USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > History of the town of Brookline, Massachusetts > Part 10
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Samuel Sewall, Jr., became a citizen of some importance. He was one of the petitioners for a separate town government for the community, and after this was granted he became the first town clerk, serving also at other times as treasurer, select-
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man, and representative to the General Court. He was emi- nent enough to be given first choice of pews in the meeting- house when it was built.
His son, Henry, was born in the Brookline home March 8, 1720, graduated from Harvard, and entered the public service when he was elected fence-viewer in 1741. Like his father he served as town clerk and treasurer, and participated in public duties connected with the church.
At his death, May 29, 1771, he was survived by his sons Henry and Samuel, and his daughter, Hannah. Another son, Hull, had died a few years earlier at the age of twenty-four, and Henry died not long afterward at the same age. Samuel and Hannah inherited interests in the Brookline property, the daughter's rights not being entirely clear, as the Brookline Committee of Correspondence, Safety and Inspection found when they contemplated confiscation of Samuel's interest. Samuel, practicing law in Boston, was an ardent Tory, and as such found it expedient to depart to England soon after the outbreak of the Revolution.
Hannah Sewall in 1776 married Edward Kitchen Wolcott, but they seem not to have lived on the estate in Longwood, for other persons, presumably tenants, were assessed for the taxes over most of the years until 1804. Then Charles Stearns, grandfather of the present owner of the house supposedly built in 1767 for Hull Sewall, who died the same year, appeared as joint occupant with Wolcott. Subsequently there was a division of the property, and Wolcott seems to have disposed of his interest in 1821, when Charles Stearns became the owner of thirty-three acres, including the dwelling.
Thus the Sewall name vanished from Brookline, and the Sewall participation, so important at its birth as a town, in its affairs.
THE CRAFT, OR CRAFTS, FAMILY
Griffin Craft, first inhabitant of the Muddy River area, was the forefather of all the Brookline Crafts. His home, however, was properly in Roxbury, and it was his great-grandson, Deacon Ebenezer Craft, who bought the house built in Muddy River about 1700 by Vincent Druce. He married Susannah White of Brookline.
HOUSE FORMERLY ON THE CORNER OF BEACON AND CHARLES STREETS Built after 1750 by Captain Henry Sewall, grandson of the Chief Justice; now owned by Charles H. Stearns
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Their daughter, Elizabeth, married and soon widowed, was for many years the beloved character known to the town as 'Aunt White.' A son, Caleb, was a lieutenant in Captain Thomas White's Brookline company in the Revolution, and played an active part in the recruiting business of the times. In 1812, he married Jerusha, daughter of Benjamin White, and on her death, Sarah, daughter of Robert Sharp. At his own death in 1826, he left two groups of descendants to carry on the name, but most of them in time settled elsewhere.
Collateral branches of the Crafts were several in the eight- eenth century, and men of that name served repeatedly in minor town offices, such as surveyor of highways, field driver, and member of a committee to employ teachers. Apart from the military Caleb, they do not seem to have attained positions of marked leadership, but it is evident that, in intermarriage, they contributed to several of the town's first families.
THE GARDNER FAMILY
Thomas Gardner and his son Thomas, both natives of England, were the progenitors of that family in Massachusetts. Thomas, Sr., died in 1639, and two years later Thomas, Jr., married Lucy Smith of Roxbury and settled in Brookline. He contributed to the Roxbury school, and to the construction of a meeting-house there in 1672, on the promise of the exten- sion of privileges to inhabitants of Muddy River. At his death in 1689 he left two sons and four daughters, one of whom became the wife of Thomas Boylston.
Andrew Gardner, a brother of Thomas, Jr., had sons named Andrew and Thomas, the first accidentally shot while helping to maintain a night watch against Indians in the town of Lan- caster, in 1704, the other a victim of the Phips Canadian ex- pedition of 1690.
The sons of Thomas Gardner, Jr., were Thomas and Joshua. The latter married Mary Weld of Roxbury in 1681, and ten years later lost his Muddy River home by fire. However, on December 21, 1691, Judge Sewall's diary records:
Went with Mr. Addington and wife to the new house of Joshua Gardner, where were Mr. Walter and wife, Mr. Dennison and wife, Sir Ruggles and Mrs. Weld [presumably
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uncle and aunt of Mrs. Gardner]. At dinner Mr. Walter asked the blessing, and Mr. Dennison returned thanks on ac- count of completing their new house.
Joshua's brother Thomas was to become known as Deacon Gardner, though he was sometimes mentioned as a lieutenant, probably because of participation in the Indian wars. His wife, Mary Bowles, bore him seven children, including three sons, Solomon, Caleb, and Benjamin, who in order succeeded him in ownership of the home he had built in 1718. Benjamin turned the property over to his son, Deacon Elisha Gardner, and built himself a home on Heath Street, near the Newton line, where he died in 1762. This place then fell to his son, Samuel, who died about ten years later, leaving a son, Caleb, then about sixteen, as heir. Caleb Gardner, too young to serve as a soldier in the Revolution, attached himself to Colonel Wes- son, a Brookline officer who won distinction on several fronts, and after the war made his home in Brookline again. His grandson, Dr. Augustus Gardner, became a resident of New York City, and was the last male of his line.
The house of Deacon Thomas Gardner which fell to his son Benjamin, and later to Benjamin's son Elisha, was sold by him to John Goddard. Miss Harriet F. Woods described the structure as it was about 1870, and since this home may be taken as typical of the time and place, her long paragraph seems deserving of reproduction here:
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 brick enough for a moderate- sized house. The walls of the house are laid in large coarse brick, plastered with clay, between the outside and inside, to the very roof. The immense timbers are of solid oak, as are also the doors. The rooms are sheathed with paneled wood- work, presenting a painted surface, which might well dis- may 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.
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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, disclosing a box or chest; the fireplace in this room is surrounded by blue and white Dutch tiles, covered with the most grotesque illustrations of Scripture history .... 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 dia- mond panes in leaden sash, evidently brought from England, as the house was built long before glass was made in this country .... Trap-doors in the floors, in the second story, in- dicate 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 accessible by a ladder, after removing a sliding board .... This room had been used by former occupants of the house as a place for secreting valuables, but had been forgotten, or never men- tioned, so that its discovery by the present occupants was a complete surprise ....
A grandson of Deacon Thomas Gardner was Isaac Gardner, Harvard graduate, and one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace, who fell on the 19th of April, 1775. He was an honored and much beloved citizen, and when his family of eighteen were made homeless by a fire, the public desire to help was at once manifest. According to the Massachusetts Gazette, of Sep- tember 8, 1768, the loss amounted to between four thousand and five thousand pounds, old tenor. A few days after the fire, a meeting of the town raised one hundred pounds to aid Isaac Gardner in building a new house, though there were probably less than fifty families in Brookline at that time.
From the time when four Gardners signed the petition for the separation of Muddy River in 1705, members of the family participated actively in the government of Brookline. Thomas Gardner, Sr., and Thomas his son had commenced public services well before that time, the former serving as a peram- bulator of the boundaries in 1667, and as constable in 1670. Isaac Gardner, Jr., was town clerk from 1758 until his death
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in 1775, and treasurer until that office was separated from the town clerk's in 1768. With the exception of two years, he was a selectman continuously from 1760 to 1774. He was ap- pointed a justice of the peace in 1761, and held that office until he was killed. And such a summary by no means indi- cates the full extent of his participation in public affairs, on committees of one kind and another. His record is typical of the records of able men of the time, for ability was urgently needed, and could not be allowed to evade the duty of service to the community.
The names of more than a score of Gardners appear on the public records of Brookline through the eighteenth century, in evidence of the wide usefulness of that family to the town.
THE DEVOTION FAMILY
Although the town has had no representative of the Devotion name since 1744, that family must stand out among the eight- eenth-century residents of the town as the one which has, per- haps, left the influence most apparent to citizens of 1930.
Edward Devotion, born in 1621, bought land at Muddy River from William Salter of Boston, and is known to have been living there in 1645. He was a French Huguenot, an immigrant from La Rochelle, where it is supposed the De Vaution family were his ancestors.
In 1645 he became a member of the church and a freeman; he married, and in 1649 his first child, a daughter, was born. The infant was baptized at the First Church in Boston on February 25, and her mother on the same day by 'Apostle' John Eliot, at Roxbury. There were ten more children during the next twenty years, including three sons, about only one of whom any record remains.
This was John Devotion, born in 1659, and destined to serve, like his father and his son, Edward, in such capacities as con- stable, tithingman, and perambulator of the town boundaries. In 1694 John bought property in Attleboro, but he evidently did not occupy it - certainly not before 1704, for he held of- fices in Brookline until that year. In 1711 the Attleboro land was sold, and in 1715 John Devotion moved to Suffield, Con- necticut, where he died in 1733.
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His son John passed a lifetime, from the age of twenty, as a schoolmaster in Swansea, and his son Ebenezer had already gone to Suffield in 1709, where he was ordained in 1710. This was doubtless the main inducement for John Devotion's moving there.
But his son Edward, perhaps primarily responsible for the Devotion fame in Brookline, remained there. He held re- sponsible offices from 1691 until his death in 1744. He was constable so many times that in 1727 he sought to decline the election and 'the town by a hand vote excused him' instead of imposing the fine customary in such instances.
Both Edward Devotion and his father, John, were of those real fathers of the town who signed the petition for Brookline's separation from Boston. And Edward was devoted, not only to the town but to the church, where he long served as tithing- man, with the principal duty of awakening sleepy or disci- plining disorderly children with a long wand. According to Miss Harriet F. Woods, he adopted a girl and a boy, the latter Solomon Hill; but contrary to Miss Woods' account, Edward Devotion left no property to Solomon Hill, rather directing his executors to enforce collection of a mortgage which he held against Hill. There appears to be no recorded evidence of such an adoption, and it is likely that Miss Woods was misled by some erroneous tradition.
But Edward Devotion gave evidence in his will of his love for the town that had been his home, for after a number of specific bequests, including a gift to the church of 'one Silver Tankard containing one Quart,' he left his residuary estate to the town 'towards Building or maintaining a School as near the Centre of the said Town as shall be agreed upon by the Town.' If no agreement could be had on the location of the school - and the Devotions had had a great deal of experience of town meetings - then 'the said overplus to be laid out in purchasing a Wood Lott for the use of the School and the ministry of said Town forever.'
In 1748 the selectmen were made a committee to 'have care of the estate of Edward Devotion,' which was not, however, settled until more than ten years later, when the town received the sum of 308 half-johannes, equivalent to $3696, in addition
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to a 'bight' of land 'lying on the Back side of North Yar- mouth.' The interest of this legacy was applied, by vote of the town in 1762, to the maintenance of 'the middle school house.'
Nehemiah Davis, Nathaniel Seaver, Joseph White, Ebenezer Davis, and Isaac Gardner were appointed custodians of the fund, which was loaned to the Commonwealth during the Revo- lution, repaid in continental currency of little value, and rein- vested. Fifty years were required to build the legacy up to its original sum. Then it was applied toward the construction of a town house, by the transparent subterfuge of providing for two school rooms in that structure, the express intent of the donor being utterly disregarded in a manner which was ob- viously illegal. But years afterward, when the growing town needed an elaborate new school, it was erected on Harvard Street near the site of the old Edward Devotion house, and was named in honor of that public spirited man. Indeed, a little sentimental juggling of accounts persuaded the town that Ed- ward Devotion's legacy had at last been used as he desired.
THE ASPINWALL FAMILY
Another name which added luster to the town was that of Aspinwall. As early as 1652 Peter Aspinwall was surveyor of highways for Muddy River, having settled there about 1650 on land purchased from William Colborne, one of the original grantees. There, about 1660, he built a house, not far from the site of an earlier one, at a point approximately opposite the present St. Paul's Church on Aspinwall Avenue. This structure, for which Thomas Joy was the architect, stood until it was pulled down in 1891.
His son, Samuel, was a lieutenant in the party of Sir William Phips which went to capture Port Royal in 1690, and was afterward captain of a Brookline company. With Eleazer Aspinwall, Samuel was a signer of the petition of 1704 which resulted in Brookline's independent status. He was drowned in 1727, at the age of sixty-five.
Thomas Aspinwall, a son, served as lieutenant in his father's company. It was he who married Johannah Gardner, daugh- ter of Caleb Gardner, and begot Dr. William Aspinwall of
DR. WILLIAM ASPINWALL 1743-1824 By Gilbert Stuart
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Revolutionary fame, in 1743. A brother of the doctor was Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, who commanded the fort at Sewall's Point during a part of the war for independence, and whose great-grandson carried on the family's military tradition a century later in the Civil War.
Dr. William Aspinwall's services in the Revolution were outstanding. His private practice in time became largely specialized in the field in which Dr. Zabdiel Boylston had so bravely pioneered - smallpox inoculation. There was op- position to be overcome on the part of the town, but Dr. Aspinwall was at last permitted to erect hospitals on his pro- perty, and patients came from a wide area to be treated by him. One building was located on Aspinwall Avenue between Tox- teth Street and the railroad, and another near the corner of Aspinwall Avenue and Perry Street.
To understand fully the account of one who, as a child, un- derwent inoculation at Dr. Aspinwall's hands, it should be ex- plained that an accident with an arrow in his youth had de- prived him of the sight of one eye. Unhappily, in his last years an operation for cataract on the good eye proved unsuc- cessful. His procedure is described in these terms:
I have a clear recollection of my terror when, sixty-four years ago, a very old man, with but one eye, - he seemed to be a very old man, though he was but fifty then, - came to- wards me, with a little glittering weapon in his hand, as I sat in my nurse's lap. I had the promise of a cake of ginger- bread if I behaved well, so I sat still and suffered him to make a little incision in my arm. I had been carried from Boston to Brookline to be inoculated for the smallpox at the hospital there, and there we were to remain for several weeks, until the affair was well over, when, after having been thoroughly smoked and purified, we were again to go forth into the world.
These associations were but short-lived, however, for this old man with but one eye really seemed to see farther into the hearts of little people than most of the people who have two, and to have a master-key to their very souls. He carried me in his arms about his farm, and showed me his calves and pigs and poultry; told me some very pleasant stories, and gave me a puppy; in short I became so fond of him that I asked my mother to say to him that he might inoculate me as often
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as he had a mind to; and when at last the time of our depar- ture arrived, and we had been smoked all around, and he kissed me as he put me into the carriage, I bawled out loud; and I truly believe the good old gentleman was gratified by this unmistakable evidence of my affection.
Dr. Aspinwall was eminently successful in his profession, and always alert to keep abreast of new discoveries in medicine. When Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse of Cambridge introduced a new method of attaining immunity from smallpox, by vac- cination, Dr. Aspinwall was deeply interested. According to Dr. Waterhouse, he examined the skin eruption with the great- est care, and said, 'This pustule is so like smallpox, and yet it is not smallpox, that, should it, on scabbing, take out a part of the true skin, so as to leave an indelible mark or pit behind, I shall be ready to conclude that it is a mild species of smallpox, hitherto unknown here.'
Tests on his own behalf, and examination of members of Dr. Waterhouse's family who had been vaccinated, convinced Dr. Aspinwall that a great forward step in medicine had been made. By denouncing the new treatment, he might have con- tinued to draw a profitable clientele to his own hospitals, but to Dr. Waterhouse he said, 'This new inoculation of yours is no sham. As a man of humanity I rejoice in it, although it will take from me a handsome annual income.' And Dr. Water- house commented, 'His conduct throughout was so strongly marked with superior intelligence, generosity, and honor as to excite my esteem and respect ... '
Evidence of the same fine character was apparent in another way in one of the doctor's sons, Thomas. His first son, William, Jr., followed his father's profession, but preceded him in death, at the age of thirty-four. Thomas, like William, graduated from Harvard, but chose the law as his profession, participating in his leisure time in the activities of a military body called the Independent Cadets, of Boston. He became a major of the Ninth United States Infantry at the outbreak of the War of 1812, was brevetted lieutenant-colonel for bravery at Sackett's Harbor in 1813, and was wounded in the assault on Fort Erie, August 10, 1814.
In a letter to his father, dated October 1, 1814, at 'Williams-
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ville, N. Y., 11 miles from Buffo,' he gives an extended account of the military operations in the preceding August, mentions the engagement in which, he says, 'I received a musket-shot above the elbow of the left arm, which completely carried away about an inch and a half of the bone. I, of course, had no fur- ther part in the active duty of that day ... ' He courageously minimized his misfortune:
I shall be able to begin to travel home slowly in about 10 days, and shall, with the blessing of God, soon see you all. After being wounded I walked back to my tent, and in about an hour had only one arm, a circumstance which does not afflict me, my dear father, and must not you. But let us both thank God that he has so formed us that you have lived almost all your life happy and respectable, notwith- standing the loss of an eye, and I may spend the remainder of my life in the same manner with the loss of a limb, of all the most conveniently spared ....
I write with some difficulty because the paper moves under my pen, as I have no left hand to steady it.
The following year Colonel Aspinwall was made United States Consul at London, a post which he filled for thirty-seven years, until he was replaced for political reasons by an ap- pointee of President Pierce. The regard in which he was held by many of the most distinguished citizens of London is evidence that he must have possessed a great deal of his father's charm of personality, along with his remarkably fine character.
The Colonel's son, named William, was born in London, educated at Harvard, and admitted to the Suffolk County bar in 1841. He became a resident of Brookline in 1847, and in a variety of public offices carried on for the next quarter century the traditions of service to the community that have ever marked the founding families of Brookline.
THE SHARP FAMILY
Robert Sharp had been Peter Aspinwall's associate in pur- chasing one hundred and fifty acres from William E. Colborne in 1650. He was then about thirty-five years old, a native of England, who had come over in 1635 and seems to have re- sided during the intervening years in Dorchester.
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The Sharps were Brookline's principal Indian fighters. When Robert died in 1654, his widow was quick to remarry, and Peter Aspinwall acted as guardian for the daughters Abigail and Mary, while Thomas Meekins undertook to bring up John Sharp to his trade. Miss Woods reprints a touching letter from John Sharp, written early in 1676 to Thomas Meekins, then at Hat- field, in which he speaks of the hazards of the Indian war. About a month later, he was killed in the 'Sudbury fight.'
He left two daughters and two sons, one of whom, Robert, set out on the expedition to Canada in 1690, and did not return. His widow married and was widowed again within four years, and just before embarking on a third venture, made a will in favor of her children by Robert Sharp. One of these, also named Robert, purchased his uncle William's interest in John Sharp's estate, and became one of the signers of Brookline's petition for independence. Another child, Martha, married Joseph Buckminster, and became one of the progenitors of a distinguished line.
Throughout the century, the Sharps played their part in town affairs; and Stephen Sharp acted as town clerk for nearly forty years after the Revolution.
THE ACKERS FAMILY
John Ackers was one of the settlers who promptly followed the original grantees to Muddy River, although he was himself a purchaser of land. It is not certain exactly when he bought property from Jacob Eliot, a brother of the Reverend John Eliot of Roxbury, but he was a resident of the village in 1656.
He is recorded as a surveyor of highways, and at another time as a tithingman. Both he and his son William signed the petition for separation from Boston, but the family has been less prominent in town affairs than many others.
They acquired extensive acreage in the town, devoted pri- marily to farming, and the name lived through seven genera- tions in Brookline.
THE GRIGGS FAMILY
At the time of the 'great allotments' of 1638, George Griggs, of Boston, received twenty-eight acres in the northwestern
OLD ASPINWALL HOUSE (1660-1891) ON THE DAY THE OLD ELM FELL With three generations of Aspinwalls
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corner of the Muddy River area, but one lot distant from the Cambridge line. It was not many years before this passed into the hands of Joshua Scottow, and in time became part of the Hull-Sewall estate. Bradford Kingman errs in stating this grant was to Thomas Griggs, and another writer mistakenly locates the lot on the east side of Washington Street, near Pearl Street.
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