USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Pigeon Cove : its early settlers & their farms, 1702-1840 > Part 5
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Some have been inclined to think that The Old Castle may have been built, begun at least, by Joshua Norwood, others that it was even older, and that it was there when the six-acre lots were laid out in 1688. When the house was restored by the Im- provement Society about 1930, under the direction of Thomas
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Williams, who was familiar with early New England building practices, it was found to contain a number of features peculiar to seventeenth century houses. The sizes of the brick in the oldest part of the chimney were those in use earlier than 1712, and they had been laid in clay, a practice that had largely gone out of use in this section by 1700.
The idea that the house had been built before 1688 was based upon a piece of grimy and time-stained board bearing the figures 1678 that had been found in an upper room in the course of earlier repairs, about 1893. Since it was impossible to determine the origin of that dated board, no great dependence could be placed upon it as evidence.
Francis Norwood senior died March 4, 1708/09, bequeathing to Joshua " sixty acres . .. att the head of the Cape by piggion cove." This land was listed in the inventory of Francis' estate as " about Sixtty accs of land leying neare pidgeon cove so-called on the Cape and on which land Joshua Norwood now dwells."
Deeds show that Francis owned lot 54, the site of The Old Castle, also 49, 50, 51 and 53 north of The Old Castle, and 56, 57, and 59 south of there. It is also known from deeds that Joshua himself owned, before his father's death, lots 43, 48, and 58. There is no telling on which of those lots Joshua was living at the time of his father's death. Inasmuch as Francis owned lot 49, which is presumed to be the site of The Garrison House, it is as likely that Joshua was living there as that he was in or near The Old Castle.
Be that as it may, the first documentary evidence of a house on the Old Castle farm is found in a mortgage, February 13, 1716/17, when Jethro Wheeler borrowed 100 pounds from the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and pledged 100 acres of land and " all houses." Three years earlier, just after his purchase of the Old Castle farm, he had mortgaged the place to Jonathan Springer of Gloucester for 200 pounds, but no buildings were mentioned in that instrument, not even appurtenances. That mortgage must have been discharged before he borrowed of the Province. These facts lead to the thought that perhaps Wheeler built The Old Castle with that first 200 pounds, and that he needed the other 100 pounds with which to complete it. And yet 300 pounds,
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amounting to about $1,000 in Provincial money, would seem to be an exorbitant cost for building that house in those times.
The origin of the name, The Old Castle, is also shrouded in mystery. Twenty deeds and mortgages covering this property between 1712 and 1898 have been examined, and only in one, a deed of 1882, was the name Old Castle used. It was also so called in the oldest known existing tax list of Pigeon Cove properties, that of 1853. It is possible that the name was early applied be- cause of its looming up conspicuously at the head of the cove, in a manner more or less suggestive of the castles along the coast of the old country.
Jethro Wheeler was a native of Newbury, born March 28, 1664. He married Hannah French of Rowley, July 2, 1690. He was a son of David and Sarah (Wise). His grandfather was John Wheeler who came to America from Salisbury, England, about 1634, and who had lived in Ipswich, Salisbury, and New- bury. Jethro was a tanner and cordwainer (shoemaker). His ten children were all born in Rowley, and nine of them lived to accompany their father and mother to Pigeon Cove. In 1724, when Jethro was sixty years old, he sold the Old Castle farm to his son Benjamin for 600 pounds, and returned to Rowley where he died the following year.
Benjamin Wheeler, who was a seafaring man, was born to Jethro at Rowley, March 23, 1694/5. He married first a cousin, Mehitable Wheeler of Rowley, intentions October 15, 1720. Their ten children were born at Pigeon Cove. At some time be- fore 1764, Benjamin and his wife moved to Ipswich where he had bought land. Mehitable died at Ipswich, August 4, 1766. The fol- lowing year, November 26, 1767, Benjamin married again, his wife being Sarah Woodbury of Rowley. On February 25, 1769, Benjamin and his new wife, Sarah, deeded the Old Castle prop- erty to Benjamin Wheeler, Jr., for 80 pounds. Apparently he and a brother Moses had been living there since the father moved to Ipswich, except, perhaps, for a short time when Benjamin junior lived on Plum Island. Benjamin senior died at Ipswich, January 1, 1779, and Sarah died April 26, 1814.
Benjamin Wheeler, Jr., was born at Pigeon Cove, April 14, 1722. He was described in legal papers as a yeoman and fisherman. His
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first wife was Elizabeth Pulcifer, intentions December 19, 1746. She died soon after and he married Sarah Dane of Ipswich, inten- tions August 16 and 19, 1749. Of their eleven children all were born at Pigeon Cove, save one. The tenth child, John Dane Wheeler, was born in Ipswich in 1769, presumably when the par- ents were living on Plum Island. From 1769, when he purchased The Old Castle from his father, until his death in 1810, Benjamin junior and Sarah lived continuously at the old homestead.
Between 1791 and 1805 he deeded parts of his farm to four of his sons. These pieces were mostly house lots along the Granite Street frontage. To John Dane, however, he deeded the western half of The Old Castle itself. That was in 1792, the year in which this son married Anna Tuttle at Hamilton, and the deed stated that it was in consideration of John Dane's having ex- pended 25 pounds " in building a back leanter (or long kitching room) the whole length of my dwelling house." This fixes the date of the addition of the leanto on the north side. The deed gave full title to the west end of the house, privileges in the cellar and the well, the right of passage around the house, but no title to any part of the surrounding soil. John Dane died in 1803, leaving a widow and three children, who continued to live there for several years. Their successors continued to own that half of the house until 1892, when it was sold to the Story family.
In 1802, Benjamin junior and his wife deeded the east half of The Castle to their youngest son, Daniel, but retained a life estate. Three years later they deeded this son a piece of land on the opposite side of Granite Street on which he soon after built a tavern which he conducted until 1838. Benjamin junior died June 10, 1810. His wife presumably died before November 26, 1814, on which date her dower was distributed. The heirs of Daniel continued to own the east end of the old house until 1893, when that also was sold to the Story family.
In 1929 the Story heirs deeded the entire house and the land east to Granite Street to the Village Improvement Society of Pigeon Cove with the stipulation that it be restored, and there- after maintained as an historic monument and community center, in memory of Abbie F. Story (Mrs. Henry L. Story), a founder of the Improvement Society in 1889.
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PIGEON HILL FARM
THE SOUTHEASTERLY SLOPES of Pigeon Hill were included within the eleven lots of the 1688 grants numbered from 60 to 70. The three lots, 60 to 62, were consolidated as one property be- tween 1712 and 1717. They lay along Granite Street from the present line between 139 and 141 Granite Street, to the line between 121 and 123. The southerly side of that property on the hillside is marked by the southern boundary of Landmark Lane.
Lot 60 was acquired from the original grantee by John Hadley senior, who lived on the shore of Gloucester Harbor, opposite Five Pound Island, which he owned. He died in 1711 and the following year his widow deeded the lot to John Harris senior of Ipswich, gunsmith and under sheriff, for 4 pounds. About the same time Harris bought lot 61 from Andrew Riggs. He also bought other scattering lots along the shore, presumably by way of speculation. Harris died at Ipswich, September 15, 1714, leav- ing his Pigeon Hill land to three grandsons, John, William and Daniel, sons of John junior. When the highway, now Granite Street, was laid out in 1716, the description credited this land to John Harris for a width of 742 feet, which distance would include three lots. This leads to the conclusion that the grandsons must have bought lot 62 from Jabez Baker, who had himself acquired it that very year, 1716.
One of the Harris grandsons is presumed to have built a house on that land, but which one is uncertain. A very ancient story and a half leanto house stood, until within recent years, on the frontage of 133 Granite Street. It seems likely that it was built by one of the Harrises. There is some evidence to indicate that it was built, not by the grandsons but by their uncle, Thomas Harris. This Thomas had inherited from his father three small pieces of land at Sandy Bay, next west of the Mill Brook. These he sold in September, 1715, to Richard Tarr senior. He had per- haps been living somewhere in Gloucester since 1711, in which year he was "warned out" by the Selectmen. That was a formality quite indiscriminately applied by all New England towns at that time to all new comers, rich or poor, to forestall their claiming the right of public support at any future day in
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case of adversity. On August 3, 1720, Thomas was certainly living on the Pigeon Hill land that was formerly his father's, for on that day the Town granted him a piece of common land " at the head of his own land at Pigeon Hill." This, the grant stated, was in compensation for the highway through his property. Two years later, November 28, 1722, he sold this as about 11/2 acres " by land of my own by Pigeon Hill, at the head of said land of my own," and described it as being bounded by the fence be- tween Harris and Wheeler (Jethro Wheeler of The Old Castle) and as cornering on a tree "in or near the line of the land sequestered for a sea mark." The purchaser was John Porter of Wenham, one of the owners of the lots next south, 63 to 70.
Two years later, December 30, 1724, Daniel Harris, then of Marblehead, one of the three grandsons named in the will, sold to John Kimball and Thomas Tarbox of Wenham, for 20 pounds, his interest in 18 acres " as bequeathed." These men were part owners of the land next south. Two years later still, May 17, 1726, William Harris of Salem, blacksmith, he being another of those grandsons, conveyed to Daniel Harris of Newbury, joiner (presumably formerly of Marblehead), for 8 pounds, 10 shil- lings, 6 acres " at the Cape." This looks like the surrender of his share in the title in the land already sold to Kimball and Tarbox. No release from the other grandson, John, has been found. Pos- sibly he had died. And there is no recorded deed from Thomas other than the one above cited, which fact prompts the conclu- sion that he never did have any ownership in the three lots, though he probably lived there and may have built the house.
Meantime the lots from 63 to 70 had been changing hands with such frequency as to suggest speculative buying, and some of these purchasers had secured bits of common land west of the lots, which carried their boundaries over on to the western side of the hill.
Meantime, also, on March 5, 1712/13, the Commoners at one of their meetings voted that " all the Common that belongs to the Town upon Piggon Hill is to lie comon still perpetually to bee for a sea mark." The complete story of that hilltop reservation has already been told in a separate chapter.
By 1716 the seven lots from 63 to 69 had been acquired by a
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group of men who were referred to in one deed as John Kimball & Co. They also at some time bought lot 70. The partners in that Company were John Kimball and Thomas Tarbox of Wen- ham, and William Lamson and Daniel Gilbert of Ipswich, and later John Porter, John Porter, Jr., and Jonathan Porter of Wen- ham. Their consolidated interest extended from the line between 139 and 141 Granite Street to the south side of Rowe Avenue.
Daniel Gilbert withdrew from the partnership May 15, 1717, when he sold his quarter interest in the land and a dwelling house for 32 pounds 10 shillings. These men appear to have been en- gaged in raising livestock, rather than in agriculture, for one of the deeds covering this property called it " the pasture com- monly known by the name of Pigion Hill."
In 1751 the Dodge family of Wenham began to buy into the partnership, one of its principal representatives being Barnabas Dodge who, little by little, acquired the shares of the others until in 1783 he had sole possession. The following year, October 1 I, 1784, Barnabas Dodge, gentleman, of Wenham, and his wife Hannah, conveyed to John Rowe of Gloucester, gentleman, "My whole farm known as Pigion Hill " about 114 acres, 14 acres of woodland adjoining ... running westerly to the path from Sandy Bay to Jumpers, 6 other acres adjoining, and 3 acres next the woodland, formerly the property of John Langsford. Together these made a property of 137 acres. A copy of a plan of the farm, made in 1794 by William Saville, is in the collections of the Sandy Bay Historical Society. That plan includes lot 71, which was not owned by Dodge, it having been bought by Major Rowe of John Pool's heirs.
John Rowe who bought from Dodge was he who commanded the local militia at Bunker Hill. Later he was commissioned major, the title by which he was ever after known. He was a great-grandson of John and Bridget Row who emigrated to America in 1651. His parents were Lieutenant John and Mary (Baker) Row. Major John's first wife was Sarah Pool who was the mother of his thirteen children. His second wife was Mrs. Elizabeth Adams of Newbury. Sarah had died November 13, 1789, 50 years old. Major Rowe died in 1801 at Ballston Springs, N. Y., whither he had gone in an effort to recover his health. By
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his will, executed April 17, 1800, and probated August 3, 1801, he left his farm and live stock to his son William, born June 4, 1761, and who married Elizabeth Dennison. The inventory of the Major's estate listed four houses, the mansion house, barn and yard, $1400; " the old house " (probably that of John Kimball & Co.) " and barn, standing in front of the mansion house," $150; " the new house opposite the mansion house on the eastern side of the highway " and one-quarter acre of land, $650; and the dwelling house occupied by Gideon Lescom and the land adjoin- ing " upon the northeasternmost corner of said farm," $160. The latter house was the one presumably built by Harris prior to 1724, and which stood at 133 Granite Street. Only one of those houses, the mansion, remains. The cellar of the "new House " is now the sunken garden just north of the stone house, 87 Granite Street, near the quarry bridge.
William Rowe, who inherited the farm, lived there until his death, January 22, 1824. His sons Samuel and Amos succeeded in title and both lived on the property. From 1828 to about 1840 they sold the land along Granite Street, most of it for house sites, but some of it for quarrying.
THE WOODS SETTLEMENTS
THUS FAR all the farms mentioned have fronted in whole or in part on Granite Street. Between 1708 and 1790 several other small settlements were made west of that highway in the rear of the Garrison House, Old Castle and Pigeon Hill farms. That was then a region of dense woods and had been owned by the Commoners until 1723, when the section was laid out in long and narrow woodlots. They were known as the Eastern Divi- sion woodlots, and were based on a north and south line now represented by that part of the town line between the "Old Rockport Road " near "Nugent's Stretch " and the line monu- ment just west of Johnson's quarry. At that point there is an angle in the town line and the latter diverges slightly to the northeast from the old lot line. From that base line the woodlots, about 330 feet wide, ran northeasterly to the western boundaries of the farms.
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Some portions of that Common woodland had been acquired prior to 1723 by the owners of the adjacent farms, and at least one piece of about three acres, at the northwest foot of Pigeon Hill, had been granted to William Sargent before 1707. This he sold February 26, 1707/8, to Richard Langsford, husbandman, at other times called fisherman, who had already secured another small piece of the adjacent Common, and these he made the nucleus of a farm on which he settled. It seems likely that he was there as early as 1719, in which year he married Mary Row, daughter of Hugh. When he died, May 21, 1739, he had a farm of about 25 acres lying on both sides of Pigeon Hill Street, west of Stockholm Avenue, and extending also somewhat east of the latter. His house seems to have stood in the vicinity of the one now number 36 Pigeon Hill Street, judging from certain deed descriptions, and it was standing as late as 1834, when it belonged to Captain Daniel Wheeler of the tavern and was occupied by Josiah Witham. The timbering in the easterly end of the exist- ing house is plainly very old.
The Langsfords were credited with ten children in the Town records: Elizabeth, born 1720, John 1722, Mary 1724, Sarah and Martha 1726, Abigail 1729, Thomas and Richard 1731, Thomas 1734, Anna 1738. The son John succeeded to the farm subject to his mother's dower, but it is doubtful if he lived there, for he had a house at Lane's Cove. The mother died May 7, 1774, 83 years old. Eventually the old place was sold, in part to Barnabas Dodge, in part to Moses Wheeler of The Garrison House, and in part, perhaps including the house, to Benjamin Wheeler of The Old Castle.
Another early settler in the woods was Stephen Gott senior, fisherman, a son of Lieutenant Samuel of Gott Avenue. He had a five-acre woodlot, the eastern end of lot 88, that his father ac- quired from the Town in 1727. Curtis Street cuts through the eastern end of the lot. On the western side of the street the houses numbered from 42 to 50 are all on that land. On the easterly side of Curtis Street the lot included numbers 35 to 49. In a westerly direction the land apparently extended to beyond Stockholm Avenue.
Stephen Gott married Eunice Emmons, November 13, 1729,
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and not unlikely built his house at that time. He did not take title to the land, however, until after his father's death in 1748, for the latter's will gave to Stephen one-half a woodlot " where his house is." Stephen had six children: Stephen, born Sep- tember 18, 1731, married his cousin, Patience Gott, daughter of Daniel and Rachel, January 9, 1755; Abner, February 21, 1735/36, married Mary Ingersoll February 2, 1758; Eunice, baptized April 9, 1738, married first Benjamin Stockbridge, intentions Novem- ber 15, 1755, second John Thursten June 11, 1760; Martha, bap- tized October 26, 1740, married Hezekiah Lane January 15, 1760; Lois, baptized September 23, 1750, married Samuel Won- son, Jr., March 14, 1773; Esther, baptized March 21, 1756, married John Pearce, Jr., August 20, 1775.
Shortly before his death, Stephen senior sold his home place to Epes Sargent, Jr., May 22, 1759. After his death his widow sold one additional acre, which was probably west of Stockholm Avenue, to William Norwood December 24, 1763.
When Stephen junior, fisherman, married in 1755, he built a house on part of his father's land, probably on the westerly end near the brook. Two years later, March 13, 1757, he was deeded this piece as 23/4 acres, but sold it on April 9 of that year to Daniel Sargent, gentleman, for 40 pounds lawful money. It is thought that the house now on the lot, sometimes called the Wil- liam Knutsford place, may be the one built by Stephen junior.
Similarly when Stephen senior's daughter married Benjamin Stockbridge in 1755 her father deeded an acre and a half, "to the westward of my dwelling house," to the son-in-law. This deed was dated February 9, 1756. Stockbridge thereupon built the gambrel-roofed house that is located in the rear of 46 Curtis Street. Stockbridge died soon after and his widow married John Thursten, fisherman, in 1760.
Stephen Gott senior's place was owned by the Sargent family for 32 years, though it is not known that any of that family lived there. During that period the house burned or was moved or torn down, for when the property was sold by Epes Sargent, 3ยช, July 9, 1791, the deed stated that it covered the land " on which formerly stood the dwelling house of Stephen Gott." William Marchant, mariner, was the new owner. He also bought other
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neighboring land, built a new house and lived there until his death. His widow, Hannah, sold to Aaron Wheeler, Decem- ber 31, 1810, who, prior to 1799, had owned a place at Lane's Cove where he may have lived. The Marchant place was sold by Wheeler to John and William Fears and Ezra Eames, quarrymen, April 2, 1838.
The Stockbridge place was sold by Thursten to William Nor- wood, April 17, 1761, and his son James Norwood sold it to Moses Wheeler of The Garrison House, September 6, 1785, to- gether with a piece of land adjoining on the south and west. It is not improbable that Moses' mother, Susanna (Norwood), lived there until her death in 1810. According to the Federal tax of 1798 she was then living in a house owned by Moses. The place had probably been rented by the Norwoods during their owner- ship. Almost thirty years after Wheeler's purchase he sold to Thomas and Stephen (junior) Knutsford, fishermen, in October 1814. Stephen Knutsford, Jr., sold his half interest to Thomas, July 29, 1831.
Stephen Gott, Jr.'s house and part of his land by the Norwood Mill Brook came to be owned by David Lane, who sold it to Thomas Knutsford, August 15, 1810, as "land whereon there stands a small dwelling house a small distance to the westward of a small dwelling house formerly William Marchant's." Thomas deeded this to his brothers, Stephen junior and William, July 20, 1831, as " the land and house thereon where they now dwell, the same I bought for them of David Lane." The Knutsford family continued to own both the Curtis Street house and the one in the brook valley until 1893.
A somewhat later settler in that region was the progenitor of the Blatchford family of Cape Ann. There are numerous entries relative to him and his family in the Town of Gloucester records, but it was with difficulty that his habitation in this neighborhood was finally located, since there are no deeds of record to or from him covering that site. The quest was further complicated, owing to the fact that the recorders seldom spelled his name twice alike. In some cases the recorded aliases were scarcely more than sug- gestive of the true name. Once or twice the name was correctly spelled, sometimes it was almost right as in Blachford and Blanch-
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ford, but on other occasions it was set down as Blatchpill, Blanchfill, Blackfield, Blanchfield, and Blanch.
The location of his Pigeon Cove homestead of four acres, a part of Woodlot No. 80, Eastern Division, was determined through a deed dated 1797, covering the westerly end of that lot, which stated that it abutted east on John Blanch's " piece of same lot." That deed was so complete in its description, with compass courses and distances, that it was possible to fix " Blanch's " west- erly corners quite definitely on the map. Even at the present day the place is locally known as " Blanch's," though few now living know the meaning of the name, or why the locality is so called. An owner of neighboring property was found who pointed out the ancient cellar and the shallow well. The house stood beside the old road known as " the path from Sandy Bay to Jumper's," and the land lay on both sides of that way. That particular por- tion of " the path " is now incorporated in the road from Pigeon Hill Street to Johnson's quarry, and the cellar is close beside the fifth telephone pole from the corner of Pigeon Hill Street.
In some pages of manuscript notes in the collections of the Sandy Bay Historical Society, written perhaps by Ebenezer Pool, the local antiquary of a century ago, it is stated that John Blatchford was born in Devonshire, England, about 1702, that he emigrated to Portsmouth, N. H., and went from there to Salem, Mass., where he was employed by Captain Richard Derby. According to this account Blatchford was a gardener and coach- man for Captain Derby, who was the richest merchant in that port, but the tradition in the Blatchford family is that he sailed in one of Derby's brigs on foreign voyages, and items of furni- ture now owned in the family are said to have been brought home by him from England. It is further stated that he came to Cape Ann about 1754, which was the year before his first mar- riage. It is also there stated that the year of his birth, 1702, was based upon a family tradition that he was about 14 years old when he was present at a barbecue that took place on the frozen River Thames in England in January, 1716. It would seem that John J. Babson had seen these notes when he was writing his History of Gloucester, published in 1860, for in the paragraph that he devoted to John Blatchford he recited the above facts
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