USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > Historical sketches of Brookline, Mass. > Part 15
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THE SEWALL PLACE.
availed themselves for convenience of access to Jamaica Pond. A large tract of land now under cultivation or · covered with the houses of Hart's Irish settlement, trans- ferred thither from Bradley's Hill, was a thicket of alders, dogwood, and wild rose-bushes. Chestnut Street was not constructed at that time, and the whole area of scores of acres was untraversed except by the single cart path we have mentioned, leading from Walnut Street to the log bridge, and thence by a footpath to the Lee place.
The brook wandered at its own will, overflowing the surface except in the dry midsummer ; a rude bridge of three or four logs was the only means of crossing it, and often this was not accessible from either side on account of the deep, black mud.
This wooded tract was a secure harbor for innumerable snakes, of whose size and numbers, as reported by fre- quenters of the location, we shall give no account lest we be suspected of Munchausenism.
Before Chestnut Street was opened, this region had been partially cleared and drained, and the making of that street and the continuation of the lane, or Sewall Street, through to connect with it, altered the whole face of the country.
There are many men in town, not yet old, who will recall delightful nutting excursions and rustic adventures in this wild and woody region. About thirty years ago a camp meeting of four days' continuance was held in the only piece of "clearing " in these woods. It was acces- sible only through Sewall's lane. Of the success of the affair we think there could not be much to boast, as the nearness to Boston made it altogether too convenient for a class of persons not drawn there by any religious pro- clivities.
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
The widening and extension of the lane made this beautiful rural region accessible for carriages, but it has had its day as a quiet and shady drive. The widening and the class of houses established upon the upper part of it have changed its whole character, and this part of Brookline will with the present generation cease to be remembered " as it was," and be no pleasure to contem- plate as it is.
The Sewall house was occupied after the Sewalls' re- moval by John Tilson, who resided for some years in the stone house near the corner of Sewall and Walnut streets. This family will be remembered by all who knew the three sons, John, Charles, and Robert, in the Brookline schools. John Tilson held a colonel's commission during the late war, and was under General Sherman in his famous march through Georgia. Colonel Tilson bore an honorable record during the war, and at its close was retained in the service with the rank of major. He sub- sequently resigned. Mr. Tilson, senior, sold the wood- land above mentioned, and Hugh R. Kendall, a later owner, began the first improvements, in clearing and opening this retired region to the public.
Deacon Lambert was at one time a resident in the stone house. The heirs of the late Nathan Hale also resided here for some time previous to Mr. Fisher, the present occupant.
The opposite corner of Sewall and Walnut streets was for many years, within the memory of present inhabi- tants, the property of Jerathmeel Davenport. On this lot, near the street, stood the house of the first minister of Brookline, the Rev. James Allen. He was a native of Roxbury, but came here to live and to preach in 1718, and continued here till his death in 1748.
His house, which was a very old one, was torn down
211
THE WALLEY PLACE.
before the close of the last century, but some roses and sweet-briers which he set out continued to grow from the old roots beside the stone wall, until within a few years. This ground is now in the middle of the street.
THE WALLEY PLACE.
The estate known for many years as "the Walley place," comprised all that is now owned by the heirs of the late Jesse Bird, and extended westward nearly to the boundary of the place now occupied by N. G. Chapin. and across Boylston Street which was not then built, includ- ing all that has since been known as Bradley's Hill.
The house, which stood on the site of the one now oc- cupied by the family of the late William Bird, was built in 1750. It was designed to be the residence of the Rev. Cotton Brown, the second minister of Brookline.
Mr. Brown was a brother of the mother of Peter C. Brooks of Boston. Another of his sisters was the second wife of Daniel Dana, who lived where the Public Library now stands.
Mr. Brown was the successor of Rev. James Allen, and was engaged to marry his daughter Mary, a very lovely and beautiful young lady.
Mr. Allen owned, besides the house which he occupied, (before mentioned) an old house which stood west of the present Bird house, in what is now the garden of that place.
It was occupied by John Hammond. After the deatlı of Mr. Allen this house was taken down, and the solid oaken timbers being of enormous size and in excellent preservation, were used in building the new house for the young couple.
But they were destined never to occupy it. A singular fatality seemed to follow the family.
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
Mr. Allen died in 1747, his wife in 1748, their only son in 1749, and the daughter, the last of her family, in 1750.
The young minister to whom she was engaged died in 1751, at the age of twenty-five, and the house which was to have been the parsonage, and had been the centre of so many bright hopes, passed into other hands.
It became the property of Henry Sewall, a grandson of Chief Justice Sewall, of this town, but whether he ever occupied it or not we have no means of knowing. It was occupied for several years by Dea. Elisha Gard- ner of the first church. After Mr. Sewall's death it was inherited by Mrs. Walcott, another of the Sewalls. .
In the year 1796, the house was still the property of Mrs. Walcott, but before 1800 it was sold.
Toward the close of the last century the house was purchased by Thomas Walley, a merchant of Boston, with ample wealth and cultivated tastes. The grounds west of the house were covered with a beautiful growth of chestnut and walnut trees. Back of the parsonage on the rising ground near the site of the house of M. P. Ken- nard, Mr. Walley had a summer-house built. The brook wound its way through the grounds uncurbed by walls, and the wild flowers of every season grew in native lux- uriance. The place was a delightful resort for the few children of the neighborhood.
The house stood upon the same raised bank which is there at present, and had a broad piazza on two sides. On the west end the front room had a projecting alcove with two or three windows in it. Mrs. Walley was a French lady from Martinique, of Catholic faith. There was no Catholic church at that time nearer than Federal Street in Boston, and the large west room was fitted as a private chapel for the family according to the forms of the Catholic church. There was an agreement between the
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THE WALLEY PLACE.
parents that the sons should be educated in the religious faith of their father and the daughters in that of their mother. But before many years Mr. Walley also embraced the religion of his children. Of the two children who still survive one is a Catholic and the other an Episcopa- lian.
Bishop Chevereux was a frequent visitor at the house and the Oratory was his appropriate apartment.
There were several children in the family, and for the convenience of his own daughters and those of his neigli- bors Mr. Walley built a school-house on his own grounds, fronting on Cypress Street' near the corner of Boylston Street.
This school was taught by Miss Stebbins for many years. Several branches were taught here which were not then taught in the public schools, embroidery and sam- pler working included.
The fine arts also received a due share of attention in the elaboration of certain melancholy pictures, such as may occasionally be found in a country farm-house cham- ber, or perhaps even now stored away among the lumber of some Brookline attic. A church-front with a path leading up to it, on either side of which stands a white monument surmounted by an urn and overhung by a very green, heavy, weeping willow. Two wretched fe- males in trailing dresses, stand one by each monument weeping, in identical attitudes. In families already broken by death, pathos was added to the painted scene by an inscription of the name and date of the sad event.
In families still in the joy of a full circle the artist left a blank under " In Memory of" - and as the dismal re- minder hung upon the parlor walls, the thought must sometimes have intruded unbidden upon hours of pleas- ure, of whose name should stand first on the waiting
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
monument over which the black-robed females were ap- parently weeping in advance.
It would seem as if the pathetic and the ridiculous could hardly ever be found in closer proximity than in these absurd pictures.
One can only guess at the moods induced in the young artists by their laborious application to these tasks. A lady teacher of painting was hired, after several years, who brought a higher taste and better practice into the artistic culture of her pupils. Miss Stebbins was a good woman, of the severely pious order, and read her pupils moral lectures of amazing length and dryness.
After several years Miss Stebbins went to Georgia where she taught school, first in Powelton and then in Mt. Zion. She finally removed to Washington, D. C., where she died several years ago at an advanced age. She was a teacher more than forty years.
After Miss .Stebbins' removal Miss Mary Downer con- tinued the girls' school for some time.
The school-house was for some years occupied by a pre- paratory department, for the Classical School, before men- tioned, taught by Miss Louisa Reed. The very building in which so many young ladies of that period received their book-knowledge, worked their samplers, and painted their mourning pieces, is still in existence, and doing ser- vice as a hen-house on Dr. Shurtleff's place.
After Mr. Walley removed to Boston the place was oc- cupied by Reuben Hunting, who purchased it. Mr. Hunt- ing was a butcher and he added a section to the large barn behind the house and there carried on his business for several years.
He sold the fine trees which formed the grove in the westerly part of his grounds, and they were soon all cut down. The summer-house was bought by Captain Brad-
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WALNUT STREET.
ley, who already had an embryo village, on the hill which he had bought of Mr. Walley, and having moved it to the highest part of the hill he added a little room to it and made a house of it. This was the last habitation left on the hill after the sale and removal which took place there in the spring of 1870.
Mr. Hunting lived in the house ten years or more and sold it to Mr. Jabez Fisher. During his residence there the large old barn and slaughter-house building was bought by Captain Bradley and this he added to the other adornments of his hill. This was the building which he surmounted with a steeple, and which was known as "Bradley's meeting-house."
Mr. Fisher's successor was the late Jesse Bird.
After he had occupied the house a short time he had it torn down, and built the present house upon the same site. The old timbers which had formed a part of the frame of the Allen house, which was so old in 1750 that it had to be taken down, and were used in building the house for Rev. Cotton Brown, had served over one hun- dred years in .the latter house. The old mortises made by the Muddy River workmen of two hundred years ago, were laid bare to the light ; the beams were in good pres- ervation, and for aught we know are in existence yet. The fir trees in front, probably as old as the house, but never ornamental, were cut down and gave place to the present graceful shade-trees now higher than the house.
The grounds were improved and the place soon be- came once more one of the pleasantest upon Walnut Street.
THE CLARK FAMILY AND HOUSE.
The first ancestors of this old family traceable in Muddy River are James Clark and his wife Elinor. From'
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
them in a direct line are descended the families of the late Deacon Joshua Clark, Caleb Clark, and Moses Jones.
The will left by this ancient citizen of Muddy River is still in good preservation, and is chiefly interesting for bearing upon it the names of Governor Leverett, Simon Bradstreet, William Stoughton, and Major Thomas Clark, perhaps a brother of James. He was a prominent citizen in those days. John Sharp, who fell the next year, 1675, at Sudbury fight, was also one of the witnesses.
James Clark had a son, Samuel, and there has ever since been a Samuel Clark in the town from - this ances- try. The first of this name was born in 1654. The pa- ternal estate lay on both sides of Cambridge road, now Harvard Street, the house being near the site of the one afterwards built by Stephen Sharp.
There were also marsh lands joining the possessions of the Sewalls and Aspinwalls, as well as woodlands and pasture lands in other parts of the town. All the Clark property in the vicinity of Harvard Street eventually be- came the property of the Sharps.
The first Samuel Clark was a wheelwright. He died in 1727, aged seventy-three years. This is probably the person of whom Judge Sewall speaks in his diary under date of March 12, 1684. " Watched, with Isaac Goose and Samuel Clark. Pleasant night." This was a time when the Indians were particularly troublesome, and probably the watching referred to was on their account.
This Samuel Clark was the father of Samuel, John, and . Mary. An old receipt of Jolin's, given to Samuel, shows that their father was one of the Muddy River Company in the Canada Expedition in 1690. He was a near neigh- bor of the Robert Sharp who went forth in that Expedi- tion and perished in the wilderness. Samuel Clark it would seem returned.
217
SAMUEL CLARK.
The receipt reads as follows : -
May ye 29. 1738.
Received of my brother Samuel Clark of brookline the full and just sum of thre pound six shillings and eight pence being the full of what came or fell to me of the wright that befell us by the coloy (colony) by varty (virtue) of our father's going in the exspodition to canady i the year 1600 i say Received by me JOHN CLARK.
This second Samuel Clark was a carpenter, and built the-first meeting-house in Brookline. He was the first person who was published in the church. He was a dea- con of the church and was very highly respected in Brook- line. He lived to the age of eighty-one years. Died in 1766.
The Clark house on Walnut Street at the corner of Chestnut, was built by this Deacon Clark. He was mar- ried the year after the church was first gathered in Brook- line, and no doubt built his house about that time, as it is known to have been standing and occupied by him a few years later, and is therefore probably not far from one hundred and fifty years old. Directly behind it, stood the house used for a garrison-house. This was probably used as a dwelling-house afterward, as in an indenture made to Nehemiah Davis in 1765, Deacon Clark reserves to him- self the use and profit of " the two houses," but allows Davis the " privilidge of keeping sauce in the cellar of the new house yearly."
His son Samuel, who died at the age of thirty-nine, six years before his father, left a widow who married a Nich- ols and went to Ward, Mass., to reside. There was a Samuel in this family, the fourth of the name, as the widow writes to her son of that name, who it seems was living in Brookline, under date of November 17, 1778,
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
(probably), the date is partly obliterated. We copy it for its quaintness, and the bit of family history it con- tains.
" LOVING CHILD, these lines come from your affectionate mother, almost overwhelmed In trouble, by a sore and awful. yet just dispensation of Providence. It has pleased God to take from ous our Sun Joshua by a sudden and suprisen Death, on the 13th of this Instent as he was a riden in the cart suposed to faul out and the wheal run over him, and within about half a nouer Expired, and has left us to mourn the absence of his delitesum coumpeny, but believing that God who orders all things knows what is best would therefore Desire to acquiesce in his Will.
" I would therefore as a mother in duty to a child remind you the sartainty of Death, and the unsartenty of the time when, and that now in time we may Be prepared for Death. and that we may have an Intrest in him that has tuck a way the sting of death which is sin.
" So I Remain Your Dutifull Parent till Death.
DEBORAH NICKELS."
The Joshua whose death is here recorded was no doubt a child of the second marriage, and must have been less than ten years of age, if the date is correct.
The Samuel to whom this letter was written, became, like his grandfather, a deacon of the church. . He mar- ried Mary, daughter of Robert Sharp, 4th. He lived to be sixty-one years of age and died in 1814, leaving his son Caleb possessor of the homestead.
The fifth Samuel, son of the deacon last mentioned, was born in 1782, and was a graduate of Harvard Uni- versity in 1805. He taught in Brookline during his college vacations, in the old brick school-house, of which an account will be given hereafter. He was ordained as a Unitarian minister in Burlington, Vt., in 1810, but
219
WALNUT STREET CEMETERY.
resigned in consequence of ill-health, and died in that town in 1827, aged forty-five years.
Another son of Deacon Samuel Clark, was the late Deacon Joshua C. Clark of Warren Street in this town, a man who was universally beloved through a long and useful life.
An incident is related of the late Deacon Clark in his youth, which shows the unselfish disposition which char- acterized him through life. The information did not come from his own family. When he was seventeen years of age, Dr. Pierce, his minister, then in the prime . of life, was stricken down with rheumatic fever which rendered him perfectly helpless. For six weeks the young man went of his own accord, with cheerful devo- tion, three or four times every day, to assist in turning the helpless sufferer. Besides this he rendered other efficient service. The same spirit was manifested through- out his long and useful life. He literally obeyed the Apostolic injunction, " Do good as ye have opportunity " - and he did it without ostentation, or hope of re- ward.
Deacon Joshua C. Clark, died July 22, 1861, aged eighty years.
An infant born in the old Walnut Street house, in the spring of 1873, child of William and Helen (Clark) Cutler, is the sixth generation of one family, born within its walls.
WALNUT STREET CEMETERY.
On the 26th of March, 1706, "it was voted that there should be a burying-place on the south side of the hill, on Mr. Cotton's farm, between the two roads, if it can be obtained."
This was the southerly slope of the hill near the head
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
of Cypress Place. But it was not purchased, for some reason now unknown, and the matter lay over for about eleven years .* In December, 1713, it was " voted that Mr. Samuel Sewall, Jr., and Peter Boylston should pro- cure a pall, or ' burying cloth ' at the town's charge," and six pounds were appropriated in addition to the · usual annual appropriation, " to cover the charge of said · cloth."
In April, 1717, half an acre of the ground now com- prised in Walnut Street Cemetery was purchased of Samuel Clark, the carpenter who built the first meeting- house, and was afterward deacon of the church. This was all the ground thus appropriated for more than a hundred and thirty years.
The entrance, by a wooden gate, was in the centre, just at that part of the wall where the monument of Dr. . Pierce stands. The driveway went in but a short dis -. tance and turned to the left, ending between the two ranges of tombs. A procession could not enter, because there was no room for the carriages to turn around.
Rows of gravestones, on the right, of dark slate, em- bellished with the skull and cross-bones, came close up to the narrow driveway. These bore the names of whole families now extinct among us. On the hill near Chest- nut Street, were square, red, brick tombs, two or three feet high, with a slate slab on the top of each. In the wall next the street, the backs of tombs were built up high and narrow, above the level of the rest of the wall. Rank grass, white-weed, and blackberry vines, overran the ground, and everything conspired to give the place that neglected look that characterized country cemeteries in former times.
* It is somewhat remarkable, how the experience and practice of the fore- fathers, in such matters, seems to have descended to the present generation.
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WALNUT STREET CEMETERY.
It would seem as if the spirit of Puritanism, admirable as it was in many respects, deemed it a virtue to invest death with all the external horrors that could be gathered about it. No wonder that superstition was rife. The hearse, a shabby old vehicle, after being kept in the Croft barn for years, was removed to the corner slied of the row back of the old stone school-house, where the very sight of its black doors with their long iron hinges and heavy padlock, struck a chill to the hearts of chil- dren at their play.
Within the cemetery, many of the old graves were sunken, and the stones leaning.
The ground beyond the range of tombs which front northward, a narrow strip compared with what is now inclosed, was the " Potter's field," or burying place for the slaves. There were few stones, but one bore the name of " Dinalı," an old slave in the Heath family, and another the name of " Ben Boston," another slave of a still more ancient Heath.
More than one Revolutionary hero who died in the Brookline barracks found his last resting-place in Brook- line Cemetery. Lieutenant Abell of Rehoboth was one ; and he and two soldiers of a Connecticut company, prob- ably the same that was quartered in Mr. Benjamin Davis's house, had their resting places marked by stones. The two latter remain, and have been decorated, on re- cent Memorial Days, as has been also the tomb of Cap- tain Isaac Gardner and General Gardner.
It will be remembered by those familiar with the early history of Massachusetts, that the widow of Rev. John Cotton, the first minister of Boston, and mother of Sea- born Cotton, born on the voyage, as his name implies, - afterwards married Richard Mather. After his deatlı, - being a widow for the third time, and Thomas and Row-
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
land Cotton, one, if not both, being residents in Brook- line, she came here, took the small-pox, of which she died, and was buried in Brookline Cemetery, where her gravestone is still to be seen .*
Here, too, lies buried the first wife of George B. Emer- son, a sister of the lamented Joseph S. Buckminster, and daughter of Dr. Buckminster of Portsmouth. She was a person of lovely character and accomplishments, worthy of the distinguished family to which she belonged.
Many of the early inhabitants of Brookline were no doubt buried in the old Roxbury cemetery on "the Neck," as they worshipped in the Eliot Church, and that was the nearest burying-place. But there were graves enough to fill the Brookline cemetery before the present century began, and for several years previous to 1840, some of the ground had been used for the same
purpose, over and over again. About this time, Dr. Shurtleff, Mr. Philbrick, and others who were interested in public improvements, saw the necessity of enlarging the area of the ground, a matter attended with almost as much difficulty then as the purchase of a new ceme- tery lot recently. But after some negotiation the im- provement was begun, though hotly contested by many substantial citizens.
The result was, that sometime during the year 1840, the town purchased another half acre, of the Clark heirs. This lay chiefly on the south side.
When the grading of the ground was in progress, a skeleton was exhumed on the Clark land, outside the old boundary of the cemetery. It might not have attracted any special attention, but for the fact that there were
* Dr. N. B. Shurtleff in his History of Boston, says there is a stone erected to the memory of this lady in the King's Chapel Cemetery. There is something probably to be explained with reference to this circumstance.
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ENLARGEMENT OF THE CEMETERY.
good reasons for believing the bones to be those of an Indian, and one of the thigh bones had been broken, but never reset. The fractured parts had over-lapped and grown together in that way, so that the poor victim must have found his mended leg inconveniently short. The bones were interlaced with roots of some shrub which drew its nourishment from them.
If the cattle browsed upon the shrub, and men ate the cattle, a query might be raised as to who owns a future interest in " poor Indian," nearly as interesting as the much discussed question, " Who ate Roger Williams ?"
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