USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 3
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His brother Henry Vassall, also a native of the West India islands, resided in the fine old mansion which is still standing at the westerly corner of Brattle and Ash streets. He died before the beginning of the American Revolution, and his widow died as late as 1800.
John Vassall, a son of the first John, erected the stately edifice known as the Washington Headquarters, known in more recent times as the home of the poet Longfellow. John, the younger, abandoned this homestead at the beginning of the Revolutionary War and fled to England with his family, where he died in 1797. Jonathan Sewall, a Tory, occupied a house still standing at the westerly corner of Brattle and Sparks streets. Thomas Oliver, another Tory, occupied a house which he erected on the westerly side of Elmwood avenue, later the home- stead of Vice-President Elbridge Gerry, Rev. Charles Lowell, and of James Russell Lowell, the poet.
Many Tories resided on Brattle street in the days of the Revolution, and these were citizens of the more wealthy and aristocratic.class of that period, and the street was locally known as "Tories' Row." Notable among these was Major-General William Brattle. Brattle was a per- son of good New England descent, and resided in the house which still bears his name, on Brattle street, but possessed an inordinate love for office. He was a physician, preacher, lawyer, and attorney-general; justice of the peace at twenty-three years of age; long time a selectman, a representative, and a councillor; and in the military, captain of the Artillery Company, a major, adjutant-general, brigadier-general, and major-general. He tried to serve both the Americans and the British in the opening struggle of the Revolutionary war, and eventually joined the British, and died at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1776. He had previously conveyed to his son Thomas Brattle all his real estate in Cambridge. This son was a mild kind of a Tory, and was permitted by his fellow-citizens to return to Cambridge after the war, where he died unmarried in 1801.
Other adherents of the British government were Richard Lechmere, house corner of Brattle and Sparks streets, latterly the homestead of John Brewster; Judge Joseph Lee, house corner Brattle and Appleton streets, latterly the homestead of George Nichols; Captain George Rug- gles, later Thomas Fayerweather's, house, corner Brattle and Fayerweather streets, latterly the
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homestead of William Wells; Judge Samuel Danforth, house on Dunster street; John Borland, house fronting Harvard street, long the residence of Dr. Sylvanus Plympton, and Mrs. Elizabeth B. Manning; Colonel David Phips, house on Arrow street, near Bow street, the residence for many years of William Winthrop. These families were connected with each other by relation- ship and certainly by sympathy, and their farms, gardens, and houses were, in the opinion of Madame Riedesel, a contemporary, "magnificent." Not far off from them also, she says, were plantations of fruit. The farms have long since been divided into smaller estates, yet many if not all of these houses remain in good condition, though erected more than a century since.
Judge Danforth died in Boston in 1777. Judge Lee died on his estate in Cambridge, as late as 1802. Ralph Inman, another Tory, and Edward Stow, a mariner, of the same political stripe, became, with many of the others, here mentioned "absentees", and their estates were "confiscated", another name for the act of seizing them for the public use. It was about 1790 that the farms were first broken up into lesser estates.
Time fails to mention many other ancient buildings of Cambridge. Massachusetts Hall, on the College grounds, of date 1720; the Leverett or Wadsworth house (sometimes called the Pres- ident's House) of the same pe- riod; the Holmes house, now re- moved; the Apthorp house; Christ Church; and many others, treated by Colonel Thomas C. Amory in the "New England Historical and Genealogical Reg- ister" for 1871. The ancient mansions of Cambridge have been written up many times, and printed authorities are named below.
MASSACHUSETTS HALL, HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
Authorities : "History of By Lucius R. Paige, Boston, 1877.
Cambridge, 1630-1877, with a Genealogical Register." The municipal history in this work is largely documentary. "The genealogical register is chiefly confined to the families who dwelt in Cambridge before the year 1700, the descend- ants of such as remained being traced to a recent period."-Preface. The work, as a whole, is to be commended for its accuracy and comprehensiveness. The earlier part is now supplemented, if not in a measure superseded, by the publication of the town records by the city. "The Register Book of the Lands and Houses in the 'New Towne', and the Town of Cambridge; with the Records of the Proprietors of the Common Lands, being the Record generally called 'The Proprietors' Records""; published by the Cambridge City Council, Cam- bridge, 1896. "The Records of the Town of Cambridge (formerly Newtowne) 1630-1703." The records of the town meetings, and of the selectmen, comprising all of the first volume of records, and being volume II. of the printed records of the town; published by the Cambridge City Council, Cambridge, 1901. "Exercises in Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Settle- ment of Cambridge", published by Cambridge City Council, 1881. "Cambridge Fifty Years a City, 1846-1896", Cambridge, 1897. "Cambridge Sketches", by Frank Preston Stearns, (bio- graphical) Philadelphia, 1905; "Cambridge", by Edward Abbott. (Drake's "History of Mid- dlesex County", 1880.) "Cambridge", by Samuel A. Eliot, (Powell's "Historic Towns of New England", 1898.) "Cambridge as a Village and City", by John Fiske. (Fiske's "Century of Science", 1899.) "Historic Houses and Spots in Cambridge"; by John W. Freese, Boston,
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1897. "Old Cambridge", by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, New York, 1899. "The Cam- bridge Church-Gathering in 1636", by William Newell, Boston, 1846. This volume by Dr. Newell contains a part of the "Early Records of the First Church in Cambridge", which has been reprinted recently from a copy furnished by the First Church in Cambridge, and prepared by Stephen P. Sharples.
......
WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE. From an old print.
CONCORD
The situation of Concord, though at that time considered far in the interior, and accessible only with great difficulty, held out to the English immigrants strong inducements to form one of their settlements. Extensive meadows bordering on rivers and lying adjacent to upland plains were a great advantage. Forest trees or small shrubbery here rarely opposed the immediate and easy culture of the soil, and the open meadows, produced then even larger crops and of better quality than they did later. It is certain that these advantages were early made known to the English immigrants. It is probable also that the settlement was first projected in England, from the representations of a traveller and author named William Wood, who was the first to mention the original name of the river and place, and who visited the spot in 1633.
The plan was formed on a large scale. Nearly all of the first settlers came directly from England. It was in fact, as it was then represented to be, "away up in the woods", being bounded on all sides by Indian lands, and having the then remote towns of Cambridge and Watertown for its nearest neighbors. It was incorporated on September 2, 1635, the act begin- ning with these words: "It is ordered that there shall be a plantation at Musketaquid, and that there shall be six miles of land square to belong to it" and ending in these: "and the name of the place is changed and hereafter to be called Concord." The number of families to begin the town was fourteen, including two distinguished individuals, Rev. Peter Bulkeley and Major Simon Willard. The first houses were built on the south side of the hill from the public square to Merriam's corner. The farm lots extended back from the road across the Great Fields and the Great Meadows, and in front across the meadows on Mill Brook. The spot contained land of easy tillage, and the buildings first erected were temporary, being huts, built by digging into the bank, driving posts into the ground, and placing on them a covering, either of bark, brush-wood, or earth. This was in the fall of 1635. The second year, houses were erected as . far as where the south and north bridges now stand. After eight years the settlement began to be more extended. Many of the first settlers were men of acknowledged wealth, enterprise, talents, and education in their native country, and several were of noble families. From their
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hardships in this new land they were forced to cut their bread very thin for a long season. Many in new plantations were forced to go barefoot and bareleg, and some in time of frost and snow. And yet, in the words of a contemporary writer (Johnson), they were then " very healthy, more than now they are." In this wilderness workmen of estates sped no better than others, and some much worse for want of being inured to such hard labor. As also the want of English grain, wheat, barley, and rye, proved a sore affliction to some stomachs, who could not live upon Indian bread and water.
The meadows, much to the disappointment of the first planters, soon proved very wet and unuseful, being unexpectedly much overflowed with water. Johnson said "the rocky falls caused their meadows to be much covered with water", and he alluded to an attempt which Concord and Sudbury people made "to cut through", but could not, and proposed a canal across to Watertown or Cambridge to remedy the matter. The population fell off for this reason, and Johnson gives the number of families as about fifty from 1645 to 1650. "Their buildings", he said, "were placed chiefly in one straight street, under a sunny bank in a low level."
The town was early divided into three parts, sometimes called "quarters", in which regu- lations were established in each, similar to those in wards of a city. Each chose its own officers, kept its own records, made its taxes, etc., and as late even as seventy years ago the distinction which was first given to the different parts of the town was still preserved.
For fifty years subsequent to the first settlement few important events marked the history of the town. The generation who first emigrated from England had nearly all departed, and others had taken their places, but with habits and education somewhat different from their fathers, and peculiar to their own period. Compelled to labor hard to supply their own neces- sities, parents had little time or ability to educate their children, and the people generally were, in consequence, less enlightened than the first settlers, and the increase in numbers, wealth, and intellectual improvement of the people was subsequently slow, but progressive.
Littleton, Bedford, Acton, Lincoln, and Carlisle were incorporated out of portions of Con- cord territory.
Concord, from its position, bore an important part in the early Indian wars, being through a long period of its existence a place of rendezvous for troops and a centre of many of the op- erations against the enemy. The prominence of Concord in the American Revolution from its connection with the events of the nineteenth of April, 1775, is a subject familiar to the commu- nity at large, and the town became in that year, as it had been a hundred years before, a dis- tinguished military post. A British officer described it at that time thus: "There is a river that runs through it, with two bridges over it. In summer the river is pretty dry. The town is large, and contains a church, gaol, and court-house, but the houses are not close together, but in little groups."
An eminent writer of that day has said: "Concord will long be remembered as having been, partially, the scene of the first military action in the Revolutionary war, and the object of an expedition, the first in that chain of events, which terminated in the separation of the British colonies from their mother country."'
Concord was always a famous place for conventions, state and local. This was due from its central situation and importance in the county. It was also a shire town, and in 1786, during Shays's insurrection, the artillery companies of Roxbury and Dorchester, under the command of General Brooks, were called upon to march to Concord, "to support the court." Some of the insurgents did, however, enter Concord afterwards, and made some demonstration, and their leader, Shattuck, was tried and condemned to death at Concord, but was afterwards pardoned by the government on account of his bravery as a soldier in the French and Revolutionary wars. In 1813 several British naval officers, prisoners of war, resided in Concord on parole. In 1814
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efforts were made to establish Concord as the principal shire town. This was the last of several efforts of that kind. The first house for the accommodation of the courts was built in 1719, and the first jail in 1754.
In recent years Concord has been made famous as the home of Emerson, Hawthorne, Tho- reau, Alcott (father and daughter), and others eminent in the literary world.
The Old Manse was built for Rev. William Emerson, in 1765, and has always been occupied by ministers, with the exception of a few years when it was for a time the home of Hawthorne, and was the principal house of the town for many years, and probably the only one which had two stories, as almost all the houses of the period were built with a lean-to. It was the only house with two chimneys.
The Old Church was built on an old frame which was in the first church where the first Provincial Congress was held October 14, 1774. The parish of this church was organized in Cambridge in 1636, and the house was built in 1712.
The Wright Tavern stands just as it did on the 19th of April, 1775, when Major Pitcairn, stopping there, said, as he stirred brandy with his finger, that he would "stir the Yankees' blood" before night. With the exception of the L, this building has changed less than any of the old houses.
The Tolman House was the home of Dr. Ezekiel Brown, a surgeon in the Revolutionary War. The house of Jonas Lee was occupied by Jonas Lee, who was a staunch patriot, although the son of a Tory. House of Dr. Joseph Hunt. The shop of Reuben Brown was used for the manufacture of knapsacks, saddlery and other equipments. In endeavoring to destroy the stock of saddlery the British soldiers accidentally set fire to the building, but the flames were quickly extinguished. It was the only private house damaged by the English soldiers in Con- cord. The house of George Heywood is supposed to be two hundred years old, and it was just below this house that one of the guard was posted on the 19th of April, 1775. The Beal and Alcott houses both date about 1740. The house of Ephraim Bull was probably nearly as old, and is known all over the country as the former residence of the originator of the Concord Grape.
The house at Merriam's Corner was the meeting-place of the Reading and other troops under Governor Brooks, who joined the men returning from the North Bridge, and here were killed and wounded several of the retreating British.
There are two or three houses of great age on the Bedford road. The Tuttle and Fox houses date back to 1740 or 1765. The Vose house is the only three-storied house in Concord. It was doubtless one of the most prominent houses of the town, and dates back to a period before 1775. The house of Dr. Barrett contains a room which was a portion of the old block- house, perhaps dating back to King Philip's War. The Wheeler house was built in 1700 in its present form, and has always re- mained in possession of the same family.
The house of Captain Jo- seph Hosmer was built in 1761, and has remained in the family of his descendants ever since (or to 1880). Captain Hosmer acted as adjutant, and marshalled and and collected the Americans as
THE WAYSIDE. HAWTHORNE'S HOME, CONCORD
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. they arrived from various places on April 19, 1775. The house was used for the concealment of stores, which were saved by the cleverness of Mrs. Hosmer. Cannon balls were heaped in one of the rooms and kegs of powder were hidden behind some feathers under the eaves, but, although the British searched and destroyed some beds, they did not find the stores.
The house of Ephraim Wood was erected about 1763, and its owner was an officer of the town and a zealous patriot. The British searched the house to find Mr. Wood, but as he was in another place secreting stores the soldiers did not succeed in finding him.
Not far from the house of Captain Joseph Hosmer is another Hosmer house, belonging to a member of the same family.
Half a mile east of the latter is the house of Abel Hosmer, a builder, who was on his way to Charlestown to purchase a load of bricks, when he met the British soldiers coming to Concord.
The house of Dr. Cummings (Cumings) is near the station of the Middlesex branch of the Central railroad (1880), and its owner was a man of considerable celebrity. He was a colonel in the French and Indian Wars, 1758, was taken prisoner, and was treated with severity at first, but afterwards with kindness. He received a commission from the Crown as justice of the peace, and was appointed chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety. He was a man of considerable property, and left bequests to the town, the church, and to Harvard College. The house of Humphrey Barrett is now owned by Mr. Lang (1880). Humphrey Barrett was the great-grandfather of Colonel James Barrett, who commanded the American forces. Humphrey Barrett came to Concord in 1640, and the house is evidently very old.
The Elisha Jones house is one of the oldest in town, and is now occupied by Judge John S. Keyes. A portion of this house, built by John Smedley in 1644, is still standing, and in the L a bullet hole is plainly seen. A bullet was fired by the British as Elisha Jones was coming out of his house, on the morning of the Concord fight, but he was not hit, and the bullet struck the house instead. (Josephine Latham Swayne, 1906.) The house of Major Buttrick on Ponkaw- tassett Hill, now occupied by Mr. J. Derby (1880), was built in 1712 by Jonathan Buttrick, and the front part is the same as it was in 1775. Jonathan Buttrick was the father of thirteen children, four of whom, Major John, Samuel, Joseph, and Daniel, served under their brother at the North Bridge.
The houses of Samuel, Daniel, and Joseph Buttrick are still standing on the Carlisle road, and the farms were given to them by their father, Jonathan Buttrick. The Ball Hill farm house. was built long before 1775, and Benjamin Ball, a son of the family, fell at Bunker Hill. The old Whittaker house stood where it now is on that memorable day of 1775. The Hunt house is the oldest on Ponkawtassett Hill, and was the house where food was served to the Americans, as they assembled on the hill to await reinforcements.
The house of Colonel James Barrett stands near Annursnuck Hill, as in 1775. Colonel Barrett was in command of the American forces, and had charge of the protection and arrange- ment of the public stores. The British searched the house, as Colonel Barrett was a man of prominence. Mrs. Barrett gave the soldiers some refreshment, but refused the money which they offered her. They threw the money into her lap and she kept it with reluctance. She succeeded in saving some stores that were in the house, but the soldiers took fifty dollars which they found. After having paid for their food they evidently considered that their obligations had ceased! The son of Colonel Buttrick was seized, but was afterwards released, when Mrs. Buttrick told them that he was not the man that they were seeking.
The house of John Beatton is one of the oldest in Concord. John Beatton founded the charity, which for over two hundred years has helped the "silent poor" of the town. (Josephine Latham Swayne, 1906.) The William Munroe house is interesting, because William Munroe es- tablished, in 1812, the first lead pencil manufactory in the United States. His son, William Munroe, was the founder of the Concord Public Library. (Josephine Latham Swayne, 1906.)
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Authorities: Books on Concord are very numerous. The principal histories of the town are Bartlett, G. B., "The Concord Guide Book", 1880, and his "Concord: Historic, Literary and Picturesque", 15th edition, 1895. Hudson, A. S., "The History of Concord", one volume, published 1904. Sanborn, F. B., "Concord", a chapter in Powell's "Historic Towns of New England", 1898. Shattuck, Lemuel, "A History of the Town of Concord", 1835. Tolman, George, has published a number of monographs, besides editing the vital records, which make him the best living authority on the subject of the genealogy and history of this famous town. Wolcott, C. H., published a work of much research, entitled, "Concord in the Colonial Period", 1884. Note: Josephine Latham Swayne published a descriptive work on Concord, referred to above, 1906.
SUDBURY
The town of Sudbury was settled in 1638, and received its name in 1639. It was the second town situated beyond the flow of the tide. The town was settled by immigrants from England, and its impulse was derived from Watertown, as the nearest older settlement. The object of its settlers was the desire for room for farming land. This was an inducement to the younger men, and the first company of settlers was composed, with one exception, of men under the age of thirty. The land first appropriated was supposed to comprise a tract about five miles square. A second grant was of an additional mile. A third tract contained an area two miles wide. The name was that of an old town in Suffolk county, England.
The town of Sudbury had its share of bridge-building from the first settlement. Its original territory was divided by a wide, circuitous stream, subject to spring and fall floods, and without a bridge the inhabitants were much hindered, if not imperilled. Hence bridges were built in the town before 1641. Another ancient structure was a causeway leading across low land to a bridge, to keep passengers above the floods, and stakes were formerly set in it as safeguards to prevent straying from the way.
The first settlement was on the east side of the river, and the town was divided into East and West Sudbury, by the river, in part, in 1780. The land was more extended on the west than on the east side, and the population was larger on the west side than on the east. The church had been divided long before the division of the town, that on the west side called itself the First Church of Sudbury, and the annual town meetings were held alternately on each side of the division line.
East Sudbury became Wayland in 1835, and the westerly part of Sudbury retained its old name. Green Hill in Sudbury was the scene of a severe engagement between the English and the Indians in King Philip's War, the Indians winning the victory, though at too great cost to be of any great value to them. The date of this action was April 21, 1676. In this action the English were first led by a few Indians into an ambuscade; but, like all the English in their engagements with the Indians, in this war, they sturdily held their ground. Having after the beginning of the action established themselves in an advantageous position, they held the enemy at a distance for several hours, until a forest fire, set by the Indians, drove them to a place less advantageous, where, being surrounded by superior numbers, the greater part of the English were slain.
Sudbury is the town of the famous Wayside Inn of Longfellow. It was built in the early seventeen hundreds by one David Howe, who in 1702 received of his father, Samuel Howe, son of John Howe, an early grantee of the town, a tract of one hundred and thirty acres. The house was early opened as a public-house, and in 1746 Colonel Ezekiel Howe, one of its owners, put up a sign of a red horse, which gave the name which it bore for many years, the "Red Horse Tav- ern." In 1796, Colonel Howe having died, his son Adam Howe became the owner and kept the tavern for forty years. He was followed by Lyman Howe, who continued it as an inn until 1-2h
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about 1866, when it passed into other hands. In recent years it has been rejuvenated, and has regained in a degree its former patronage.
Among old houses yet standing is the Walker garrison-house, in the western part of the town. The building is a curious structure, with massive chimney, large rooms and heavy frame- work, and lined within the walls with upright plank fastened with wooden pins. Another house was the Haynes garrison, which was standing in 1876, but since demolished. This house was attacked by Indians in April, 1676, in a very severe manner, but it was successfully defended. Forces coming to its assistance did not fare so well, however.
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