USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > Historical sketches of Brookline, Mass. > Part 20
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Had the earth opened in front of the parsonage, the astonishment would scarcely have been greater. Polly, almost fifty-nine years of age, and as much identified with the parsonage as one of the rafters, about to launch her fortunes on the uncertain sea of matrimony !
It is doubtful if any engagement since then has created a greater sensation in the little circle concerned.
A lonely widower, a New York Dutchman, by the name of Schermerhorn, had found the way to Polly's sympa- thies, he was "so lonesome and she pitied him so; " yet warmly as her heart went out toward him, there was a link at the old parsonage that must not be broken.
There was poor Benny, and the infatuated lover could not have Polly without he would take Benny also, if the pastor's family would consent to let him go.
The terms for his board were agreed upon, satisfac- torily to all parties. It was a service such as money could not buy, and only pure love could suggest, and as such it was appreciated by the family. The difficulty of removing him was less than might be supposed, as he had never grown beyond the size of a delicate child of twelve years. Polly's lover was about seventy years of age, and too feeble to make the long journey to take his bride ; and it was arranged that her nephew should
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
come on and take her and her helpless charge to their destination.
Polly had to undergo some bantering respecting the arrangement of going to her lover, instead of being car- ried thither as a bride by himself, but her serenity could not be disturbed, and she made her preparations, and ` bade farewell to Brookline and the parsonage forever.
She was married in her husband's own house, October 1, 1843. When she had been married a year, she wrote her old friends, that she was " more troubled by the bad grammar spoken by the people around her than by any- thing else." Trouble of that nature would be as light as one could reasonably expect in this life, it would seem.
From that time forward, Polly was visited once a year by one or more of Dr. Pierce's family, greatly to her delight. Her devotion to poor Benny continued unre- mitting, and her husband - who seemed so adapted to Polly's own heart, that one could well apply to them the adage, respecting the celestial origin of matches - was as kind to him as she could desire.
After six years, when Benny was thirty-two years of age, he was found one morning, dead in his bed, having given no signs of illness. The same Providence which had mysteriously darkened his intellect, and made his earthly life a blank, had doubtless wakened him to the full joys of a complete existence; for if He careth for the sparrows when they fall, surely He careth for such.
Mr. Schermerhorn was a Methodist, and held daily family worship. It was his practice to sing a long hymn after reading the Scriptures. Polly could not sing a note, but she sat beside her old husband, who held her hand in his, and gazed up in his face with a love and reverence that redeemed the situation from ludicrousness, and might have gone far toward convincing youthful skepticism,
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POLLY'S DEATH AND EPITAPH.
that the heart never grows old. Thus they lived for twenty years, and then the tie which had united this peculiar pair was broken by the death of the wife. Polly died of congestion of the lungs, in December, 1863, the same disease of which Mrs. Pierce, after years of serene and beautiful old age, had died not long before.
Her life had been one long, devoted service to others. Those who disbelieve in pure, unselfish love, and deny the existence of disinterested benevolence, may make what they can of the simple, unvarnished story of Polly's life.
One cannot but wonder how such a nature could be happy in heaven with no misery there to alleviate, no sorrow with which to sympathize, and no laborious ser- vices to perform.
Three years later the widower followed the partner for whom he sincerely mourned, and a memorial stone marks the last resting-place of Polly and her husband, and poor Benny.
The one text for an epitaph, fitting for her memory, suggested itself to the minds of her old friends at the parsonage, and was inscribed upon the stone : " Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE GARDNER FAMILY AND HOUSES. - THE BOYLSTON, OR HYSLOP PLACE (COLONEL LEE'S). - THE ACKERS PLACE. - OLD INDIAN BURIAL PLACE.
THE ancient Gardners of Brookline were large land- owners, and once formed no inconsiderable part of the population. As they were chiefly gathered near the church and parsonage, though some branches of the fam- ily settled further off, perhaps this is the proper place to introduce them.
The early inhabitants of Brookline were recorded on the documents of the town of Roxbury as often or oftener than on those of Boston. The Gardners are traceable, in births, marriages, and deaths, on the Roxbury records. The name of Thomas occurs earliest and oftenest, like Robert among the Sharps, Ebenezer among the Davises, and Samuel, among the Clarks.
The first Thomas Gardner died in 1639, being " an householder." He of course was an Englishman, and from the records it would seem that he was the head of the large and wide-spread family which bears his name.
The second Thomas Gardner, son of the above, was also born in England. He married Lucy Smith of Rox- bury in 1641, and settled in Brookline. He was a mem- ber of the Roxbury Church in 1650, and paid an annual tax of thirteen shillings for the support of a Roxbury school. This was probably kept in the ancient school- house which formerly stood where the gas-works now are, as that part of Brookline was then in Roxbury. This
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THE GARDNER FAMILY.
man being the father of eight children, would doubtless take an interest in the support of the school. No school was then kept in Muddy River.
In 1672, when the people of Roxbury decided to build " a nue Metting-hous," and permit the people of " Mudi- river" to share in its privileges if they would bear one fifth of the expense, we find the list of Brookline tax- payers for this object headed by Thomas Gardner, who paid ten pounds, that being the largest amount paid by any man in the place. The amount raised was £104 13s. His brother Andrew paid five pounds.
Thomas Gardner died in 1689. He left a will provid- ing for his sons Thomas and Joshua, and his four daugh- ters who survived. His daughter Mary had married Thomas Boylston, one of the earliest of an old Brookline family. The school mentioned above was kept by An- drew Gardner, probably a nephew of Thomas, in 1698.
Andrew Gardner's son Andrew, was a preacher in Lan- caster in 1696. He was accidentally shot by a soldier in that town in 1704. The account given in the " Boston News Letter," is as follows : -
" Boston. In our Number 28, as we then received it, we gave you the account of the Death of the Rev. Mr. Gardner, Minister of Lancaster ; and having since had a perfect and exact account of the same from Eye and Ear witnesses; we thought it expe- dient to insert it here, to prevent various reports thereof. And is as follows : -
"That a man being killed the day before, between Groton and Lancaster, and the Indians being seen the night before nigh the town, Mr. Gardner, (three of the men belonging to his Garrison being gone out of Town, and two of the remaining three being tyred with Watching and Travelling in the Woods after the Indians that day), being a very careful as well as courageous man, concluded to watch that night himself; and ac-
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cordingly went out into the little watch-house that was over the Flankers, and there stayed till late in the night, whence and when he was coming down (as it was thought) to warm him. The man that shot him, who was not long before sleeping by the fire, came out and whether between sleeping and waking, or sur- prised with an excess of fear, fired upon him as he was coming down out of the watch-house through a little trap-door into the Flanker, where no man having the exercise of his Reason could suspect the coming of an enemy, or suspect him to be so when in a clear Moonlight he was so nigh him.
" Mr. Gardner (though his wound was in his Breast being shot through the vitals), came to the door, bid them open it for he was wounded ; after he came in he fainted away, but coming to himself again, asked who it was that shot him, and when they told him he prayed God to forgive him. and forgave him himself, for he believed he did not do it on purpose; and with a com- posed Christian frame of spirit, desired them that were bitterly lamenting over him not to weep but to pray for him, and com- forted his sorrowful wife, telling her he was going to Glory, ad- vising her to follow him ; and in about an hour Dyed, leaving his sorrowful friends to lament the loss of so worthy and desirable a person." *
Thomas, another of the sons of the first Andrew, was a captain in the Canada expedition, under Sir William Phipps, in 1690, in which he lost his life, as did Robert Sharp, and other Brookline men.
The third Andrew Gardner born in this town was a graduate of Harvard College, in 1712, and was ordained minister of Worcester in 1719. He was subsequently settled in Lunenburg, but after his removal from that town in 1732 we lose trace of him.
Peter Gardner, brother of the second Thomas, was also a resident of this town, and had a large family of children. His son Samuel was killed by the Indians when nineteen years of age.
* Boston News Letter, No. 31, November 20, 1704.
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BURNING OF JOSHUA GARDNER'S HOUSE.
There was also a Thomas, but the third Thomas in the regular line of succession, born in 1676, bore a more prom- inent part in the affairs of the town, and was chosen first deacon of the First Church. Of him we have more to say hereafter.
. Joshua Gardner, his brother, married Mary, daughter of John Weld of Roxbury, in 1681. His house stood a little east of the present parsonage on ground now belong- ing to Mr. Kennard. This house of Mr. Joshua Gard- ner, according to Judge Sewall's journal, was burnt on the night of Sunday, January 11, 1691, and two of his children perished in the flames. What a glimpse of do- mestic vicissitude in those early days this incident thus barely and briefly mentioned, opens to the imagination.
How did the fire originate ? Where were the parents ? Who came to help, on seeing the red light of the flames above the thick woods, for there was neither bell, nor en- gine, nor means of relief- and why were the little ones not saved, curiosity asks in vain. Nearly a year later, the Judge enters in his journal the following, under date of December 21 : -
" Went with Mr. Addington and wife to the new house of Joshua Gardner, where were Mr. Walter and wife, Mr. Denni- son and wife, Sir Ruggles and Mrs. Weld. At dinner Mr. Walter asked the blessing, and Mr. Dennison returned thanks on account of completing their new house."
This Mr. Walter was the Rev. Nehemiah Walter, then minister of the church on Roxbury Hill. Sir Ruggles Weld was doubtless Mrs. Gardner's uncle. In this house lived afterwards the Caleb Gardner who gave the land for the First Church.
It was a little singular that when Brookline was thinly inhabited, and fire by no means a common occurrence,
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
three different dwelling-houses owned and occupied, by the Gardners should have been burned. Mr. Nathaniel Gardner, a son of the deacon previously mentioned, was a merchant in Boston, and lived in a house on the spot now occupied by the house of Mr. Chapin opposite the Reser- voir. The Boston " News-Letter " of April 17, 1740, con- tains the following : -
. "Last Monday, A. M. 14 April 1740, the house of Nathaniel Gardner of Brookline, next to the Meeting-house in that town took fire and was burned down, but most of the household goods saved. It was occasioned by a chimney's being on fire, the sparks falling on the roof catched in the shingles, which being very dry burnt so violently, as 'twas impossible to put a stop thereto."
The third Gardner house which was burnt was that of Isaac Gardner in Brighton Street, of which an account was given in the account of that street. He was a grandson of Deacon Thomas Gardner.
We now return to Deacon Thomas Gardner, also called Lieutenant (probably in the Indian wars). His name is one of the first on the petition for a separation of this town from Boston. He was evidently a man of property and much influence. He married Mary Bowles, daughter of Elder John Bowles, and had seven children. In 1718 he built the old house now owned by the Goddard heirs, and occupied by George W. Stearns. His three sons, Solomon, Caleb, and Benjamin successively owned and occupied it after him. Benjamin was succeeded in it by his son Deacon Elisha Gardner, who however sold the place to Mr. John Goddard, and removed to the old Wal- ley house, - it was new then, however, - where he spent the rest of his days, and died in 1797. Captain Benja- min Gardner having left the house above mentioned, to
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THE GARDNER FAMILY.
his son, built a house for himself early in the last century, on Heath Street, almost to Newton line, next the house known as the old Richards Tavern. He died in 1762, leaving the house to his son Samuel, who, however, died about ten years afterwards at the age of forty-three. His son Caleb, then only sixteen years of age, was the next heir. The Revolutionary War was coming on, and the boy, too young to bear arms, but too old to submit to stay peacefully at home in those exciting days, went as attend- ant upon General Wesson, and followed his fortunes dur- ing the various campaigns in which he engaged. After the war was over he returned, married Mary Jackson of Newton, and settled upon the old place. He died in 1807, at the age of fifty-two. His widow lived to be ninety-two. Of his six children, the wife of Deacon Timothy Corey was one, and two of the other daughters are still living in this town. His son Samuel Jackson Gardner was a graduate of Harvard College, class of 1807, having, after such advantages as the Brookline schools could give, been fitted for college at Leicester Academy. He made the law his profession, and for twenty years did a prosperous business in Roxbury, which town he represented in the Legislature. He subsequently removed to Newark, N. J., where he became editor of the " Newark Daily Advertiser." He was an old Whig, a Unitarian of the Channing school, and possessed a mind peculiarly adapted to the pursuits of literature. Genial, witty, and versatile, he won hosts of friends. He died while on a visit to the White Mountains, in July, 1864, aged seventy-six, and was brought to Brookline, and laid in the Gardner tomb.
His son, Dr. Augustus Gardner, still living in New York, is the last male descendant of this line of the old Gardner family. He is known as the author of several
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
books, on various subjects, among which is a treatise on " Copper," also a book of foreign travel, entitled " New Wine in Old Bottles."
The ancient house of Capt. Benjamin Gardner, still standing on Heath Street, is shaded by a grand old elm, which was set out and protected by the Gardners of the last century.
The ancient house in which Deacon Thomas Gardner lived in his last days, and where he died, was sold as above mentioned, by his grandson, Deacon Elisha Gard- ner, to Mr. John Goddard, the father of the late Ben- jamin Goddard, and has ever since been in that family.
The land which originally belonged to Caleb Gardner, after his father's deatlı, and was attached to the house now occupied by George W. Stearns, included all the Goddard lands, and Bradley's Hill (before Mr. Walley's time), extending northward to the brook, and eastward to Cypress Street, as when Cypress Street was laid out it was ordered, that it should run " through the land of Thomas Cotton, and thence through the land belonging to Caleb Gardner.
As Boylston Street was not laid out till within the present century, the old Gardner house, standing just at the curve of the old Sherburne road, had only green fields and thick woods lying about it, there being no other house in sight, except Nathaniel Gardner's house, - on the site of the present residence of Mr. Chapin.
Deacon Gardner built his house for two centuries at least, judging from the substantial work he put into it. There is very little cellar room, for the good reason that nearly all that might have been cellar is chimney- work. The three stacks of chimneys contain bricks enough for a moderate-sized modern house. The walls of the house are laid in large coarse brick, plastered with
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DEACON GARDNER'S HOUSE.
clay, between the outside and inside, to the very roof. The immense timbers are of solid oak, as are also the floors. The rooms are sheathed with paneled wood- work, presenting a painted surface, which might well dismay a modern housekeeper. The doors are braced with long and strong iron hinges, reaching half across their width, and some of them were opened by great wooden latches which lifted by a string, one of which remains till the present time. Closets of all sorts in most unexpected places, were planned for the good housewife's convenience. Each of the front rooms had a recess, closed up with doors of paneled wood-work, concealing a bed turned up against the wall. A deep window seat was also provided with a cover to lift, dis- closing a box or chiest ; the fire-place in this room is sur- rounded by blue and white Dutch tiles, covered with the most grotesque illustrations of Scripture history. Nearly all are perfectly intelligible, but in a few the "high art," baffles modern ingenuity to explain. The L on the north side was at first but one story high, and a second story window in the main house, which looked in that direction, was of diamond panes in leaden sash, evidently brought from England, as the house was built long be- fore glass was made in this country, - this window is now closed up. Trap-doors in the floors, in the second story, indicate the method of " getting up stairs," before stairs were built. After the present occupants had lived twenty- one years in the house, a secret room in the second story was discovered. It was perfectly dark, and only acces- sible by a ladder, after removing a sliding board. No time was lost in exploring the unknown apartment, but nothing was found except an ancient sword, bearing a device, which might be explained by one who under- stands heraldry. It may have been the coat-of-arms of
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF BROOKLINE.
the old English Gardners. This room had been used by former occupants of the house as a place for secreting valuables, but had been forgotten, or never mentioned, so that its discovery by the present occupants was a complete surprise. Further investigation during the prog- ress of some alterations, which were being made for convenience' sake, resulted in the exhuming of an old cannon ball, from between the chimney and the beams, where it had lain for perhaps a century. Samuel Park- man was a resident of this house for several years. Hon. Jonathan Mason made it his country seat for several summers. These residents hired it of the late Benjamin Goddard. Scores of people have been born under this humble roof, and very many have been carried out through its doorway to their last narrow house. Per- haps none of these thus indicated, have brought more honor to an humble home than George Theodore Stearns, the eldest son of the present tenant, who went at his country's summons to defend the imperiled government
. in the late Rebellion. Opposed in taste and principles to war and fighting, he did not volunteer, but when drafted, no persuasion could induce him to send a substi- tute, " because," he said, " he would peril no other man's life to save his own, if his country needed his services." He went like a hero, and like a hero fell, in the blood and fire of the Wilderness. He was carried from the scene of carnage to a Washington hospital, where he lingered a little while, and then passed on to his reward, as truly a martyr for conscience' sake, as a Reformer burned at the stake.
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The gambrel-roofed house, opposite the Reservoir, now occupied by Mr. Chapin, was built in 1740, by Nathan- iel Gardner, the same year that his first house was de- stroyed by fire. It was afterwards owned by Deacon
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" MANDAMUS COUNSELOR."
Benjamin White, who was contemporary with Thomas Gardner in the office of deacon of the First Church.
The next owner was Jeremiah Gridley, Esq., a grad- uate of Harvard University in 1725. He was a lawyer of note, so much so that President J. Q. Adams spoke of him as among the most distinguished in his profession. He several times represented the town in the State Legis- lature, and held various other offices of trust and impor- tance in the town. He lived a single life, and died in the house of which we are writing, in 1767, at the age of sixty-five. Dr. Pierce quotes Rev. Dr. Elliott, author of "New England Biography," as saying, "that his legal knowledge was unquestionable ; " but adds, "he died poor because he despised wealth."
The next person who inhabited the house was Henry Hulton, Mandamus Counselor for the British Govern- ment. He was one of the five commissioners appointed by Parliament to receive the revenue derived from the odious stamp act, and the tax on tea, paints, etc. He arrived in Boston, " clothed with a little brief authority," in November, 1767. He purchased the house in ques- tion for his country-seat, and spent his summers here, and his winters in Boston.
Parties of British officers often rode out to his house - and their visits kept the people of Brookline in a constant state of irritation. As one after another of the hated acts were passed, and the spirit of rebellion burned deeper in the hearts of the people, the " Mandamus Coun- selor," who was quietly pocketing their money for King George, grew more and more distasteful, till finally the boys'of Brookline assembled and smashed his windows. The father of the late Charles Heath was one of the par- ty. One can imagine the gusto with which they did it. and the satisfaction they felt going home. Very likely
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they were wholesomely reproved by their parents for an act which so far as it went was the outgrowth of the same spirit which marshalled their fathers on Lexington Green a few months later.
Counselor Hulton subsequently took up his quarters in Boston till the Colonists made that place too hot for him, and then he returned to England, and his Brookline property was forfeited to the government, he being a ref- ugee. Two or three other owners, of no special note, followed, each occupying the place but a short time, and then it was for several years owned by William Hyslop, a wealthy gentleman. His estate included land afterwards owned by the Murdocks on Warren Street, and now a part of the grounds of Ignatius Sargent, Esq. He gave to the town the triangular piece of ground in the fork of the roads, west of the church, for a site for the old brick school-house in 1793.
Next came John Carnes, who owned the land on the hill in the rear of the Unitarian Church, and of him the society purchased the building lot in 1805.
Mrs. Elizabeth Partridge, a wealthy widow, was the next occupant, and then came Thomas Sumner, Esq., who lived there many years, and ended his days under its roof. He was one of the Selectmen of Boston when Boston was a town. He used to relate an incident which occurred when he held that office, when at the March meeting one after another left, till only twenty men remained. The annual appropriations had been left till the last article, and this important business for the great town was dis- posed of by these twenty.
The results might have been startling under some cir- cumstances, but we do not know that any harm arose from it.
Mr. Sumner's land extended as far as where the parson-
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age land begins, on Walnut Street. It was well supplied with fruit trees, and the kindly disposed old gentleman gained popularity with the boys of the stone school-house and protected his fruit, by appropriating a sweet apple tree, and two or three cherry trees exclusively to their use.
He took delight in seeing a tree full of boys shouting with pleasure, as they availed themselves of his generos- ity, and neither bored them with lectures on the dangers of climbing, nor cautioned them about breaking the limbs of the trees, but gave them the unchecked freedom of the trees. The boy would have been tabooed by his school- fellows who could have been mean enough to touch other than the tree thus generously assigned them.
Mr. Sumner occasionally appeared on the great rock next the sidewalk, nearly opposite the school-house, with pockets laden with apples which he tossed among the boys to see them scramble for them.
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