committee. The Boston Tea Party followed a mass meeting held here.
Burgoyne's cavalry used Old South Church as a riding school. Pigs were kept in one of the pews, while many of the furnishings were burned.
Since March, 1776, when the church was repaired, it has been little changed. Services were discontinued
Five years later there was talk of destroying the historic structure that the valuable lot might be used for business purposes, but the efforts of patriotic women were successful in preserving the relic. Since that time it has been kept open as a museum.
While Old North and Old South were organizations expressing the will of the people, the third of the famous churches of Boston was the expression of the will of King James II of England. During more than sixty years of the city's history there had been no congregation of the Church of England; members of that body were required to attend service in the existing parishes. A minister and a commission sent from England to arrange for the new church were received with scant courtesy by the churches when request was made that opportunity be given to hold Church of England services in the building of one of them.
Not satisfied with the offer of a room in the Town House, Governor Andros demanded that Old South make arrangements to accommodate the new body. On the refusal of the trustees to do as the Governor wished, the sexton of the church was one day ordered to ring the bell and open the doors for the Governor and his staff, and those who might wish to attend with them. Then the trustees submitted to the inevitable.
This was in 1687. The first chapel was built for the new congregation in 1689, on land appropriated for the purpose, since no one would convey a site willingly. This building was enlarged in 1710. The present striking structure dates from 1749-53. Peter Faneuil was treasurer of the committee that raised the necessary
King's Chapel, as the new church building came to be called, was known as the abode of loyalists, just as Old North and Old South were famous as the haunts of patriotic worshippers. The presence on the walls of the insignia of royalty and varied heraldic devices seriously disturbed the minds of those who felt that a house of worship should have no such furnishings.
During the Revolution the building was respected by the British as well as by the citizens of the town. When the war was over, the congregation of Old South was invited to use the chapel because their own church needed extensive repairs in consequence of the use the British had made of it.
Since 1787 King's Chapel has been a Unitarian church. The change was made under the leadership of Rev. James Freeman.
V
ELMWOOD, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
WHERE JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL WAS BORN, AND
WHERE HE DIED
When Thomas Oliver, Lieutenant Governor and president of George III's provincial council, built his house in Cambridge about 1767, he did not dream that within nine years he would have to abandon it because of his allegiance to the same George III. But so it
After his summary departure the house was used as a hospital by the Continental Army. When the government sold it at auction it became the property first of Arthur Cabot, then of Elbridge Gerry, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Massachusetts from 1810 to 1812, and Vice-President under Madison.
The next occupant was Rev. Charles Lowell, pastor of the West Church of Boston. He bought the property just in time to make it ready for his son, James Russell Lowell, who was born February 22, 1819.
As a boy James never wearied of rambling over the old house and the ten acres of ground, all that was left of the original ninety-five acres. Many of his poems contain references to the memories of these early years. "The First Snowfall," "Music," and "A Year's Life" are, in part, autobiographical. Lines on "The Power of Music" told of the days when he was his father's companion in the chaise, on the way to make a Sunday exchange of pulpits with a neighboring minister:
"When, with feuds like Ghibelline and Guelf,
Each parish did its music for itself,
A parson's son, through tree-arched country ways,
I rode exchange oft in dear old days,
Ere yet the boys forgot, with reverent eye,
To doff their hats as the black coat went by,
Ere skirts expanding in their apogee
Turned girls to bells without the second e;
Still in my teens, I felt the varied woes
Of volunteers, each singing as he chose,
Till much experience left me no desire
To learn new species of the village choir."
Life at Elmwood was interrupted by college days, but he returned to the Cambridge house with his wife, Maria Lowell. The oldest children were born here. Here, too, came the first great sorrow of the parents, the death of their first born. At that time Mrs. Lowell found comfort in writing "The Alpine Sheep," a poem that has helped many parents in a like time of bereavement.
The next great sorrow came during the Civil War, when the death from wounds was announced first of General Charles Russell Lowell, then of James Jackson Lowell, and finally of William Lowell Putnam, all beloved nephews. In the Biglow Papers, Second Series, the poet referred to these three soldiers. Leslie Stephen called the lines "the most pathetic that he ever wrote" in which he spoke of the three likely lads,
"Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't,
No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'."
During the closing year of the war, one of the students who attended his lectures on Dante at Harvard College wrote of a visit to his preceptor:
"I found the serene possessor of Elmwood in good spirits, ate a Graham biscuit and drank some delicious milk with him and his wife, then enjoyed a very pleasant conversation. He read some of Shakspeare's sonnets, to make me think better of them, and succeeded.... He gave me a very welcome copy of Macaulay's essays and poems, and the little visit was another oasis in school life's dearth of home sociability. Mabel, his only child, was not there at supper, but came home some time after: 'salute your progenitor!' and the answer was a daughter's kiss."
After spending years abroad, part of the time as Minister to Spain, then as Minister to England, Lowell returned to Elmwood. To a friend who congratulated him on being at home again, he said, "Yes, it is very nice here; but the old house is full of ghosts." His cousin, as quoted by Dr. Hale, says of these closing six years of the poet's life:
"The house was haunted by sad memories, but at least he was once more among his books. The library, which filled the two rooms on the ground floor to the left of the front door, had been constantly growing, and during his stay in Europe he had bought rare works with the intention of leaving them to Harvard College. Here he would sit when sad or unwell and read Calderon, the 'Nightingale in the Study,' whom he always found a solace. Except for occasional attacks of the gout, his life had been singularly free from sickness, but he had been at home only a few months when he was taken ill, and, after the struggle of a strong man to keep up as long as possible, he was forced to go to bed. In a few days his condition became so serious that the physician feared he would not live; but he rallied, and, although too weak to go to England, as he had planned, he appeared to be comparatively well. When taken sick, he had been preparing a new edition of his works, the only full collection that had ever been
He died in August, 1891, when he was seventy-two years old.
Elmwood remains in the possession of the Lowell heirs. The ten acres of the poet's boyhood days have been reduced to two or three, but the house is much the same as when the poet lived in it.
Photo by Ph. B. Wallace, Philadelphia
CRAIGIE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
VI
THE CRAIGIE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE,
MASSACHUSETTS
MADE FAMOUS BY GEORGE WASHINGTON AND
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,—
'Forever, never!
Never—forever.'"
The clock of which Longfellow wrote stood on the stair-landing of the old Craigie House, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which he bought in 1843, after having occupied it a number of years. Here he wrote the majority of his poems. Here, one June day, Nathaniel Hawthorne dined with the poet. In the course of
"Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour."
And here, one sad day in July, 1861, Mrs. Longfellow was so severely burned that she died the next day. This great sorrow bore rich fruit for those who loved the poet. "Above the grave the strong man sowed his thoughts, and they ripened like the corn in autumn," one of his biographers has said.
The house was named for Andrew Craigie, who became the owner of the property in 1793. He had given valuable service during the Revolutionary War, acting as an "apothecary-general" in the Continental Army. He was a man of wealth, and his home was the popular resort for people of note from all parts of the country. During his later years he lost all his money, and his widow was compelled to rent rooms to Harvard students. In this way Edward Everett became a resident of the house.
The builder of the mansion was John Vassall. In 1760, when he occupied the house, it was surrounded by a park of one hundred and fifty acres. Soon after
But the estate really became public property three years before this, when a regiment, under the command of Colonel Glover, pitched its tents in the park. In July, 1775, Washington made the house his headquarters, remaining until April 4, 1776.
During these months the house was a busy place. Officers gathered here both for business and for pleasure. Military conferences and court-martials were held in the large room in the second story which was later used by Longfellow as a study. Dinners and entertainments were frequent; these provided a needed safety valve during the weeks of anxious waiting near the British line. Mrs. Washington was a visitor here, thus giving to her husband the taste of home life which he was unwilling to take during the Revolution by making a visit to his estate at Mt. Vernon.
On one of the early days of the Commander-in-Chief's occupancy of the house, he wrote this entry in his carefully-kept account book:
"July 15, 1775, Paid for cleaning the House which was provided for my Quarters, and which had been occupied by the Marblehead regiment, £2 10s. 9d."
The day before this entry was made General Green wrote to Samuel Ward:
"His Excellency, General Washington, has arrived amongst us, universally admired. Joy was visible in every countenance, and it seemed as if the spirit of conquest breathed through the whole army. I hope I shall be taught, to copy his example, and to prefer the love of liberty, in this time of public danger to all the soft pleasures of domestic life, and support ourselves with manly fortitude amidst all the dangers and hardships that attend a state of war. And I doubt not, under the General's wise direction, we shall establish such excellent order and strictness of discipline as to invite victory to attend him wherever he goes."
A council of war was held in the upstairs room on August 3, 1775. After this council General Sullivan wrote to the New Hampshire Committee of Safety:
"To our great surprise, discovered that we had not powder enough to furnish half a pound a man, exclusive of what the people have in their homes and cartridge boxes. The General was so struck that he did not utter a word for half an hour."
Further hints of the serious straits caused by the lack of ammunition were contained in a letter of Elias Boudinot. He said that at the time there were fourteen miles of line to guard, so that Washington did not dare fire an Evening or Morning Gun. "In this situation one of the Committee of Safety for Massachusetts ... deserted and went over to General Gage, and discovered our poverty to him. The fact was so incredible, that General Gage treated it as a stratagem of war, and the informant as a Spy, or coming with the express purpose of deceiving him & drawing his Army into a Snare, by which means we were saved from having our Quarters beaten up...."
The strange inactivity of the British in the face of the unpreparedness of the Continental troops was remarked in a letter written to Congress on January 4, from Headquarters:
"It is not in the pages of history, perhaps, to furnish a case like ours. To maintain a post within musket shot of the enemy, for six months together, without [powder], and at the same time to disband one army, and recruit another, within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is more, probably, than was ever attempted."
To-day visitors are free to roam through the rooms that echoed to the tread of Washington and his generals, in which the children played in Longfellow's day, and where the poet wrote so many of his messages that have gone straight to the hearts of millions.
VII
THE ADAMS HOUSES, QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS
WHERE TWO PRESIDENTS WERE BORN
John Adams was born and spent his boyhood in a simple farmhouse near Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts. It has been described as a "plain, square, honest block of a house, widened by a lean-to, and scarcely two stories high." This house, built in 1681, Daniel Munro Wilson says was "the veritable roof-tree, under which was ushered into being the earliest and strongest advocate of independence, the leader whose clear intelligence was paramount in shaping our free institutions, the founder of a line of statesmen, legislators, diplomats, historians, whose patriotism is a passion, and whose integrity is like the granite of their native hills."
It is a remarkable fact that John Adams and John Hancock, who stood shoulder to shoulder in the fight for American independence, were born within a mile of each other, on days only a little more than a year apart. The baptismal records show that October 19, 1735, was the birthday of John Adams, while John Hancock was born on January 12, 1737.
From the modest home in Braintree John Adams went to college. Later he taught school and studied law. Soon after he returned home in 1758 he wrote in his diary:
"Rose at sunrise, unpitched a load of hay, and translated two more leaves of Justinian."
After the death of his father, in 1761, the burden of the home fell on his shoulders, and in the same year he was called to serve the country. His diary tells of the call:
"In March, when I had no suspicion, I heard my name pronounced (at town meeting) in a nomination of surveyor of highways. I was very wroth, because I knew better, but said nothing. My friend, Dr. Savil, came to me and told me that he had nominated me to prevent me from being nominated as a constable. 'For,' said the doctor, 'they make it a rule to compel every man to serve either as constable or surveyor, or to pay a fine.' Accordingly, I went to ploughing and ditching."
Thus John Adams showed the spirit of service that later animated his son, John Quincy Adams, who, after he had been President, became a representative in Congress, and made answer to those who thought such an office beneath his dignity, "An ex-President would not
During those early years the young lawyer had other occupations than ditch-digging. The records of the family show that he was assiduously courting Abigail Smith, daughter of Rev. William Smith, minister in Weymouth, near by. Probably he first met her in the historic house, for she was a frequent visitor there.
The marriage of the young people on October 25, 1764, excited much comment. In Puritan New England the profession of the law was not a popular calling, and many of the people thought Abigail Smith was "throwing herself away." Parson Smith was equal to the occasion; as he had helped his eldest daughter out of a similar difficulty by preaching on the text, "And Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her," so, on the Sunday after Abigail's marriage, he announced the text, "For John ... came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil."
The year of the marriage witnessed the beginning of John Adams' fight for independence. For it was the year of the iniquitous Stamp Act. In his diary he wrote:
"I drew up a petition to the selectmen of Braintree, and procured it to be signed by a number of the respectable inhabitants, to call a meeting of the town to instruct their representatives in relation to the stamps."
The following year, when a meeting was held in Braintree to take action in consequence of the failure of Great Britain to heed the protest against the Stamp Act, he wrote:
"I prepared a draught of instruction at home, and carried them with me. The cause of the meeting was explained at some length, and the state and danger of the country pointed out. A committee was appointed to prepare instructions, of which I was nominated as one. My draught was unanimously adopted without amendment, reported to the town, and accepted without a dissenting voice.... They rang through the state and were adopted in so many words ... by forty towns, as instructions to their representatives."
Less than two years later, on July 11, 1767, in the town close by his own birthplace, to which John Adams had taken his bride, John Quincy Adams was born. The delights of the new home have been pictured in a pleasing manner by Daniel Munro Wilson:
"Elevated was life in this 'little hut,' but it was real, genuine, beautifully domestic. The scene of it, visible there now to any pious pilgrim, and reverently preserved in many of its antique appointments by the Quincy Historical Society, assists the imagination to realize its noble simplicity. The dining-room or general living room, with its wide open fireplace, is where the young couple would most often pass their evenings, and in winter would very likely occupy in measureless content a single settle, roasting on one side and freezing on the other. The kitchen, full of cheerful bustle, and fragrant as the spice isles, how it would draw the children as they grew up, the little John Quincy among them! Here they could be near mother, and watch her with absorbing attention as she superintended the cooking, now hanging pots of savory meats on the crane, and now drawing from the cavernous depths of the brick oven the pies and baked beans and Indian puddings and other delicacies of those days. We can more easily imagine the home scene when we read these words written by Mrs. Adams to her husband: 'Our son is
When it became evident that there must be Revolution, the patriot Adams was compelled to leave his family and go into the thick of the fight. He did not want to go. "I should have thought myself the happiest man in the world if I could have returned to my little hut and forty acres, which my father left me in Braintree, and lived on potatoes and sea-weed the rest of my life. But I had taken a part, I had adopted a system, I had encouraged my fellow citizens, and I could not abandon them in conscience and in honor."
From the old home Abigail Adams wrote him letters that moved him to renewed efforts for his struggling countrymen. In one of them she said, "You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you, an inactive spectator; but if the sword be drawn, I bid adieu to all domestic felicity, and look forward to that country where there are neither wars nor rumors of war, in a firm belief, that through the mercy of its King we shall both rejoice there together."
The wife rejoiced when her husband's ringing words helped to carry the Declaration of Independence; she urged him to make the trips to France which Congress asked him to undertake; she encouraged him when he was Vice-President and, later, President, and she made home more than ever an abode of peace when, in 1801, he returned to Braintree, to a house of Leonard Vassall, built in 1731, which he bought in 1785.
In this house husband and wife celebrated their golden wedding, as John Quincy Adams was to celebrate
"My mother was an angel upon earth. She was a minister of blessings to all human beings within her sphere of action.... She has been to me more than a mother. She has been a spirit from above watching over me for good, and contributing by my mere consciousness of her existence to the comfort of my life.... There is not a virtue that can abide in the female heart but it was the ornament of hers."
And in this house the mother died, on October 28, 1818. John Quincy Adams lived there until his death, on July 4, 1826.
VIII
THE QUINCY MANSION, QUINCY, MASSACHUSETTS
THE HOME OF THREE DOROTHY QUINCYS
Among the settlers to whom Boston granted large allotments of outlying lands were William Coddington and Edmund Quincy. In 1635 they went, in company with their associate settlers, to "the mount," which became Braintree, now Quincy.
By the side of a pleasant brook, under the shade of spreading trees, Coddington built in 1636 his house of four rooms. Downstairs was the kitchen and the living room, while upstairs were two bedrooms. The upper story overhung the lower in the old manner, and a generous chimney, which afforded room for a large open fireplace, dominated the whole.
This house became the meeting place for a group of seekers after religious liberty who were looked upon with suspicion in Boston—Rev. John Wheelwright, Sir Harry Vane, Atherton Hough, Ann Hutchinson, and others. In consequence of their views the company was soon broken up. Ann Hutchinson and Wheelwright were banished, while Coddington would have been banished if he had not gone hastily to Rhode Island.
Edmund Quincy, who succeeded to Coddington's house, probably would have been banished if he had not died before the decree could be pronounced. For a season his widow, Judith, lived in the house, which, from that time, became known as the Quincy Mansion. With her were the children, Edmund and Judith. Judith, who married at twenty, and became the mother of Hannah (Betsy) Hull, whose dowry, when she became the bride of Judge Samuel Sewell, was her weight in pine-tree shillings, the gift of her father, the master of the colony's mint. Florence Royce Davis has written of the wedding:
"Then the great scales were brought, amid laughter and jest,
And Betsy was called to step in and be weighed;
But a silence fell over each wondering guest
When the mint-master opened a ponderous chest
And a fortune of shillings displayed.
"By handfuls the silver was poured in one side
Till it weighed from the floor blushing Betsy, the bride;
And the mint-master called: 'Prithee, Sewell, my son,
The horses are saddled, the wedding is done;
Behold the bride's portion; and know all your days
Your wife is well worth every shilling she weighs.'"
Edmund Quincy married at twenty-one, and became the next occupant of the mansion. During his long life there were welcomed to the hospitable roof many of those whose words and deeds prepared the way for the liberty that was to come to the country within a century.
The second of the Quincy line was a leader in the town. At one time he was its representative in the General Court, and as colonel of the Suffolk Regiment, he was the first of a long list of colonels in the family. But the day came when it was written of him, "Unkel Quincy grows exceeding crazy," and in 1698 the second Edmund yielded the house to Edmund the third.
This Edmund also became a colonel and a representative and, later, a judge of the Supreme Court. His pastor said of him, "This great man was of a manly Stature and Aspect, of a Strong Constitution and of Good Courage, fitted for any Business of Life, to serve God, his King and Country." Not only did he enlarge the glory of the family, but, in 1706, he enlarged the house, yet in such a way that the original Coddington house could be clearly traced after the improvements were finished. Judge Sewell, the cousin of the builder, was one of the welcome occupants of the improved house. On his way to Plymouth he stopped at "Braintry." "I turned in to Cousin Quinsey," he said, "where I had the pleasure to see God in his Providence shining again upon the Persons and Affairs of the Family after long distressing Sickness and Losses. Lodged in the chamber next the Brooke." Later on another chamber near the brook was provided for Mrs. Quincy's brother, Tutor Flynt of Harvard, when he came that way for rest and change.
The oldest child of this generation was Edmund, whose daughter, Dorothy Quincy, married John Hancock, while the fourth child was Dorothy Quincy, the great-grandmother of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The continuity of life at the mansion was sadly broken when, within a year, the grandmother, the mother, and the father died. The death of the latter occurred in England, where he had gone on business for the colony. When news came of the ending of his life, the General Court of Massachusetts declared that "he departed the delight of his own people, but of none more than the Senate, who, as a testimony of their love and gratitude, have ordered this epitaph to be inscribed on his tomb in Bunhill Fields, London."
For a year Dorothy Quincy remained in the house; but on her marriage the place ceased for a time to be the chief residence of a Quincy. Edmund was in business in Boston. He resorted to the house for a season now and then, but his Boston home remained his permanent abiding place until after the birth of his daughter Dorothy. Then failing fortune sent him back to the ancestral home.
During the next few years John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock were favored visitors at the mansion. John Hancock won Dorothy Quincy for his bride, and family tradition says that preparations were made for the wedding in the old home. "The large north parlor was adorned with a new wall paper, express from Paris, and appropriately figured with the forms of Venus and Cupid in blue, and pendant wreaths of flowers in red," writes the author of "Where American Independence Began." But the approaching Revolution interfered. The bridegroom hurried away to
The old mansion was never again the home of the Quincys. Josiah, brother of Edmund the fourth, built for himself in 1770 a beautiful home not far from the family headquarters. Here he lived through the war. Visitors to the house are shown on one of the windows the record he made of the departure of the British from Boston Harbor, scratched there when he saw the welcome sight, on October 17, 1775.
For much more than a century the house was in the hands of other families, but, fortunately, it has come under the control of the Colonial Dames of Massachusetts. They have made it the historic monument it deserves to be. The visitors who are privileged to wander through the rooms hallowed by the presence of men and women who helped to pave the way for American independence read with hearty appreciation the lines which Holmes addressed to the portrait of his ancestress, "My Dorothy Q," as he called her:
"Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess
Thirteen summers, or something less;
Girlish bust, but womanly air;
Smooth, square forehead, with uprolled hair;
Lips that lover has never kissed,
Taper fingers and slender wrist;
Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade;
So they painted the little maid."
Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company
FERNSIDE FARM, HAVERHILL, MASS.
IX
FERNSIDE FARM, HAVERHILL, MASSACHUSETTS
THE BIRTHPLACE AND BOYHOOD HOME OF
JOHN G. WHITTIER
The first house built by Thomas Whittier, the three-hundred-pound ancestor of the poet Whittier, and first representative of the family in America, was a little log cabin. There he took his wife, Ruth Flint, and there ten children were born. Five of them were boys, and each of them was more than six feet tall.
No wonder the log house grew too small for the family. So, probably in 1688, he built a house whose massive hewn beams were fifteen inches square, whose kitchen was thirty feet long, with a fireplace eight feet wide. The rooms clustered about a central chimney.
In this house the poet was born December 17, 1807, and here he spent the formative years of his life. When he was twenty-seven years old he wrote for The Little Pilgrim of Philadelphia a paper on "The Fish I Didn't Catch." In this he described the home of his boyhood:
"Our old homestead nestled under a long range of hills which stretched off to the west. It was surrounded by woods in all directions save to the southeast, where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low, green meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes of upland. Through these, a small brook, noisy enough as it foamed, rippled and laughed down its rocky falls by our garden-side, wound, silently and scarcely visible, to a still larger stream, known as the Country Brook. This brook in its time, after doing duty at two or three saw and grist mills, the clack of which we could hear across the intervening woodlands, found its way to the great river, and the river took it up and bore it down to the great sea."
Whittier's poems are full of references to the life on the farm; many of his best verses had their inspiration in memories of the past. For instance, the description of the building of the fire in "Snow-Bound," a poem which describes the life at the farm when he was twelve years old, is a faithful picture of what took place in the old kitchen every night of the long New England winter, when
"We piled, with care, our nightly stack
Of wood against the chimney back—
The oaken log, green, huge and thick,
And on its top the thick back-stick;
The knotty fore-stick laid apart,
And filled between with curious art.
The ragged brush; then, hovering near,
We watched the first red blaze appear,
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam,
Until the old, rude-fashioned room
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom."
Young Whittier was a faithful worker on the farm. One day, when he was nineteen years old, William Lloyd Garrison, the young editor of a Newburyport newspaper, to which Whittier had contributed a poem, found him assisting in repairing a stone wall. The visitor urged the father of the young poet to send him to school. As a result of this visit Whittier entered the Academy in Haverhill, with the understanding that he was to earn his way.
At intervals during the succeeding ten years the poet returned to the old farm, but when he was thirty years old the place was sold, the family went to Amesbury, and he left soon afterward for Philadelphia, where he was to edit an anti-slavery paper.
All through life Whittier dreamed of buying back the homestead. When he received a check for $1,000 as the first proceeds from "Snow-Bound," he set the sum aside as the beginning of a redemption fund.
But the citizens of Haverhill, led by Alfred A. Ordway, asked the privilege of buying the property themselves, and making it a memorial to the poet. Whittier died before the purchase was completed, but soon afterward Fernside Farm, as the poet called it, was taken over by Mr. Ordway. It is now in the hands of an association that has restored it and keeps it open to visitors whose hearts have been stirred by the work of the Quaker poet.
Photo by W. R. Merryman, Haverhill
DUSTON GARRISON HOUSE, HAVERHILL, MASS.
X
THE DUSTON GARRISON HOUSE, HAVERHILL,
MASSACHUSETTS
FROM WHICH HANNAH DUSTON WAS CARRIED AWAY
BY THE INDIANS
The attention of visitors to Haverhill, Massachusetts, is attracted to a great granite boulder set in a place of honor in the old town. When they ask about it they are told the story of Hannah Duston, heroine.
Thomas and Hannah Duston were married in 1677,
Later Thomas Duston uncovered deposits of clay near his home which led him to make experiments in brick making. He was so successful that his product was in demand; villagers said that the Haverhill bricks were fully as good as those brought from England.
Strong building material was needed, for hostile Indians were all about. In order to afford protection against them, Mr. Duston determined to build a new house, which should serve as a garrison in time of danger. By the village authorities he was appointed keeper of the garrison, as this commission shows:
"To Thomas Duston, upon the settlement of garrisons. You being appointed master of the garrison at your house, you are hereby in his Maj's name, required to see that a good watch is kept at your garrison both by night and by day by those persons hereafter named who are to be under your command and inspection in building or repairing your garrison, and if any person refuse or neglect their duty, you are accordingly required to make return of the same, under your hand to the Committee of militia in Haverhill."
The new house was well under way when this command was given. As it is still standing, it is possible to tell of its construction. A Haverhill writer says that "white oak, which is to-day well preserved, was used in its massive framework, and the floor and roof timbers are put together with great wooden pins. In
On March 15, 1697, the watching Indians decided that their opportunity had come to attack the village. They knew that if they waited for the completion of the new garrison, there would be little chance of success. So they struck at once.
The story of what followed was told by Cotton Mather, in his "Magnalia Christi Americana," published in London in 1702:
"On March 15, 1697, the Salvages made a Descent upon the Skirts of Haverhil, Murdering and Captiving about Thirty-nine Persons, and Burning about half a Dozen Houses. In the Broil, one Hannah Dustan having lain-in about a Week, attended with her Nurse, Mary Neffe a Widow, a Body of terrible Indians drew near unto the House where she lay, with Design to carry on their Bloody Devastations. Her Husband hastened from his Employment abroad unto the relief of his Distressed Family; and first bidding Seven of his Eight Children (which were from Two to Seventeen Years of Age) to get away as fast as they could into some Garrison in the Town, he went in to inform his Wife of the horrible Distress come upon them. E'er he could get up, the fierce Indians were got so near, that utterly despairing to do her any Service, he ran out after his Children.... He overtook his children about Forty Rod from his Door, ... a party of Indians came up with him; and now though they Fired at him, and he Fired at them, yet he Manfully kept at the Reer of his Little Army of Unarmed Children, while they Marched off with the Pace of a Child of Five Years Old; until, by the Singular Providence of God, he arrived safe with them all unto a Place of Safety about a Mile or two from his House....
"The Nurse, trying to escape with the New-born Infant, fell into the Hands of the Formidable Salvages; and those furious Tawnies coming into the House, bid poor Dustan to rise immediately....
"Dustan (with her Nurse) ... travelled that Night about a Dozen Miles, and then kept up with their New Masters in a long Travel of an Hundred and Fifty Miles....
"The poor Women had nothing but Fervent Prayers to make their Lives Comfortable or Tolerable, and by being daily sent out upon Business, they had Opportunities together and asunder to do like another Hannah, in pouring out their Souls before the Lord."
The Indians were "now Travelling with these Two Captive Women, (and an English Youth taken from Worcester a Year and half before,) unto a Rendezvous of Salvages which they call a Town somewhere beyond Penacook; and they still told, these poor Women, that when they came to this Town they must be Stript, and Scourg'd, and Run the Gantlet through the whole Army of Indians. They said this was the Fashion when the Captives first came to a Town;...
"But on April 30, while they were yet, it may be, about an Hundred and Fifty Miles from the Indian Town, a little before break of Day, when the whole Crew was in a Dead Sleep ... one of these Women took up a Resolution to imitate the Action of Jael upon Sisera; and being where she had not her own Life secured by any Law unto her, she thought she was not forbidden by any Law to take away the Life of the Murderers.... She heartened the Nurse and the Youth to assist her in this Enterprize; and all furnishing themselves with Hatchets for the purpose, they struck such home Blows upon the Heads of their Sleeping Oppressors, that e'er they could any of them struggle into any effectual resistance, at the Feet of those poor Prisoners, they bow'd, they fell, they lay down; at their Feet they bowed, they fell; where they bowed, there they fell down Dead."
One old squaw and a boy of eleven escaped to the forest. The scalps were not taken at first, but soon Hannah Duston returned to the camp and gathered the trophies, in order that she might claim the bounty offered by the colony for the scalps of hostile Indians. Then all the Indians' canoes were scuttled, their arms were taken, and the party of three embarked.
Day after day they paddled down the Merrimac, the three taking turns in the unaccustomed labour. At night they paused to rest. Cautiously a fire was kindled, and food was cooked. Always they feared discovery by the bands of Indians. Two slept, while a third stood guard. But no Indians appeared.
At last the home village was in sight. The wondering villagers came out to see who the visitors could be. Their astonishment and delight can be imagined.
The General Assembly of Massachusetts voted Mrs. Duston twenty-five pounds' reward, while a similar amount was divided between Mrs. Neff and the boy Samuel Lennardson. Later the governor of Maryland sent Mrs. Duston a silver tankard.
The Duston descendants, who hold a reunion every year, prize these souvenirs. But most of all they prize a letter (the original of which is in the possession of the Haverhill Historical Society) written by Mrs. Duston in 1723, in which she gave a wonderful testimony to God's goodness to her and hers. This is the message she gave to children and grandchildren:
"I Desire to be thankful that I was born in a Land of Light & Baptized when I was young and had a good education by my Father, tho' I took but little notice of it in the time of it—I am Thankful for my Captivity, 'twas the Comfortablest time that ever I had. In my Affliction God made his Word Comfortable to me. I remember ye 43 ps. ult. [probably meaning last part] and those words came to my mind—ps. 118:17—I have had a great Desire to Come to the Ordinance of the Lord's Supper a Great while, but fearing I should give offense and fearing my own Unworthiness has kept me back. Reading a Book concerning X's Sufferings Did much awaken me. In the 55th of Isa. beg [beginning] We are invited to come: Hearing Mr. Moody preach out of ye 3rd of Mal. 3 last verses it put me upon Consideration. Ye 11th of Matt., ending, has been encouraging to me—I have been resolving to offer my Self from time to time ever since the Settlement of the present Ministry. I was awakened by the first Sacraml Sermon [Luke 14:17]. But Delays and fears prevailed upon me: But I desire to Delay no longer, being Sensible it is my Duty—I desire the Church to receive me tho' it be the Eleventh hour; and pray for me that I may honer God and receive the Salvation of My Soul.
"Hannah Duston, wife of Thomas. Ætat 67."
Mrs. Duston lived in the old house at Haverhill for many years after her remarkable escape.
XI
THE OLD MANSE AND THE WAYSIDE, CONCORD,
MASSACHUSETTS
TWO HOUSES MADE FAMOUS BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Nathaniel Hawthorne was thirty-eight years old before he was able to begin the ideal life of Adam with his Eve, to which he had looked forward for many years.
"I want a little piece of land that I can call my
The marriage took place July 9, 1842, and housekeeping was at once begun in the Old Manse at Concord, which was built in 1765 by Emerson's grandfather. But he was merely a renter; his dream of ownership was to be delayed ten years longer. The great rooms of the curious gambrel-roofed house were rather bare, and there was a scarcity of everything except love, yet the author and his bride found nothing but joy in the retired garden and the dormer-windowed house.
Hawthorne's own charming description of the house and grounds is so attractive that the reader wishes to visit them:
"Between two tall gateposts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch), we beheld the grey front of the old parsonage terminating the vista of an avenue of black ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, the last inhabitant, had turned from that gateway toward the village burying ground....
"Nor, in truth, had the old manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly owners from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in the chambers had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to recollect how many sermons must have been written there. The latest inhabitant there—he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was left vacant—had penned nearly three thousand discourses.... How often, no doubt, had he paced along the avenue, attuning his meditations to sighs and gentle murmurs, and deep and solemn peals of the wind among the leafy tops of the trees!... I took shame to myself for having been so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the autumn, and that I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses."
Two years after their marriage, Mrs. Hawthorne wrote to her mother:
"I have no time, as you may imagine. I am baby's tire-woman, hand-maiden, and tender, as well as nursing mother. My husband relieves me with her constantly, and gets her to sleep beautifully.... The other day, when my husband saw me contemplating an appalling vacuum in his dressing-gown, he said he was a man of the largest rents in the country, and it was strange he had not more ready money.... But, somehow or other, I do not care much, because we are so happy."
Hawthorne did much of his work in the rear room where Emerson wrote. In the introduction to "Mosses from an Old Manse" he said of this apartment:
"When I first saw the room, the walls were blackened with the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan ministers, that hung around.... The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dirty garret windows while I burrowed among the venerable books in search of any living thought."
Poverty put an untimely end to life at the Old Manse. The years from 1846 to 1852 were spent in Boston and Salem. In 1852 Hawthorne was able to buy a dilapidated old house at Concord, which he called The Wayside. Here he remained until his appointment in 1853 as American Consul at Liverpool, and to it he returned after long wandering.
The Wayside had been the home of Bronson Alcott. Here Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne made their second real home. They rejoiced as, a little at a time, they were able to improve the property, and they showed always that they knew the secret of finding happiness in the midst of privations.
Hawthorne described his new abode for his friend, George William Curtis:
"As for my old house, you will understand it better after spending a day or two in it. Before Mr. Alcott took it in hand, it was a mean-looking affair, with two peaked gables; no suggestion about it and no venerableness, although from the style of its architecture it seems to have survived beyond its first century. He added a porch in front, and a central peak, and a piazza at each end, and painted it a rusty olive hue, and invested the whole with a modest picturesqueness; all which improvements, together with the situation at the foot of a wooded hill, make it a place that one notices and remembers for a few minutes after passing it....
"The house stands within ten or fifteen feet of the old Boston road (along which the British marched and retreated), divided from it by a fence, and some trees and shrubbery of Mr. Alcott's setting out. Wherefore I have called it 'The Wayside,' which I think a better name and more morally suggestive than that which, as Mr. Alcott has since told me, he bestowed on it, 'The Hillside.' In front of the house, on the opposite side of the road, I have eight acres of land,—the only valuable portion of the place in a farmer's eye, and which are capable of being made very fertile. On the hither side, my territory extends some little distance over the brow of the hill, and is absolutely good for nothing, in a productive point of view, though very good for many other purposes.
"I know nothing of the history of the house, except Thoreau's telling me that it was inhabited a generation or two ago by a man who believed he should never die. I believe, however, he is dead; at least, I hope so; else he may probably appear and dispute my title to his residence."
In furnishing the house Mrs. Hawthorne took keen pleasure in putting the best of everything in her husband's study. She called it "the best room, the temple of the Muses and the Delphic shrine."
In these surroundings, supported by a wife who worshipped him, Hawthorne wrote until the call came to go to England. It was 1860 before he returned to The
Photo by Ph. B. Wallace
ROYALL HOUSE, MEDFORD, MASS.
XII
THE ROYALL HOUSE, MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS
FROM WHOSE ROOF MOLLY STARK SIGNALLED TO
HER HUSBAND
One who is familiar with the old plantation houses of Virginia is tempted to rub his eyes when he first sees the Royall House at Medford, Massachusetts, for this relic of Colonial days has the outbuildings, the slave-quarters, and other characteristics of so many Virginia houses. True, it has not the low wings and the stately columns at the entrance, but the doorway is so chaste and dignified that this is not felt to be a lack. Those who enter the doorway and walk reverently through the rooms of what has been called the finest specimen of colonial architecture in the vicinity of Boston, are filled anew with admiration for the builders of another day who chose the finest white pine for their work, and would not dream of scamping anywhere. Evidently there was little need in those days of the services of an inspector to see that the terms of a contract were carried out.
The history of the property goes back to 1631, when Governor John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who served for nineteen
At the time of Governor Winthrop's ownership it was called the Ten-Hill Farmhouse, because ten hills could be seen from its windows. John Winthrop, Jr., sold the place to Mrs. Elizabeth Lidgett. Lieutenant Governor Usher married a Lidgett, and owned the estate until he lost it through business reverses. The name was not changed until 1732, when the house was bought by Isaac Royall, a planter from Antigua, in the Leeward Islands, a descendant of William Royall of Salem. He paid £10,350 for the estate, which then consisted of five hundred and four acres. It was he who enlarged the house. For five years the neighbors watched the transformation of the comfortable Ten-Hill Farmhouse to the great Royall House, with its enclosing wall, elm-bordered driveway, pleasing garden, summerhouse, great barn, and rambling slave-quarters.
Two generations of Royalls entertained lavishly here. Among the guests were the most celebrated men of the time, as well as many who were not so well known, for all were welcome there. Many of these guests drove up the driveway to the paved courtyard in their own grand equipages. Some were brought in the four-horse Royall chariot. But those who came on foot were welcomed as heartily.
Isaac Royall, II, was a Tory, and in 1775 he was compelled to abandon the property. Thereupon Colonel,
Under the direction of Molly Stark the house maintained its reputation for hospitality, and she did her best to make the place the abode of patriotism. On the day when the British evacuated Boston she promised her husband to signal to him from the roof the movements of the enemy. Passing on with his soldiers to Dorchester Heights, he anxiously awaited the news sent to him by his faithful Molly.
The Royall family regained possession of the property in 1805. To-day it is owned by the Royall House Association, which keeps it open to the visitors. These come in large numbers to see relics of former days, including what is said to be the only chest that survived the Boston Tea Party, the sign of the Royall Oak Tavern in Medford, which bears the marks of the bullets of the soldiers who were on their way to the Battle of Bunker Hill, the old furniture, the first fork used in the Colony, and the furnishings of the quaint kitchen fireplace, which dates from 1732.
Photo by Wallace Nutting, Inc., Framingham Center, Mass
BROADHEARTH, SAUGUS, MASS.
XIII
BROADHEARTH AND THE BENNET-BOARDMAN
HOUSE, SAUGUS, MASSACHUSETTS
TWO REMARKABLE SPECIMENS OF THE OVERHANG HOUSE
"Thomas Dexter of Lyn, yeoman," was the first owner of much of the land on which Lynn, Massachusetts, is built. Evidently he was land poor, for on October 22, 1639, he "mortgaged his fearme in Lyn ... for two oxen & 2 bulls upon condition of payment to Simon Broadstreet of Ipswich £90 the first day of August, the next following with a reservation upon the sale of the said fearme to give the said Dexter the overflow above the debt and damages of the said £90."
Six years later the Registry of Deeds at Salem told of the sale, to Richard Leader, Gent, of England, of a bit of the farm on which Governor Broadstreet held a mortgage. Mr. Leader was the agent of "ye Company of undertakers of ye Iron Works," and he thought that Dexter had the best location for the purposes of the company that proposed to start what proved to be the first successful iron works in the Colonies. The quaint story of the transaction was entered thus:
"Thomas Dexter of Lyn in the County of Essex ye[oman] for the sum of 40 £ st[erling] hath sowld unto Richard Leder for ye use of ye Iron works all that land, wch by reason of [a] damme now agreed to be made, shall overflow and all sufficient ground for a water course from the damme, to the works to be erected, and alsoe all [the] land betwene the an[cient] water course and the new extended flume or water course togeather with five acres and an halfe of land lying in the corn field most convenient for the Iron Works and also tooe convenient cartwayes that is to one on each side of the premises as by a deed indented bearing date the twentie seaventh of January, 1645, more at lardge apth."
On the ground thus bought a sturdy house, Broadhearth, was built in 1646. The second story overhung the first story, after the manner of many English houses of the period. The overhang is still in evidence, though a veranda has hidden it except to the careful observer.
The first product of the iron works, a kettle, was made in 1642. This is still in existence. During more than one hundred years neighboring colonists looked to the foundry for their supplies of house hardware, furnishings, and implements of iron. The site of the foundry was opposite the house, while traces of the pits from which the bog ore was dug are easily found in the field at the rear. Remains of scoria and slag are also pointed out to the visitor by employees of the Wallace Nutting Corporation, which has restored the house as nearly as possible to its original condition and has placed in it furniture of the period. A caretaker has been placed in charge who will copy for applicants iron work in the house, or other old examples. Thus, in a modest way, the Saugus Iron Works has been reËstablished.
Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company
BENNET-BOARDMAN HOUSE, SAUGUS, MASS.
Another specimen of the overhang house is not far away. This is the house built some time between 1649 and 1656 by Samuel Bennet, carpenter. It is famous as the house that has been in two counties, Suffolk and
That it was once in Boston was due to the narrow strip of the territory of the city that stretched far out in the country, somewhat after the manner of a portion of a modern gerrymandered legislative district. When the district was set off as Chelsea and Lynn, in response to a petition of citizens who were inconvenienced by their distance from town meetings, the boundaries between Chelsea and Lynn were carelessly marked; one line ran directly through the front door and the chimney of the Bennet house. This mistake, which caused annoyance and expense to those who occupied the house, was not corrected for more than one hundred years. Finally Abijah Boardman asked that he be relieved of his double liability to Lynn and Chelsea, and in 1803, by Act of the General Court, the petition was granted.
Bennet, the builder of the house, figured more than once in the courts. In 1644 the Grand Jury indicted him as "a Common sleeper in time of exercise," and he was fined 2s. 6d. In 1671 he brought suit against the Iron Works Company for £400 for labor. In connection with this suit John Paule, whose "constant employment was to repair carts, coale carts, mine carts, and other working materials" for the "tiemes" at the iron works, testified that "my master Bennet did yearly yearme a vast sum from said Iron Works, for he commonly yearmed forty or fifty shillings a daye, for he had five or six teemes goeing generally every faire day."
Bennets and Boardmans have held the house from the beginning. The Society for the Preservation of
XIV
THE COLONEL JEREMIAH LEE HOUSE,
MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS
THE HOME OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST MARTYRS TO THE CAUSE OF THE COLONIES
Marblehead was a comparatively insignificant port when Jeremiah Lee came to town. At once he made a place for himself among the humble fishermen and other seafaring men of the place. He was a member of the Board of Firewards in the town's first fire department, and he served on important committees.
When, in 1768, he built a wonderful mansion that cost more than ten thousand pounds, the most wonderful house in Massachusetts at the time, his townsmen knew him well enough to understand that he was their good friend, even if he did have much more money than any of them.
The Lee Mansion was a hospitable home. The Colonel and his wife Martha entertained lavishly, not only the people of the town but famous men from abroad. In 1789 Washington was entertained in the house. But it was one of the glories of the mansion that the humblest mariner in the place was not slow to go there if he wished to have a chat with the bluff owner or if he desired to go to the quaint cupola from which it is possible to look far out to sea. To this outlook Colonel
The house is sixty-four feet by forty-six feet, and the walls are of brick, though they are covered with wooden clapboards two feet by one and a half feet. There are fifteen rooms, in addition to the great halls that make the house seem like a palace.
In these rooms the Colonel conferred with other patriots as to the welfare of Massachusetts and all the colonies. From the house he went out to the town meetings where the men gathered to talk over the Boston Port Bill and the Boston Tea Party and questions of Taxation without Representation.
He rejoiced to serve as a representative in the General Court and on the Committee of Safety and Supplies of the Province. He was chosen to represent the town in the Continental Congress, and when he was unable to go, Elbridge Gerry, who later became Vice-President of the United States, was sent in his place at the expense of the town.
On the night of April 18, 1775, in company with Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orin, who were members with him of the Committee of Safety and Supplies, he was attending a meeting at Weatherby's Black Horse Tavern just outside of Cambridge. The meeting adjourned so late that the three men decided to spend the night at the tavern. The eight hundred British soldiers who were on their way that night to Lexington learned of the presence in Cambridge of the patriots. Some one rushed to the tavern and roused them from slumber. They did not even have time to put on their clothes, but ran at once from the house and hid themselves at
Three weeks later Lee died as the result of the exposure. He has been called one of the earliest martyrs to the cause of the Colonies. Before he died he left directions that five thousand pounds should be given to the treasury of the provinces.
Mrs. Lee, who was Martha Swett of Marblehead, lived on in the mansion with those of her eight children who had not gone already to homes of their own. Under her guidance the hospitality for which the house had become noted was maintained.
Those who pass between the beautiful porch pillars and enter the chaste colonial doorway are amazed at the remarkable hallway and the stairs. The hall is fifteen feet wide and extends the length of the house. It is heavily wainscoted with mahogany. On the walls hangs remarkable panelled paper whose designs, depicting ancient architecture, are in keeping with the majestic proportions of the place. The stairway is so wide that four or five people can climb it abreast and the balustrade and the spindles are of exquisite workmanship.
The rear stairway is far more ornate than the best stairway in most houses, and the rooms are in keeping with the hall and the stairways.
The cupola is one of the most striking features of the house. Here six windows give a view that is worth going far to see.
When Mrs. Lee died, the property descended to her son. Judge Samuel Sewell was a later owner. But the day came when it was to be sold at auction. All
Since July 9, 1909, the Society has owned the mansion. For six months of every year it is open to visitors who throng to see the choice collection of china, portraits, embroidery, and furniture that has been gathered together by the Society.
Photo Furnished by Rev. A. McDonald, Newburyport, Mass.
OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, MASS.
XV
THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT,
MASSACHUSETTS
WHERE GEORGE WHITEFIELD, THE GREAT EVANGELIST,
IS BURIED
More than one hundred years after the organization of the First Church of Newburyport, Rev. George Whitefield, then a young man of twenty-six, preached in the community. "The Great Awakening," which followed, spread all over New England, and more than thirty thousand were converted. Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, the Tennents, and others led in the work that had such wonderful results.
Five years after Whitefield's visit to Newburyport the Old South Church was organized, most of those who became members having been converted under Whitefield's preaching. The new church was actually a Presbyterian church from the beginning, though it
The members of the new church were called "a misguided band," and "new schemers." Their first pastor was called a dissenting minister. Their protest against these aspersions took the form of a petition to "The King's Most Excellent Majesty," which was a prayer for that "equal liberty of conscience in worshipping God" that had already been granted to others. The petition recited the desire of the people to be relieved of taxation "for the support of ministers on whose ministry they cannot in conscience attend," and stated that, because of their refusal to pay what they felt were unjust taxes, "honest and peaceable men have been hauled away to prison to their great hurt and damage."
When the petition was presented to the king by Mr. Partridge, their agent, he declared that they were not "a wild, friekish people," and cited as an argument for relief from double taxation that, while they had some wealthy members, there were among them "more poor widows than all the other congregations in town put together." He said those who protested against double taxation had been "dragged about upon the ground," dressed up in bear skins and worried, and imprisoned.
The protest did not bring relief at once; it was 1773 before the General Court granted the plea of the members. For more than twenty years more the town tried to collect double taxes, but in 1795 the rights of the members of Old South were conceded.
The first building, erected in 1743, gave way in 1756 to the structure still in use. Alterations made since that time have not made any great change in its appearance,
The bell in the new tower was cast by Paul Revere. Surmounting the spire is a cock which was perched on the original tower. When this tower, after the carpenters had done all they could with their saws, was pulled over by horses and oxen, the cock broke loose and fell at some distance. The man who picked up the figure was surprised to find that it was of solid copper, instead of wood, as had been thought, and that it weighed more than fifty pounds.
In the original pews there was a central chair, surrounded by seats hung on hinges. Over the pulpit was a sounding board. At the head of the pulpit stair a seat was provided for the sexton, that he might be on hand to trim the candles during the evening service.
The official history of the church, written by Dr. H. C. Hovey, gives interesting facts concerning the heating of the old building:
"For seventy years those who crowded this church depended on footstoves altogether for warmth in winter; while the minister preached in his ample cloak, and wore gloves with a finger and thumb cut off to enable him the better to turn the leaves. A law was made allowing the sexton twenty cents for each footstove that he had to fill before service and remove afterward. A great sensation was made in 1819 by the introduction of wood stoves at an outlay of $100. The first day they were in place the people were so overcome that some of them fainted away and were carried out of the house; but they revived on learning that as
On the Sunday after the battle of Lexington Dr. Jonathan Parsons made an appeal in the name of liberty. After this Captain Ezra Lunt stepped into the aisle and formed a company of sixty men, which is said to have been the first company of volunteers to join the Continental Army.
Later Newburyport supplied a number of companies. But the call came for still another company. "Day after day the recruiting officers toiled in vain," Dr. Hovey writes, "Finally the regiment was invited to the Presbyterian church, where they were addressed in such spirited and stirring words that once again a number of this church stepped forth to take the covenant, and in two hours after the benediction had been spoken the entire company was raised."
During the war twenty-two vessels and one thousand men, from the towns of Newbury and Newburyport, were lost at sea. The first American flag seen in British waters, after the cessation of hostilities, was displayed in the Thames by Nicholas Johnson of Newburyport, captain of the Compte de Grasse.
Among the treasures of the church is the Bible which Whitefield used. The evangelist, who died Sunday, September 30, 1770, is buried in the crypt under the pulpit where he had planned to preach on the very day of his death, as he had preached many times during the years since the building of the church. To this dark crypt thousands of reverent visitors have groped
Those who love this old church at Newburyport delight in the lines of John Greenleaf Whittier:
"Under the church of Federal Street,
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet,
Walled about by its basement stones,
Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.
No saintly honors to them are shown,
No sign nor miracle have they known;
But he who passes the ancient church
Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch,
And ponders the wonderful life of him
Who lies at rest in that charnel dim.
Long shall the traveller strain his eye
From the railroad car, as it plunges by,
And the vanishing town behind him search
For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church;
And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade
And fashion and folly and pleasure laid,
By the thought of that life of pure intent,
That voice of warning, yet eloquent,
Of one on the errands of angels sent.
Like the tide from the harbor-bar sets in.
And over a life of time and sense
The church-spires lift their vain defence,
As if to scatter the bolts of God
With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod,—
Still, as the gem of its civic crown,
Precious beyond the world's renown,
His memory hallows the ancient town!"
XVI
THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, PROVIDENCE,
RHODE ISLAND
THE OLDEST BAPTIST CHURCH IN AMERICA
When Roger Williams, Welshman, left England for America because he could not find in the Church of England freedom to worship God according to his conscience, he came to Salem, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There he joined others who had sought America for the same purpose, but to his disappointment he found that his ideas of liberty of worship did not agree with theirs, and he was once more adrift. On October 9, 1635, the authorities of the Colony ordered that he "shall depart out of this jurisdiction." He was later given permission to remain until spring, on condition that he make no attempt "to draw others to his opinions."
On the ground that he had broken the implied agreement, the Governor, on January 11, 1636, sent for him to go to Boston, from whence he was to be banished to England. Williams sent word that he was ill and could not come at the time. A force of men was sent to seize him, but when they reached his house he had departed already, turning his face toward the southern wilderness. He was "sorely tossed for fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean."
On April 30, 1636, he came to the country of the Wampanoags, where the sachem Massasoit made him
Two years after the settlement of Providence twelve of the citizens decided that they must have a church. One of the company, Ezekiel Hollyman, baptized Roger Williams and Williams baptized Hollyman and ten others. The twelve then baptized were the original members of the first church of Providence, Rhode Island, the first Baptist church in America, and the second in the world. Roger Williams was the first pastor, but he withdrew before the close of the year in which the church was organised. During the remaining forty-five years of his life he remained in Providence as a missionary among the Indians, whose friendship he had won by his scrupulously careful and honorable method of dealing with them.
The church met in private houses or under the trees, for more than sixty years. The first meeting house was not erected until 1700. The builder was Pardon Tillinghast, the sixth pastor of the church, who, like his predecessors, served without salary. However, he urged that the church should begin to pay its way, and that his successor should receive a stipulated salary. The Tillinghast building was in use for fifteen years
The growth of the congregation called for a larger building. This was erected in 1726 and was used until 1774. An old document gives an interesting side light on the building of the meeting house. This is an account of Richard Brown, dated May 30, 1726, which reads:
The account of what charge I have been at this day as to the providing a dinner for the people that raised the Baptist meeting-house at Providence (it being raised this day,) is as followeth:
| One fat sheep, which weighed forty-three lbs. | £0,14,04 |
| For roasting the said sheep, etc. | 8 |
| For one lb. butter | 1 |
| For two loaves of bread which weighed fifteen lbs. | 2 |
| For half a peck of peas | 1,03 |
When the building was planned the Charitable Baptist Society was incorporated, that it might hold title to "a meeting-house for the public worship of Almighty God, and to hold Commencement in." Nearly a third of the £7,000 required for the new building was raised by a lottery, authorized by the State. The architects modelled the church after the popular St. Martins-in-the-Fields in London, whose designer was James Gibbs, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren.
In the two-hundred-foot spire was hung the bell made in London, on which were inscribed the strange words:
"For freedom of conscience this town was first planted;
Persuasion, not force was used by the people:
This Church is the eldest, and has not recanted,
Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple."
The pastor at the time the new church was first occupied, on May 28, 1775, was president of Rhode Island College, an institution which had been located in Providence in 1773, in consequence of the generosity and activity of the members of the church. The institution later became Brown University. Every one of the presidents of the college has been a member of the First Church.
A church whose building was dedicated "midway between the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill" should have a patriotic history. The story of Providence during the Revolution shows that the members were keenly alive to their opportunities. The first suggestion for the Continental Congress came from Providence. Rhode Island was the first State to declare for independence. Pastor and people were ardent supporters of these movements. Many soldiers were furnished to the army by the congregation.
Naturally, then, people would be interested in a man like Stephen Gano, who became pastor in 1792. He had been a surgeon in the Revolutionary Army, and had been taken prisoner, put on board a prison-ship, and bound in chains, which made scars that lasted for life. His pastorate of thirty-six years was the longest in the history of the church.
The stately building erected in 1774 is still in use. The gallery long set apart for the use of slaves has given way to a square loft, the old pews have been displaced by modern seats, and the lofty pulpit and sounding-board have disappeared. Otherwise the church is much as it was when the first congregation entered its doors in 1775.
