USA > Massachusetts > Franklin County > Shelburne > History and tradition of Shelburne, Massachusetts > Part 30
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Entering the "porch" through the front door, one immediately feels the cordial spirit of the grand old house. The "porch" or entry is not so cramped as some of the early entries, and the treads of the wind- ing stairway are comfortably wider than many.
Surely each new generation of the Wells family inherited love and respect for the original. because few interior changes were made. The wooden win- dow shutters still slide in their grooves. Chair rails of charming designs remain as always. Throughout the main house there are fascinating cupboards of various sizes.
Lavish in grandeur is the parlor at the right of the front door, where dressed in their best attire, the Wellses entertained their friends. Paneling encasing the fireplace wall and the little cupboards have never been disturbed. The dentil molding around the walls is identical to the trim of the mantelpiece. The bed- chamber above duplicates the parlor's elegant wood- work.
Appreciating the original charm of their home built by a distinguished pioneer, the present owners have painstakingly refinished and redecorated the rooms. which they have furnished with appropriate appoint- ments. Thus, today, the old hearthstones of this beau- tiful house - the original home of William Wells - now produce warmth and home-loving atmosphere to the Richard Davis family.
THE STODDARD SUMMER HOME - Near the top of Greenfield Mountain in a beautifully secluded spot, slightly removed from the original Mohawk
Trail, can be seen through nature's leafy veil, Col. David Wells' old house, which is now the summer home of the Stoddards of Greenfield. Here, somewhat hidden from living memory, we find early Shelburne history.
Let us return in retrospection to the days of our ancestors when the Wellses from Connecticut settled on the hill overlooking Greenfield and the banks of Wells Brook were covered with ledges and trees in- stead of a winding hard-surfaced highway.
Agrippa Wells settled early in Shelburne on this farm three miles from Greenfield. He cleared the land and lived in a log cabin about thirty rods south of the present Stoddard house. In October 1771 Capt. Agrippa Wells sold his property to Capt. David Wells, a cousin from Colchester, Conn.
Capt. David Wells was forty-nine years old at the time, and with a wife and nine children was well grounded on the farm land and in the public life of Colchester. Mary P. Wells Smith wrote she did not know "what induced him to move so far from his native place to a new farm in a then thinly settled wild mountain region" unless it was "the hope of finding better openings for his five boys in a new country.'
Leaving their two oldest sons in Colchester to care for the cattle until grass was green. Capt. David and Mary Wells with their seven younger children came by horse team to Shelburne. It was in February 1772. when they made the three-day trip up the Connecticut River Road to Old Deerfield, where they turned northwest onto the Albany Road through Wisdom, up over the hill past the present Harry Koch farm, onto the North and South Road, which ran directly past the log cabin which was their new home.
Quoting from a letter written to Mary P. Wells Smith by her father. "They arrived there about mid- night, expecting to find the house empty, but instead found the family of whom he purchased still in the house. They unloaded the beds and put them on the floor. The place looked gloomy enough to the chil- dren, coming from a large house in the older settle- ment out there into the woods into a loft that they went up to on a ladder. There was a shop of logs where the boys used to sleep. I have heard father tell of running to bed barefoot through the snow so as to have warm shoes to put on in the morning and of waking up and finding his bed all covered with snow that had sifted into the shop through the cracks and crannies of the logs and also tell how comfortable he used to be when he got warm in bed." On the hillside close to the North and South Road with only a small log house for a home, the Wells family be- came permanently rooted in young Shelburne.
Capt. Wells was active in the church and the town. The first training of Shelburne Militia was held at the Wells farm, the first officers being Captain David Wells and Lieutenant Benjamin Nash. Captain Wells became a major, and in 1776 was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifth Hampshire County Regiment.
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In the late 1770's Col. Wells built the first frame house on his farm which is the present Stoddard home. Never humble, it is a proud house two-and-one-half stories high. When built among Shelburne's log houses and salt-boxes, it was a pretentious dwelling. Having received the respect it deserved for 172 years or more, this old house still retains original charm and strength.
Let us enter the front door at the west. Here we find the traditional boxlike "entry porch" with its steep little stairway of three winders. The two front rooms have fireplaces with mantels. The parlor fire- place is framed from floor to ceiling with paneling and the other three sides of the room have a wainscot headed with chair rail. The other front room has a full-length cupboard next to the fireplace. Wood- work has been painted white.
Back of these rooms and the "porch," now called the front hall, is the old kitchen with its large fire- place and brick oven. It is low-ceiled with exposed rafters. The amazing width of the boards in the complete pine paneling on all sides of the room con- vinces one they were sawed from first-growth timber. The old kitchen, made larger by the removal of a small south bedroom partition, is now a charming living room, full of warm hospitality. Opening out of this room at the north is a closed back stairway and a large buttery. With four rooms upstairs the old house was built lavish in chambers.
Col. David Wells' house, retaining its small-paned windows and original interior characteristics, reveals a typical home of the historic past. With the addition of modern conveniences, sun and sleeping porches, and the old adjoining shed (east ell) converted into more rooms, this house, conceded by its present owners to have been built in 1779, has become an attractive home of today.
Mary P. Wells Smith wrote, "Col. Wells built the first frame house in Shelburne on the portion of his farm set off to his oldest son, David, on his marriage to Phoebe Hubbard, sister of the Shelburne minister, probably somewhere from 1775 to 1780."
These were the years when Shelburne raised her first frame houses. A few readable leaves from Dr. John Long's diary of 1778 tell of the erection of Rev. Robert Hubbard's house on "Cemetery Hill," the framing of Jared Skinner's house, and the addi- tion of a lean-to to Dr. Long's own house.
Tradition, not always reliable, records the old Alexander Clark house was built in 1762 and Joseph Stebbins' house in 1770. A few other houses now standing, and a number long since vanished, are be- lieved, without documentary proof, to have been erected during the late 1770's.
Always an authority, with a wealth of family ma- terial at her right hand, Mrs. Smith's statement that her great-grandfather, David Wells, built the "first frame house in Shelburne" gives evidence of an early erection date close to 1775. Granting 1779, now seen on the front door, to be the correct date, perhaps there was a typographical error in the statement that "Col. Wells built the first frame house" and Mrs.
Smith's original draft read, "Col. Wells built his first frame house." It is known he later built a frame house across the road for his son, William.
Mary P. Wells Smith in the historical sketch of her family doesn't tell of Captain David and Mary Wells living in the big frame house after the marriage of their son, David, Jr. However, we may assume they did so for a few years, even though a few sketchy records indicate they lived for a time in Connecticut. We know Capt. Wells died in Shelburne in 181+ at the ripe old age of ninety, and his wife died the fol- lowing year at the age of eighty-nine. Surely their home was the present Stoddard house.
David, Jr., and Phoebe Hubbard Wells had only one child, Phoebe, having lost a second daughter in babyhood. Phoebe married Charles Taintor of Col- chester, Connecticut. They settled in her paternal home, where their children were born. Their son, Charles Michael (born 1817), remained on the old Wells farm after his marriage to a Connecticut girl. Here, his two daughters, Mary and Phoebe, were born before Charles Michael Taintor, Jr., sold his Shelburne farm, known for many years as "the Taintor place.'
As the years rolled by we feel sure those adult "Taintor children" and their father often repeated, "I remember, I remember the house where I was born" because extracts from their letters gave evi- dence of vivid and loving remembrances of childhood days on the old Shelburne farm. From the flowering almond close to the Vermont granite doorstep to the little brook where yellow lady-slippers grew, all the flowering shrubs and wild flowers yearly blossomed afresh in their memory.
The Taintors sold the Col. David Wells place to John Wissman. For over twenty years the Wissmans lived in the old house before selling to Darwin Griffin, who likewise was resident owner over twenty years.
Then in 1917 the Stoddards came up from Green- field to love and cherish one of Shelburne's first frame houses.
Visiting in the Stoddard house one feels the strength of Col. David Wells who built it, and the influence of his wife, Mary, who desired a home built in the architectural reflection of her native Connecticut.
ON OR NEAR THE OLD COUNTY ROAD SOUTH FROM THE MOHAWK TRAIL TO FOXTOWN
MIRS. JENNIE GREENFIELD AND JAMES SHEARER - The home of Mrs. Jennie Greenfield and James Shearer that burned in 1954 stood on the old county road that connects the Bardwell's Ferry Road with the Mohawk Trail near and south of the present home of Robert Crafts. It was originally owned and built by one of the Ransoms, of whom there were at least seven families living in town during the last years of the 18th century.
Back in the 1790's Ezekiel Ransom was living in this house on "the road from Coleraine to North-
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ampton." Not far away in Southeast Shelburne lived many of his Ransom relatives. His brother Jabez lived close by. perhaps in the old house that preceded the present one at the south. Their father. Newton. settled in Shelburne in 1762. He was a carpenter and very likely built Ezekiel's house. The year of erection is not known; nevertheless, we believe this house. older than it outwardly appeared, may have been the oldest in South Shelburne. The small hall with wind- ing stairway, fireplaces downstairs and up in a num- ber of rooms, and attractive woodwork revealed its age.
Ezekiel Ransom sold his house and land in 1803 to Benoni Pratt who, with his wife Anna, came from Cummington. Benoni Pratt became deacon of the Congregational Church of Shelburne Center. He went west the year following his wife's death in 1844. His daughters. Anna and Amanda, lived in the home many years. Amanda, with a strong frame, was ahead of her time in being a real farmer, before World War I produced the farmerette and conventionality sanctioned a lady's right to be a farmer. Anna, quiet and gentle, did the housework.
The sisters had a pear tree below their south lawn. Those Clapp's Favorites - or were they Bartletts? - tempted boys, under cover of darkness, to climb and shake the tree. To stop such distressing pilfering. Amanda tied a cowbell to the treetop.
In 1881 the Pratt place was traded to G. M. Forbes of Shelburne Falls. Soon Joseph Severance took possession. Before leaving in 1885 he built on the shed, and added the front veranda and a bay window. It is not known whether he or a former owner added the ell, which, tradition relates, was an old house moved down from the north hill and joined to the large room of the original house.
In 1886 Frederic S. Ward and his family came down from Heath. Twenty-five years later the Wards sold their property and Jennie Greenfield and James Shearer became resident owners.
Until swept by fire. the old house was believed to have been the only original Ransom house standing in Shelburne.
NEAR BELLOWS HILL AND THE OLD CHARLEMONT ROAD
RICHARD PHELPS' HOUSE - Near Bellows Hill and the old Charlemont Road on a little cross road on Brimstone Hill. the recent home of the Raymond La Palme family is now the home of Richard Phelps.
Jared Skinner from Colchester. Connecticut, settled on this farm and probably built the present house. Dr. John Long wrote in his diary on May 6, 1778 - "Jared Skinner's house raised." Jared Skinner, Sr .. and Jared Skinner, Jr., both lived in Shelburne and one of them is known to have lived on the "Old Hill." Although the item could refer to either one of the Skinner homes, we are inclined to believe it points to the house in the village on the hill, as the LaPalmes, in scraping off layers of paint from ceiling
rafters, have uncovered the date June 14, 1780, which is likely the erection date of their house. It is doubt- ful if another house preceded this one built either in 1778 or 1780.
Few Shelburne houses in the old-age group remain so originally undisturbed as this humble house so full of dignity and homey atmosphere. It is low in stature with a substantial central chimney from which three fireplaces receive ventilation. The front door (west ). recently removed, opened into a tiny square hall from which could be entered the two front rooms. Each has a brick fireplace with charming mantelpiece and one has a full-length narrow cupboard. The south outside door opens into the large room with its big brick fireplace and oven. Low ceiled with rafters and a horizontal boarded pine wainscoting, this room. so pleasingly typical of its period, was originally the combined kitchen, dining. and living rooms.
With one foot in this big room. the stairway leads up to the open garret with a bedroom at each end.
Jared Skinner's successors were Samuel Fennant (assessor in 1797), a Woodward, David Long, Jr .. Rodolphus Newton, and Wilder Dole.
Ella Dole Bardwell wrote in her family history that MIrs. Wilder Dole died in 1875 in the house where she and her husband had lived "after their mar- riage" which occurred in 1824. In 1867 Wilder Dole repaired his house.
Mark Mayhew became the next resident. The house was "sold in 1878 to MIr. King." Duane Brooks purchased "the Wilder place" and after a number of years, sold to Edward Fiske whose widow, Lucy, lived in it until her death, when Theodore Arial pur- chased it. After a short residence by the Arial family. another transfer was made ; then the La Palmes became resident owners; and now the original Skinner house is the home of Richard Phelps.
MURRAY FISKE'S HOUSE -- Murray Fiske is the fifth descendant to own and live on this place near the old Charlemont Road in the south part of the town.
It is thought the first settler, Moses Hawks, when he came to Shelburne, lived in a log cabin on the south lawn, before the house was built. As the fourth child of Rhoda Childs and Moses Hawks was their first child recorded in Shelburne and the year was 1769. one year after the third child was born, we are given an idea when Moses Hawks settled in South Shelburne, but we do not know the year his house was built.
His youngest son, Zerah, married Clarissa Tirrell. Their home, built by Ira Barnard in the summer of 1827. joined a part of the original Hawks home. Their daughter. Isabelle, was born in the new house in 1828. She married David Orlando Fiske and after living in "The Patten" a few years, they came to the Hawks homestead. When their son. Zerah (born 1869), was about twelve, a long ell at the west (the original home of Moses Hawks) was torn down and the present dining room and kitchen added to the
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main front. An attractive fan-shaped attic blind is in the east gable of the house. Franklin fire frames adorn the front parlor and sitting room.
Of two sisters and five brothers, Zerah Fiske was the one who remained on the farm. He brought his wife to the old Hawks homestead, where their chil- dren were born and his son now lives.
THE CHARLES KELLEY HOUSE - On the old Charlemont Road on the west hill above the South Cemetery is the home of Dolly Elizabeth and Charles Kelley and the families of their two sons.
The main house was built in 1866 (marked on front door) while the dining room and kitchen appear to be a part of a much older house which claims our interest. The kitchen has a brick arch with cauldron and brick oven ; the dining room has a very large fire- place, now closed.
In 1888 Charles M. Taintor wrote in a letter that Peter Holloway had lived in the house next west of the house where I. W. Barnard was then living. (Barnard's was the present Charles York house.) It is believed the present wing of the Kelley house was a part, if not all, of that house of Peter Holloway.
On the hillsides near the Baptist Church, which stood on the lawn of the cemetery, was a little settle- ment of perhaps a dozen houses. Peter Holloway's house was one of them, and from dates in the follow- ing items we think he built his home at an early date. Peter Holloway enlarged his farm by thirty-two acres in 1788 ( William Taylor's notes) when Stephen Kel- logg, who owned a home near "the four corners" on or near the Charlemont Road (probably on the present Murray Fiske farm), moved to New York and sold to him that year "a part of Lot 28." Peter Holloway in 1794 and 1795, perhaps other years, was taxed for one shop, which may have been the blacksmith shop mentioned below.
A newspaper item stated, "Peter Holloway offered for sale his farm January 29, 1798 (about one mile from the meeting house) on road from Greenfield to Albany"; also, a blacksmith shop was mentioned. (The road to the meetinghouse then went in a north- erly direction over Dragon Hill.) If Peter Holloway sold soon after his sales offer, we do not know who next occupied the house until the Gurdon Jones fam- ily arrived in Shelburne and purchased the place about 1820 - first tax recorded 1821.
The house was next occupied briefly by the Charles Robbins family, after which Byron Newhall purchased in 1876. It was the birthplace of the children of Byron and Florence Hawks Newhall. Following his death, his daughter, D. Elizabeth, and her husband, Charles Kelley, moved from Hawley to become the next resident owners.
OLD CHARLEMONT ROAD
THE CHARLES YORK RESIDENCE TO THE SHADE OF ELDER DAVID LONG'S HOUSE - The main house of the Charles York family with its maple avenue
approach was built in 1871 by the Barnards, who employed Osmyn Newhall and Sons as carpenters. The Barnards called their place Maple Grove Farm.
We are chiefly interested in the north wing, which was an old house when Ira Barnard, Sr., and his family moved from "Pattern Hill" to Foxtown. The Registry of Deeds in the year 1830 recorded a trans- fer of land with buildings thereon, owned by David Long, to Ira Barnard, and from boundary descriptions this appears to be the farm owned by three generations of Barnards.
Older residents think the north end of the present house stood on the same spot as today, or possibly slightly north. It was a small house, which met with some changes when joined to the new house. With low ceilings, woodwork much different from that in the main house, and the old brick arch, it is quite obvious the north wing is old.
Ira Barnard and wife raised their family in this little old house; their son, Wellington, and his wife, Lucinda, did likewise. The small pantry beyond the first pantry was Aunt Lucinda's idea of a cool one, and safe from cats and dogs. The shelves were just far enough apart to take in twelve one-pound cakes of butter. One pound went to the breakfast table. Some farmers sold their butter close and their children didn't receive sufficient nourishment, but Aunt Lu- cinda believed farmers ought to eat as well as anyone. Her cookie crock openly expressed sweet hospitality to the boys next door and increased their love for Aunt Lucinda.
History states Elder Long preached until his death in 1831, and, since he sold his farm to Ira Barnard, Sr., in 1830, we believe his home was the Barnards' first Foxtown home, which later became a part of the new house where Ira Wellington and his son, Ira, lived.
In 1843, doubtless other years, Ira Barnard ( 1st) and his son were taxed for one shop.
Genealogy of the Shelburne branch of the John Long family states that Elder David Long began to clear land for his farm in 1777. As he began preach- ing in the "Baptist Church of Shelburne and Deer- field" in 1791 and was ordained in his own home the following year, it follows he built his house before the ordination date and perhaps soon after clearing his land. Meetings were held in Dr. Long's own home for a time.
Considerable study has been put on the location of Elder Long's home. We know he was a farmer as well as a preacher and bought in 1786 "a part of Lot 28 in the south half of Shelburne (13 acres) from Stephen Kellogg," who lived near the "four corners" on or near the Charlemont Road, and again in 1788 another "part of Lot 28" from Stephen Kellogg.
All evidence points to the present wing of the York house as the Baptist parsonage of the preacher who farmed.
The following excerpt from Darwin Barnard's writ- ings verifies early ownership: "The place upon which
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I was born was purchased by my father in April 1830 from a Baptist clergyman known as Elder Long, who held forth in a small church standing upon land since included in the south Shelburne cemetery. Tra- dition tells that he prepared his sermons for Sunday during the week while tending a still which he owned and with which he eked out the slender salary which the parish paid him.'
Ira Barnard, III, sold his place to Fred Hutchins, whose family lived in the present house a number of years. One or two brief resident owners came be- fore the Luther York family arrived. Within a few years a son, Wayne, and his wife purchased the place. Following his death and her marriage to his brother, Charles, the farm became the home property of Charles and Margaret Lovejoy York.
SOUTH SHELBURNE ROAD TO GREENFIELD
FOWLER PICKHARDT'S SUMMER HOUSE - In his- torically presenting Elizabeth and Fowler Pickhardt's "Fox Town Farm" house down by Shingle Brook between the east and west hills, we know it is one of the oldest houses in all Shelburne and perhaps the oldest in the south part of the town. Mr. Pickhardt's study of his house history reveals that John Butler in 1775 purchased the house lot (a part of Lot 22) for thirty pounds and sold it for two hundred pounds in 1777 to Benjamin Randall, Jr. This jump in valu- ation suggests the house was erected between those years.
Without even a telephone or electric light pole in sight, it is the only Shelburne home without the exter- nal "20th century scar" and interior electric con- veniences; also, the only Foxtown house to retain all its original small-paned windows.
Architecturally it is an historic heirloom because little structural change has been made. The wide front door (south) opens into a small boxlike hall with no stairway. The rooms each side - parlor and master's bedchamber - contain all the fine old fea- tures. Ceiling rafters, chair rails, sheathing, fireplace mantelpieces, and small cupboards over the mantels show superior workmanship.
The spacious kitchen with its immense fireplace was originally flanked by small rooms, one of which has become a bathroom. With an outside door, the other room, now a part of the large room, appears to have been an entry.
A wide boxed stairway leads from the kitchen to the garret where the huge chimney sprawls over the floor, all of forty-eight square feet. There is a small bedroom at the east.
Many years ago a north wing for wood and small tools was added to the house.
Of John Butler, the original owner, we have no knowledge. One James Butler was living in Shel- burne's southeast school district in 1780, and Rebecca Butler joined the Shelburne Congregational Church
in 1776. They may have been members of John's family.
Benjamin Randall, Jr., who followed in ownership, was a ropemaker and the son of Benjamin, Sr., who lived at the west base of the hill, Pennyroyal.
The next known resident owner was Joseph Ran- dall, youngest son of Benjamin, Sr. His wife was Margaret Anderson. In 1834 he became assessor. He was superintendent of the first Baptist Sunday School ; also, a deacon. About 1837 when Joseph Randall moved west, he sold his Shingle Brook property to Ebenezer Bardwell, II. Here lived the Bardwells - Ebenezer and Roxalana, son Lucius, and daughters, Sarah and Roxalena. Sarah and Roxalena were the last of the Bardwells to occupy the house.
In 1850 Charlotte and Samuel Hayden, Jr., were the residents. A few years later Silas Atwood was resident owner. Under the historic name of "post- rider," Silas Atwood in 1865 began carrying the weekly newspaper (Gazette & Courier) throughout Shelburne and to a few other towns at the west and south.
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