IBMiSiiiliiliiii w. vP"P 'bV'' 0^ ^- "' :- -**o< : "^^^'•^^'•y %*^-'/ *^.y -o^^^f^^o^ V*^\^^ "V*"^-' . v^^ ^-^s^' -^^0^ q*. "•/•-•' ^0 »bv" .'- '^^0^ io v^' 5<^^ ■ ^-^^^' t-o^ ."^ ^oV^ -^^0^ ^^ HO, No. 96. LIBRARY of Cape Cod HISTORY & GENEALOGY ANCIENT HOUSES By Capt. Inomas Prince Howies C. W. SWIFT, Publisher and Printer, Yarmouthport, Mass.: 1911. ANCIENT HOUSES. Col John Thacher, prominent in the second generation of Cape men, ac- A paper read before the Cape Cod tive in the field, and wise in coun- Historical Society, February 22, sel; Judge Peter Thacher and his ' 1888, by Capt. Thomas Prince grandson. Judge George Thacher, Howes. who is still remembered by persons living, and his brother. Col Thomas, I propose in my remarks, on this a worthy and trusted citizen of Yar- occasion, to indulge in some rambling mouth — all honored and honorable talks about the homes of a few of men. our people, with whose lives I am One can imagine what matters of somewhat acquainted, by tradition public concern in the history of the and family papers. infant colonies, have been discussed We still have left standing in our within the walls of that house. Eng- midst, here and there, a venerable land and France were seldom at house, — time-worn and decayed — peace, and the men of Thacher which has sheltered six or seven blood were ready to take a hand, generations, and remains as an ob- when men had to go to the front; ject lesson in our domestic history, and in church and town affairs We need go but a few rods from this their services were in request. The hall to find an illustration of the men of early times, when that and truth of this. The house built by other old houses were builded, were Col John Thacher, son of the grantor without the assistance of newspapers Anthony, and handed down from sire to tell what they ought to do. Not to son for six generations, yet a solitary newspaper in British stands. When that house was erect- America, and hardly a book except ed, in 1680, Plymouth was not unit- the Bible; certainly no novels, un- ed to Massachusetts; Charles II was less The Pilgrim's Progress, if any king of England; William Penn had had that, which is very doubtful, not crossed the Atlantic; the Missi- but they appear to have got on with- ssippi river was unexplored, and the out the aid of the daily paper or the English language unspoken west of public library, for two or three gen- Lake Ontario. It was twenty years erations at least; and it is doubtful before any post route was establish- if our fathers would have been much ed in Massachusetts. There is no interested in reading books if they building on the peninsula of Boston had been obtainable. The minister of equal antiquity; it antedates must have been about the only man Christ church by forty-three years; of any pretensions to literary cul- and the oldest brick building, which ture, and his reading must have is the corner book store, by thirty- been limited to few books. No two years. The distinguished man doubt he was a frequent visitor at who built that house and those who any home of the Thachers. Col succeeded him in its occupancy have John Thacher was the son, it is deserved well of their countrymen, said, of one who had officiated as a f^o^^ curate in England, and grandson of Peter, a rector of the church. Among other matters which had to be set- tled in those days, was the delicate one of seating the congregation in the meeting house, and as time went on, the enlarging the house of wor- ship, and, at last, the building of a new one at old Yarmouth, and the division of the parish. I confess to an affectionate inter- est in that old Thacher dwelling, for various reasons, and one is, perhaps, that Mr Anthony Thacher and my ancestor were warm personal friends, coming on to the Cape together, as grantors of the settlement. They lived in loving harmony for twenty- seven years after founding the town. The will of Thomas Howes, which is witnessed by the Rev Thomas Thorn- ton, mentions Mr Anthony Thacher, and calls him "my beloved friend," and Mr Thacher and his wife. Mis- tress Elizabeth Thacher, are witnes- ses to a codicil of the will. Another reason for my interest is that it was the first house I had the privilege of entering in Yarmouth. It seems a long time ago, when riding over from Dennis, on horseback behind my father, we dismounted and enter- ed one of the two front doors, with which the house was then furnished. That was more than sixty years since. The occasion must have been the keeping of a family relationship, growing out of a marriage of one of the daughters of Peter Thacher, Jr., to my grandfather, Jeremiah Howes. Terape Thacher married Capt John Hedge of Yarmouth, who was one of the victims of the prison ship in New York harbor. She was a sis- ter of Judge George Thacher and Col Thomas Thacher, whose daugh- ter occupied th'^^ house at the time I have mentioned. For her second husband she accepted Lieut Jeremiah Howes, and went to Dennis to live, where she died in 1808. A marble slab in the burial ground commemor- ates her memory, and also that of her first husband, Capt John Hedge, and her only son, Capt Daniel Hedge, who was lost at sea with all his crew, in the winter of 1804. The oldest daughter, Mary, upon her father's death, went to live with her uncle. Judge Thacher, at Biddeford, Maine, where she married a young lawyer, who had been a student in the office of the Judge, and after- wards settled in Wiscasset and be- came a member of congress; his name was Silas Lee; he was a prom- inent political and business man in Maine, in the early part of the cen- tury. Mr and Mrs Lee used to make occasional visits to Yarmouth and Dennis, driving down in a carriage and pair, with a colored driver on the box. The advent of lawyer ' Lee and his wife, in their coach, in- to the quiet and primitive village of Nobscussett, eighty years ago, creat- ed quite a stir, and no little gossip. And then grandmother Howes, as I used to hear her called, must take a trip to Wiscasset to see her daugh- ter. A letter I have in my posses- sion, from Mrs Lee to my grand- father, details her journey home and the places she was to stop at. It was no trifling affair to journey by land from Wiscasset to Dennis in the year 1800. Leaving, as we must, the Thacher house with all its associations, my memory recalls many old homes on the road as we journey eastward to- wards Dennis. The old one which contains a portion of the old meeting house built in Y armouth. Another, occupied in my boyhood by Mr Ben- jamin Howes, its site now covered with pine trees. On the spot where Mr Lincoln Robbins lived formerly stood a large two-story house, the abode of Squire Atherton Hall, who kept a tavern. The road from South Dennis intersected the Dennis road at this point, and men journey- ing from different parts of the town to Boston on horseback, as they wholly did in the winter, would make engagements to meet at this house, to commence their journey together. Another old house I remember, be- yond the one last mentioned, an old Taylor house. The Taylor property lay mostly, I fancy, around in the re- gion of Hockonom. Mr Lothrop Taylor lived in this house, and the high hill in Honkonom was called "Lothrop's Hill." The Taylor fields are now covered with pine woods and the remembrance of the lives and names of the early Taylors, like many others, is likely to be lost un- der the mold of years. Coming into Dennis, I can remem- ber some twenty old-fashioned two- story houses. They were built from the timber grown in our own woods, oak and pine. The boards and shin- gles were imported; bricks were made at our own kilns. The fram- ing differed somewhat from that in vogue in these days. In the con- struction of the two-story houses, the timbers that supported the garret floors projected beyond the front of the building, and the rafters were tenanted into them, so as to form the heavy jet, and also binding the frame firmly together. A huge piece of timber, called the "summer tree," formed the support for the the sleepers of the chamber floor. As most of the old houses were upon somewhat low ground, it was not safe to dig a deep cellar, and so to give convenient height to the walls, the floor was raised some few feet, and a bedroom built over the cellar. This was called the "stair bedroom," and was common to most of the houses built in the last century. If there was a maiden lady in the family it was usually her private apartment, and here were stored the heirlooms of the family — the ancient chest of drawers and the old looking glass of some grandmother and other precious articles of inherited household goods. The Cape is a land abounding in fresh water ponds and running brooks, an attractive feature in the landscape to an emigrant seeking a permanent home and looking forward to the rearing of flocks and herds. Accordingly we find most of the fam- ily mansions, the large two-storj' structures, near some stream. Along on both sides of the brook which runs through the ancient village of the Nobscussetts, stood within my recollection, eleven of these old homes of the fathers, — Halls, Crow- ells, Vincents, Eldrdiges, and Howes- es, had erected dwellings on the low ground, where water was plenty and the soil good. In one the minister resided, the Rev Josiah Dennis, a name still fragrant with pleasant memories. The house is standing and can boast of a "stair bedroom." Another venerable house, long the family homestead of one branch of the Halls, is to be noticed as the birthplace of Nathaniel Freeman, the revolutionary patriot, know as Briga- dier Freeman. He was born in Den- nis, then Yarmouth, in 1741. His father was at that time teacher of the school in the town. This house is yet remaining. In one of these ancient homes of Belle Isle and the St Lawrence- my race which is still left, many of "Canada River," he called it— and the hours of my childhood and youth some dim sort of a remmiscence of were passed in listening to tales of witnessing tea thrown overboard old men and old times from the lips and of his rowing through it, but of an uncle of my father's, who had not daring to appropriate any for his inherited the house and family tradi- own use. tions from his father and grandfath- He did not himself go to war m the er This house was built about 1700 Revolution, but was enrolled as home by Prince Howes. grandson of guard, and went to meeting with gun Thomas, the first of the name. The and military equipments. His mena- mother of Prince was the youngest ory went back to the old French daughter of Gov Thomas Prince, war, and he remembered the comet The restless spirit of emigration of 1759— "blazing star"— he spoke of seized one of Prince's brothers, and it as something potentious, and so it he pushed off and settled in Pemo- was in the minds of the men of that quid, Maine. Of the four sons of generation, for it might in their ina- Prin'ce, two left home to improve agination from "his horrid hair their fortunes abroad. One, Jere- shake pestilence and war." ^ This miah, going to Plymouth, and anoth- old gentleman had great faith in the er whose name was also Prince, existence of witches, and in other went to Oblong, where were soon preternatural appearances, such as gathered a large colony of Cape apparitions and warnings from the names, and where he found money unseen world. These views were was very scarce and hard to get — commonly held by the generation to an experience very common with which he belonged, the great John people who go seeking their fortune. Wesley himself being an example. Prince Howes, the elder, went to In the large front chamber of his Hockonom for his wife, marrying in house hung an oil painting of Queen 1695 Dorcas Joyce, daughter of Ho- Anne. Of the history of this pic- sea Joyce. Two of his daughters ture I have no knowledge, and no in turn married men from old Yar- one living can tell where it came mouth, viz.: Jonathan Hallet to De- from. The queen is painted with a sire, 1719, and Dorcas to James Mat- crown and sceptre, and a falcon up- thews, in 1723. In fact, my old un- on one arm. There were several cle, whom I have introduced, himself holes through the canvas, said to In 1774, took a wife from the daugh- have been the work of rude and ir- ters of Yarmouth, Susannah Mat- reverent boys, who took pleasure in thews, daughter of Dea Isaac Mat- thus insulting the royal majesty of thews. And so it can be seen that England, by discharging their pop- about every person in Yarmouth and guns at this effigy of a queen. This Dennis is genetically related, for mutilation was, of course, done after what is true of this family is also the colonies had revolted from the true of nearly every other. Here mother country. in this home by the evening fire, un- Our first minister in the East pre- cle Jonathan would relate stories of cinct, as every one knows, was Rev whaling voyages to the straights of Josiah Dennis. He endeared him- self to the people of his charge by his upright character, uniform kind- ness and mirthfulness of disposition. Many anecdotes have been preserv- ed of his quiet humor. He once gave one of his neighbors who was going to Boston in a vessel a memo- randum of some articles to be pro- cured. When this person came to consult his list he could make noth- ing of it. He brought it back to Mr Dennis, who himself could not read it. "Well," he said, "I did not write it to read myself, I wrote it for you to read." Another time, returning from a marriage, where the contracting parties were a Mr Robbins and a Miss Crowell, he met a friend, who asked where he had been. " Oh," he said, "to marry a Robin to a Crow." It seems he kept a small store in a part of his house, where the rats had gnawed a hole through the floor. The simple-hearted old divine had placed a bag of shot over the hole to keep the rats out. The result was the loss of his shot down the hole. When Mr Dennis saw how the expermient had worked, he good naturedly exclaimed, "I have shot a rat!" Going to Eastham to exchange, he found upon his desk, or in the pulpit, a large number of notes — as they were called — of per- sons about to leave home for a voy- age to sea. Looking over them he noticed there were only two names among them. So holding them in his hand, as he rose to pray, he said: "Here are a parcel of Cooks and Cobbs desiring the prayers of this church and congregation, being bound to sea." Mr Dennis and his successor, the Rev Nathan Stone, were men of the highest character, and their united labors covered three- fourths of a century. The a;shes of both, as well as the Rev Caleb Holmes, who had a comparatively short ministry, rest in the cemetery at Dennis. There does not seem to have been any great disturbing ques- tions in theology to trouble the peace of the church during the minsi- try of these devout and blameless men. Whatever we may now think of the dogmas held by the churches of their day, there can be no doubt- ing the value of the practical teaching of the pulpit in forming the charac- ter of the people. But to return to old houses. In that part of Nobscussett where Mr John Hall chose his estate, at the brook already noticed, there stands an old two-story, double house built by Mr Joseph Hall, grandson of Mr John Hall. He kept a store and was known as "Merchant Hall." In close proximity to the house, within twenty-five years, stood two other large two-story dwellings, be- longing to the Hall family. Just beyond the limits of Nobscussett, un- der the shadow of Scargo hill, the loftiest elevation on the Cape, may yet be seen a venerable mansion, the home of several generations of the Paddock family. Nearby is the family burying ground. Representa- tives of this name are to be found widely scattered through the country.* Mr Amos Otis used to say the old Paddock house was the oldest in Dennis. It is possible that Ichabod Paddock, to whom belongs the hon- or of instructing the men of Nan- tucket in the art of capturing whales, may have been born in this house. Adino Paddock, the first person in Boston to set up a coach, and for whom were named the famous Pad- dock elms, might have gone out from that venerable old mansion. That the men of the second and third generations from the first comers to the Cape, could have ob- tained the means to erect such sub- stantial buildings as we still see standing here and there, is striking evidence that they labored industri- ously, lived frugally, and planned wisely, proving themselves worthy descendants of those "Who boundless seas passed o'er and boldly met in every path. Famine and pest and savage wrath; To dedicate a shore, where liberty's glad race might proudly come And set up there an everlasting home." ^^^8 ^: ^^•^^ ,Ho^ , \' '? Q 1^*' / \ o • ''1^^' •'J^ ^O ^ ^° •'-J-. 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