USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Gloucester > In the heart of cape ann, or, the story of dogtown, 1906 > Part 3
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Dorcas Foster was three times married, her first husband being an Oakes, the second a Stevens, and the last Capt. Joseph Smith, who commanded a pri- vateer in the war of 1812. George Wonson was a son of Louisa Smith, their daughter. She has many
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descendants in Gloucester. Most of her life was spent in the ancient house which until lately stood on the rock at the corner of Prospect and Warner streets, where the home of M. H. Perkins is now located.
Not far beyond the Foster cellar, on the same side of the road, is one which has been for years filled with rocks. It would be unwise to disturb them, for the cellar is the tomb of several horses, which have been shot as a matter of mercy, after having been turned out in the pastures to die. This is all, excepting the well, filled with rocks, near by, that remains of the home of Capt. Isaac Dade. He, too, has descend- ants both in Gloucester and Rockport.
Mrs. H. G. Wetherbee, his granddaughter, fur- nished me the following particulars of the life of Isaac Dade :
" Isaac Dade, while a school boy in or near Lon- don, England, was impressed on board an English man-of-war. During the Revolution his vessel was anchored off Gloucester, and it became his duty to row one of the officers ashore. While doing so he noticed a fishing vessel ready to sail. As soon as the officer was landed he lost no time getting aboard this vessel. She was bound to Virginia with a cargo of fish. When he reached there he joined the Conti- nental amry, and was later in three memorable engage-
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ments. He was at Yorktown when Lord Cornwallis surrendered. He was wounded in battle, receiving a sabre cut across the back of his neck, which crip- pled him for life.
"After the war he married a Southern lady by the name of Fanny Brundle. Her father's plantation adjoined that of the mother of Washington. She was on intimate terms with the Washingtons, one of her memories being of horse-back rides with Lawrence Washington. Two children were born to the Dades in Virginia. His health began to fail, and Isaac Dade remembered Gloucester, and went there hoping that the change of life would be beneficial-intending to return to Virginia the following autumn. He did not, however, but spent the rest of his life here. He kept a fish market in Gloucester under great disad- vantages, as the women preferred to get the fish from the boats as they came in. During his life he received no pension, but after his death one was paid to his widow."
This story points to the visit of the Falcon, men- tioned in connection with Peter Lurvey's bravery, as the probable time when Isaac Dade decided to make America his home. I have already indicated the probable site of his Dogtown domicile. The theory that he came in the Falcon is strengthened by the
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fact that in 1775-the very year of Capt. Lindzee's attack-two vessels were dispatched from Gloucester to Virginia for supplies, owing to the poverty of the people on Cape Ann.
It must have been a great deal of a change to his high-spirited wife to spend her married life in a region so barren, so lonely, as Dogtown; but love for her husband must have sweetened the bitterness, for she was never heard to complain.
Directly beyond this cellar on the left is a swamp, which has for many decades been a slough of despond for cattle and horses. It is always the repository of one or more unfortunates, which have got in but could never get out. This is "Granny Day's swamp." Her cellar is on the opposite side of the road. She was a school teacher, and one of her pupils was Nathaniel Day, the patriarch. Near here is still to be seen Whetstone Rock, a natural curiosity, so hol- lowed out that it served the purpose indicated.
At this point a path deflects on the left where it soon meets the Dogtown Commons road. The vil- lage road abruptly rises to a second pair of bars, and just beyond them on the right is the cellar of a man named Robbins. In front, in the road, are the remains of the watch house, where the men who kept Col. Pearce's sheep, sheltered themselves under the rocks,
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now thrown down. Beyond lived a man named Witham, related, of course, to Henry of the "Part- ing Path," which crosses near. A little beyond is the fine cellar of Col. William Pearce, mentioned in a later chapter. This is the last cellar on the village street.
CHAPTER VI.
PETER LURVEY AND "BLACK NEIL."
" When the Beech pastur's covered with snow I think 'tis winter fairly ;
When granny puts on her quilted coat Then 'tis winter fairly.
" Granny and I and Poll and Neil Sat in the room a' spinnin' ;
Half the house came tumbling down And left the chimney stannin'." -"Sammy Stanley's Song."
T HE only resident of Dogtown mentioned in Bab- son's History of Gloucester, was Abraham Wharf, who lived in a large gambrel-roofed house near the junction of the two roads of the village, not over two miles from the " Whale's Jaw," and who, according to the historian, lonely and weary, crawled
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under a rock near by and committed suicide, in 1814. At that time there were at least six other houses in Dogtown occupied. The last inhabitant of the vil- lage was a colored man called "Neil"-his name was Cornelius Finson-who lived on the Commons road, leading from Gee avenue in Riverdale to Dog- town, in the house of Judith Ryon, called by all old- timers, "Judy Rhines." He was a man of intelli- gence, evidently, for Ezekiel W. Chard remembered him as a clerk for the boat fishers of 'Squam. Others recall him as principally engaged in the more prosaic calling of an executioner of hogs.
He was closely acquainted both with Judy Rhines and Molly Jacobs. He was firmly persuaded that when Molly Jacobs died she left buried treasured in her cellar, and it was with difficulty Judy persuaded him to leave the quite uninhabitable hole. Long after Judy Rhines was dead he lingered around her house, until its walls fell in, when he sought refuge in the cellar. From this, cold, dirty, half-starved, and shak- ing with the combined infirmity of old age and fright, he was taken on a bitter day in winter, 1830, by Constable William Tucker of Riverdale-the people of that village having complained of the case to the Overseers of the Poor-and carried off to the alms- house. As they passed the store of John Low Bab-
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son, near the Poles on Washington street, they stopped and Neil was taken in for a half hour to get warm. Mr. Babson gave him some tobacco. After Neil had gone, Mark Allen, sitting in the store, said, " There, I'll bet he'll be so comfortable at the poor-house that he won't live a week." He was right. Within seven days Neil was dead.
If the reader will now start at either Gee avenue or Stanwood street past the old Langsford house and the " Castle," over the Commons road to the Morgan brook, just beyond the "Castle," and thence follow the road along until, if it is the wet season, he comes to another brook crossing the road on higher ground, he will soon notice at the left what is known as " Beech Pasture." A high hill is in the pasture, from the top of which is obtained a fine view of Annisquam and Ipswich Bay. On this hill, quite a distance from the road, is a cellar. Near it is a lilac bush and also, as in the case of many cellars, a gooseberry bush. This is the site of what, taken all together, is the most famous of the Dogtown houses. With the exception of the Allen-Wharf house, where Abraham Wharf committed suicide, it was the most distant from the parish church, on the green, of any Dogtown house- 2 miles, 2 quarters and 7 rods, as ancient records show. First of all, to make it famous, it was the
THE WITCHES' FLIGHT.
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home of Peter Lurvey. I have already said that he was the hero of the episode commemorated by Hiram Rich in " Morgan Stanwood." Babson says his father, Peter Lurvey, removed from Ipswich to Glouc- ester in 1707. In 1710 he married Rachel Elwell, and our Peter was one of eight sons, the elder Peter being ancestor of all the Lurveys in Gloucester.
Peter Lurvey, the Revolutionary patriot, married a sister of Abraham Wharf, who lived in the next house beyond. On August 8, 1775, the British sloop- of-war Falcon, which had assisted in the capture of Bunker Hill, chased a Salem schooner into Glouces- ter harbor, where she grounded on the flats between Pearce's wharf and Five Pound Island. Capt. Lind- zee of the Falcon attempted to board her with several barge loads of marines. The people of Gloucester, an alarm having been given, hauled two swivel guns to a point opposite Vincent's Cove, and with the aid of muskets prevented a capture. Then Lindzee, full of wrath, cannonaded the town (one shot hitting the First Parish Church, where it is now suspended in the vestry) and landed men at Fort Point to fire the village. The firing party were made prisoners, and the boarding party were also captured by the intrepid villagers. In the engagement Benjamin Rowe was instantly killed and Peter Lurvey mortally wounded.
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The above is the story substantially as told by Babson and Pringle. It is one side of the picture. I will now give the other, as handed down by his wife and daughter, and related to me by his descendants. On that fatal morning Lurvey, his wife and, little Mary Millett-afterwards Mary Riggs-were over on Pearce's Island huckleberrying. Hearing the alarm, Peter Lurvey bade his wife good-by, hurriedly rowed across to the other shore, ran up to the house and got his gun, thence across the fields and pastures to the Harbor Village, where he met his death. For some quite unexplainable reason his face was never seen again by his wife and children. It was never known what became of his body. Our progenitors were peculiar about such things. My great-grandmother used to tell of her grandfather, killed at the battle of Menotomy, as the British were returning from Lex- ington on April 19, 1775. His body was immedi- ately buried, in a grave with Jason Russell and ten others-now in the Arlington cemetery-and all his children ever saw again was his old farmer's hat, reserved for identification.
Mrs. Lurvey lived to be 104 years old, and is re- membered by people yet living. I have referred to her as a sister to Abraham Wharf. Whether she was the sister who was with him at the time he com-
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mitted suicide no person can now tell. It was in 1814. Wharf sat by the fire sharpening his razor. " Sister," said he, " do you think people who commit suicide go to heaven ?" " I don't know ; but I hope you will never do such a thing, brother," was her answer. "God forbid," was his solemn response. Soon he slipped the razor into his shoe, unobserved, and went out. A little later he was found with 'his throat cut, dead.
The explanation of Mr. Rich's confusing Lurvey and Morgon Stanwood is that John Morgan Stanwood married Lurvey's daughter. Until the time that Mrs. Lurvey died they seem to have lived with her in this house. Later they moved to the house by the Morgan brook, where probably Ruth Morgan, his mother, and perhaps Morgan Stanwood himself were born. But more of this later. After the Stanwoods left the house, which was by this time getting old and weather- beaten, Molly Jacobs, with her friends Sarah Phipps -more often than not called Sally Jacobs-and Mrs. Stanley left the house they had been living in-doubt- less that already indicated on the Dogtown road- and came here, by the invitation of "Grandther Stan- nard." The latter women's grandson, "Sammy Stan- ley," lived with them and took care of them. Mrs. Almira Riggs of Riverdale, a granddaughter of Mor-
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gan Stanwood, told me before her death that she often as a child used to go up to this Lurvey house in winter with food for the old people, and would find them in bed, the coverlet white with snow where the wind had sifted through in the night. After a time the trio of old ladies were taken off to the poor house, where they died. Molly Jacobs was smarter than Sarah Phipps. Sarah would get mad at Molly, and say : "I shan't tell you where I hid the keerds. I hid them behind the old chest, but I shan't tell you."
" Sammy Stanley's" real name was Sam Maskey. He was always brought up by his grandmother to do housework. He went about with a handkerchief tied over his head and did woman's work in preference to any other. In fact, though he wore men's clothes- barring an apron, which he regularly affected,-he had been brought up as a girl. After his aged rela- tive was taken off his hands, he moved to Rockport, where he went out washing for a livelihood, and laid up money, so that when he died he was quite a stock- holder in the cotton mills. He is said to have died in Hamilton. His Rockport home was the little white cottage by the pump near Main street, where a driveway leads to the cemetery.
The history of the Lurvey house is nearly finished. Just before Molly Jacobs went to the almshouse,
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" Black Neil " Finson, coming from some other house he had inhabited, moved here. The only place he could well stay in was the cellar, which he made water tight by boarding over the first floor. I have already said he thought there was money there. In the course of time, his friend Judy Rhines, living in the next house toward the Castle on the same side of the Common road, took pity on him, and invited him to occupy the empty part of her dwelling.
To return for a moment to Lurvey. As one walks or rides through Washington street in Riverdale, coming from the harbor, just after he crosses the bridge, he notices on the right, the second house from Reynard street, a two-story structure with pitched roof, still in excellent repair, and looking like any- thing but a historic mansion. Yet this house, recon- structed to be sure, was successively the home of Peter Lurvey and his family, Morgan Stanwood, Molly Jacobs and her two unfortunate companions, who lived in it in company with Black Neil and Sammy Stanley, as already related. In some way or other it became the property of a man named Oliver Whipple, living in the vicinity, who sold it when it was but a skeleton, to Isaac and Reuben Day. They had it taken down, and it was found that the oak frame was intact. The Day brothers therefore had the material taken
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to the present site, and the house was rebuilt, the old frame being used in its entirety. There it stands, a monument to the hero and martyr of the Falcon fight, and there it seems likely to remain another century at least, for it is perfectly sound. I have these facts on the authority of several of Isaac Day's descendants, as well as of James Thurston of Riverdale, who helped take it down, and was one of the mechanics who rebuilt it. Mr. Eben Day of Reynard street spent several days cleaning bricks from its chimneys when it was demolished, he told me. Elsewhere in this volume is given the story of the building of this house by Nehemiah Stanwood, the grandfather of John Morgan Stanwood, to whom it apparently de- scended.
It seems rather mysterious that Black Neil, who lived in the old house when Molly and Sarah and Mrs. Stanley were taken to the almshouse, was not taken too, for at that time, as shown by "Sammy Stanley's song " at the opening of this chapter and by other proofs, the roof had caved in and was in a wretched condition. Old people in Riverdale have had the present structure pointed out to them for nearly two generations as the house where Black Neil once lived, but even those who first furnished me the information as to its identity were surprised to know that it was the Stanwood-Lurvey house.
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The original home of Abraham Wharf, as is more fully related elsewhere in this book, was near the "Allen " home, where he spent his last days, it hav- ing descended to his wife, Mary Allen. Abraham Wharf was son of Arthur Wharf, born on what is now Reynard street. Abraham's sister Mary married Ebenezer Davis, son of Capt. James Davis, and her daughter Susannah married Rev. Moses Parsons, father of Hon. Theophilus Parsons. Abraham Wharf was therefore a cousin to the great jurist, who traced his ancestry directly back to Dogtown. Before leaving this vicinity and retracing our steps for the celebrated cellar of "Judy Rhines," it may be worth while to climb a big bowlder near the Allen-Wharf cellar for a view of Danvers asylum. Peter's Pulpit, or Uncle Andrew's rock, is northwest of the Wharf cellar in a hollow, and behind it, a short distance away, is the " Nip," well known to Rockporters and others who live on the north side. On the road, not far from the Wharf cellar, was the site of the "vil- lage blacksmith's " shop, the ground about which re- mained black for years from his operations. From here leads off a path to the Whale's Jaw. It is clear from the map of 1741, reproduced later, that the two Dogtown roads did not originally connect. In fact I doubt if they ever connected except by a path.
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Walking from Beech Pasture toward Riverdale, the first cellar reached is that of Jim White, in which grows a big sumac. He made baskets. It is near the " second common " bars. Opposite is the cellar of the village grocery, and on the left, the cellar of Oliver Whipple, once the owner of the Lurvey house. Beyond, also on the left, is the Haraden cellar.
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CHAPTER VII.
"JUDY RHINES" AND "JOHNNY MORGAN."
T HE Judy Rhines house, too, had caved in as to its roof, it seems, when Black Neil removed thither from his former dwelling. And this circum- stance probably explains why "Liz" Tucker, its owner and former occupant, left the society of her niece Judy, and sought a home near the harbor, where she died. The house where she died stood exactly where the entrance to Oak Grove cemetery is now located. Judy's house was a double one. It will be noticed by the visitor to the spot that there are two cellars. It seems that Lizzie (or " Liz ") Tucker, was Judith Ryon's aunt, and therefore must
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have been a sister to either her father Patrick Ryon, an Irishman, or to her mother, a daughter of William Riggs. Liz Tucker lived in one part of the house, but was dead, doubtless, at the time Judy extended the hospitalities of the place to Neil Finson.
How long the two were tenants of the house I am unable to say. The house was one of the favorite haunts of young people on holidays, and was so at the time both lived there. Judy was a tall, rawboned woman, who had great courage. If she told a person approaching her house to stand still, they would not move any nearer. She had many friends. One of the places she visited, according to Benjamin Rowe Kidder of Rockport, was " Uncle Miah" Knowlton's, for whom he worked. Aunt Knowlton used to load her up with fish and tea. The young people of that day refuse to admit that she was in any sense a witch, or so considered. After Judy died, Neil, as before related, lived in the house until the only place he could stay was in the cellar. He was a big, powerful negro, with very prominent protruding teeth. At the time he was taken from the cellar to the poor house, it was full of ice, and his toes were some of them frozen.
" Judy Rhines," as she is called, was baptized Dec. 30, 1771, at the Sandy Bay Parish church. She
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was living in 1830, nine years before the death of her colored friend " Neil" Finson. She gained a preca- rious living, like her friends Molly Jacobs, Easter Carter and Tammy Younger, by picking berries, telling fortunes, and in other ways. One day she went into Mr. Babson's store at the Poles, and bought some groceries. She tendered in payment a $5 bill, a note on the old United States bank. It was the only one Mr. Babson had ever seen. "I don't think I want this," he said. " It is just as good as any," she replied; "I took it for pasture rent from Mr. Whipple." He finally took it, and on presentation at the Gloucester Bank found she was right. It was on a branch of the bank for the state of Georgia.
Years ago, in the Gloucester Telegraph, some antiquarian told a story of what might have been his own experience. He said two boys who considered the poultry and chattels of a " witch " public prop- erty, stole from Judith Ryon a couple of geese. They were safely away, as they thought, when they heard
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Judy coming brandishing a hoe, and screeching, "Now, ye hell birds, I've got ye!" The response was a goose, plump in her face and the asseveration, " No you haint." Prostrated by the " foul " assault, Judy lay senseless, while the boys, again securing their prey, vanished.
As we have turned back toward the Castle, we may as well continue, and more particularly examine the territory around Morgan's brook, or the "Slough," as it is more often called. In the early days of this century, some sixteen or twenty men used to go over this road to general training, their homes being be- tween the Castle and Dogtown.
Over these pastures, on either side, many sheep were wont to graze a century ago. Abraham Wharf, in his palmy days, kept lots of them. Morgan's brook, named, of course, for Morgan Stanwood, is a discour- aging place to cross. If one confines himself to the stepping stones on the left, going toward Riverdale, or on the right, proceeding the other way, it can be crossed without wetting one's feet. The stranger is likely to attempt the other side, and come to grief.
After crossing the brook, on the same side as Judy Rhines' cellar, one sees a big bowlder beside the road. Right against it, on one side, are the founda- tions of a small building, while in the yard with this,
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enclosed by a wall, are the remains of a larger struc- ture. The building by the rock was the hut in which John Morgan Stanwood spent his last days. Mr. Rich, in his poem, dropped the John, while the cus- tom of his contemporaries was to drop the Stanwood. It is a painful but well-authenticated fact, that he was known to some, as long as he lived, as "Johnny Morgan." Of course he was not that Johnny who played the organ, nor the estimable gentleman who caters to the finer taste of the present generation of Gloucester people.
1 misspent many precious hours trying, first to find if John Morgan Stanwood was the man I was hunting after, and second, seeking to find out who the Morgan was who lived by the brook. That this was not strange may be understood, when I say that a lady still living told me that for years she went to school, and was intimate with " Nabby Morgan," his daughter, before the person told her that her name was really Abigail Morgan Stanwood.
Morgan Stanwood never went to the wars, so those who knew him as " Capt." Morgan Stanwood made a mistake if they thought the title a military one. Dur- ing the Revolutionary war, or a little later. he went on foreign voyages. He married Mary Lurvey, and had many children. " Granther Stannard," or
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" Johnny Morgan," as you will, seems thoroughly to have enjoyed life on Dogtown Common. He spent his later years cobbling shoes. This work he did at first in a little addition to his house, which was then and has ever since borne the name of " The Boo." After his wife died, and his children grew up, the confusion of so many in the house, and the fact that they had so many callers among their young acquaint- ances, so disturbed his mind, that he sought relief by building the hut under the rock. Many living recall this cozy corner, where he peacefully cobbled shoes for the remainder of his days. On a shelf in the corner he kept a book in which he made a record of the interesting matters that came to his notice. I should like to get hold of that book. For a year I chased after such a journal of life in Dogtown, that I finally found never existed ; but I have no doubt of the existence of this journal, though it probably has long since gone to decay. Stanwood has several grandchildren living.
Lest I forget it, let me say here that Morgan Stan- wood's old " boo "-it was a booth, built of slabs and covered with turf, Mrs. Rachel Day says-was stand- ing when the war of the Rebellion began, but old soldiers who left it when they marched, found it gone on their return.
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"THE OLD CASTLE."
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The " Castle," a dozen years ago, was owned by Mrs. Mary A. Riggs, a sprightly old lady of So, who lived on the main road in Riverdale. Some of the Lufkin family seem to have lived in it during its early history. It came to Mrs. Riggs through her father, Capt. Sam. Riggs, of whom it used to be said that he could walk from the old Riggs house in Riverdale to Rockport without getting off of his own land. The Riggs house is quite near the Castle, though on another road, near Goose Cove. It is supposed that that part of it which is constructed of square logs was built by Thos. Riggs, the first school master and town clerk, in 1661. His grandson, George Riggs, built the gambrel roof portion. It is undoubtedly the oldest house on the Cape. Thomas was the progen- itor of all the Riggs family of Gloucester. Mrs. Riggs, mentioned above, used to go to school to Judy Millett.
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