USA > Maine > Lincoln County > Wiscasset > Wiscasset in Pownalborough; a history of the shire town and the salient historical features of the territory between the Sheepscot and Kennebec rivers > Part 56
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The house at the corner of Main and Fourth Streets known for so many years as the Josh Hilton house, was built by David Silvester and moved from the McCrate lot on Water Street to its present location by Richard Tucker who bought it in 1795, and in the deed it stipulated that "said Rich- ard shall remove the said house from off said Land, on or before the first day of June next ensuing." Since the Tuckers' occupancy many families have lived there. At one time it was the home of Daniel Brown, a shoe- maker. Samuel Chisam, the master builder in the shipyard of Isaac H. Coffin, was another occupant. The last transfer was made October 26, 1909, when Cora Dodge Ervine sold it to Rebecca Nash, and the Nash family have ever since lived there.
Another house of the early design is that of William Chick on Garrison Hill at the corner of Bradbury Street, and its beautiful English doorway with its leaded panes has survived both conflagrations and "improvements." Chick, a carpenter by trade who was called upon to make everything from a church cricket to an ironing-board, was rather an eccentric person. It was he who kept on hand for many years a few well-seasoned white pine planks so that when his end should come, good white-pine lumber would be available for a watertight box to hold his coffin. Several of his neighbors recall Wil-
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liam Chick as he worked day after day in his woodshed laboriously putting together his own casket and lining it so as to be in readiness for the final call. His brother, being equally forehanded, likewise made the coffin in which he was to be borne to his last resting place.
The Charles Taylor house on the western side of Water Street, now occu- pied by Bernard Hutchins, was originally of this type. It has undergone many changes, such as the addition of front dormer windows to the attic, a staircase rebuilt and partitions removed, but the old glory hole by the side of the chimney remains and that, with the staunch wooden corner posts still to be seen in the rooms, bespeaks an early period of architecture.
Tradition states that the house now owned by Alfred Lennox Groves on the Bath road was built on Holbrook's Island and floated across on a scow to the shore near Dalton road by the foundry and then hauled up to its pres- ent location. It belonged to Andrew Harraden and was by him conveyed to Philene Groves, the wife of Sewall Groves. Its age is unknown.
Overlooking the Upper Narrows where the railroad bridge spans the Sheepscot River to Flying Point, on the eastern side of the hill formerly known as Kane's Point, now called Clark's Point, stood, about 1737, the humble cabin of John Kane, a very early settler, for whom the hill was named. He was here at the time of Indian troubles and moved down hill nearer the shore because the water-way would be his only hope of escape in case of attack. The old cellar of his second hut can still be traced just eighty- eight feet north-northwest of the house of Arthur Brown, the present draw tender. It was Kane who brought over some English daffodils to his home on the hillside which thrived and blossomed in glorious profusion, beauti- fying his modest walled garden every spring for a century after he himself had been gathered to his fathers.7
The second type or two-storied house, the mart and manse of the mer- chants, was a popular style of structure when so many of the Wiscasset houses were destroyed by fire in 1866. Notable examples of this kind of building are found in the Gerrard house in which Edmund Dana, the apoth- ecary, started the first store kept there in 1830; the Saunders house, now occupied by Charles E. Cowley; the Harrison Hilton house on Water Street; the house of Henry Bragdon on Federal Street, long the home of Charles E. Emerson, who issued his newspapers in its front room; the home
7. Diary of Alexander Johnston, Jr., item dated May 6, 1877.
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of William and Judith Vincent at the southwest corner of Middle and Bradbury Streets, which was incorporated in the new house of Fred Pendle- ton at the time when the Lewis house was demolished; and over on Wind- mill Hill, the two-story house of Jeremiah Dalton on the little lane known as Dalton Road. All that is now left of this short street is the outline of a beaten path on the eastern side of the foundry which he built, and where he filed the buck saws to facilitate wood-sawing. "Jerry," the local Marco Polo, had the largest flock of geese and the greatest fund of stories of any man in town. He was a great favorite with the boys who gathered there to listen to his tales of adventure, sailors' yarns and hairbreadth escapes, and among them his own miraculous escape from drowning when shipwrecked in Mo- bile Bay.
This house was moved in 1847 to Garrison Hill and placed on the north- west corner of Bradbury and Fort Hill Streets, where having undergone alterations, it forms a part of the house now owned and occupied by Miss Gertrude Mackenzie.
The third period of the Wiscasset houses came into vogue about 1800 and is represented by many of the better homes now extant. Good examples are found in the five Stacy houses of Federal Street, the Robert Elwell house known to our generation as that of Joshua Damon, and later the Isaac B. Dickinson house; the Barrett house; the Willard Deering house built by Nymphas Stacy before 1811, the Lincoln Gibbs house and the Wil- liam Farnham house.
In his history of ancient Sheepscot, Rev. D. Q. Cushman states that a man named "Grover8 had the first framed house that was ever erected in Wiscasset." This would appear to have been about 1747, although the date might have been later. Benjamin Woodbridge, Jr., came here when a youth, three years before his father and family, and landed first at Wiscasset Point, where he remained for six months and kept the books for Mr. Grover, a trader here. The latter could neither read nor write but he had a tenacious memory and when that failed he used to make marks on the wall to denote particular articles and their prices. One of these marks Woodbridge was not able to understand but as it was round he thought it must be a cheese. "Has it not a hole in it?" asked Grover. "Yes," said Woodbridge. "Then it must be a grindstone," said Grover.
8. It is believed that this name should be Groves.
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The oldest house in town now standing of which we have a written rec- ord is the house built by Col. John Kingsbury in 1763. This house originally stood at the corner of Maine and Federal Streets but was removed by Wil- liam Nickels just before he erected the mansion now occupying that site, about 1807. It was later occupied by Dr. Philip Theobald and afterward by Ebenezer Southard.
The four two-storied houses known to have been built and standing in 1766 were the Whittier Tavern, the Kingsbury house, the house of Capt. John Decker, now owned and occupied by Chester H. Pendleton; and the Benjamin Frizell house at the northeast corner of Fort Hill and Bradbury Streets, called "Quarter Acre Lot No. 14" in the survey of town lots.
Among the notable mansions of Wiscasset were those built by Hon. Silas Lee, William Nickels and the Wood family, one of which on account of its occupancy by Moses Carlton extending over half a century, has since been known by his name; the Peter Brayson house; the Nickels house, and the Alexander Erskine house, and the homes on the hill of John Hannibal Sheppard and Rev. Alden Bradford. At least five of the outstanding resi- dences here were erected by the Lees. Judge Lee, who came here from Con- cord, Massachusetts, appears to have had a penchant for building houses, which propensity he indulged far beyond his needs or financial resources.
Early in the period of his residence here Judge Lee acquired real estate securing several very desirable parcels, some of which he developed with apparent profit. Of such lands he at first selected for a place of residence that through which High and Lee Streets now run, although at that time neither had been laid out. The first of the dwelling-houses built by him was that now known as the Smith house. Although an earlier date has been given for its erection, 1792 is the accepted year, for it was not until that time that Judge Lee cleared a flaw in the title arising under the claims of the Wiscas- set Proprietors to the land where it stands. It ranges on a line with the Abiel Wood house and the Moses Carlton house on the western side of High Street, which from an architectural point of view has been called the most interesting in Maine. At the time of its erection the only other buildings on the ridge were the dwelling-house of Henry Hodge, Sr., and the meeting- house of the east parish of Pownalborough. The Lee house, monumental in proportion and precision of outline, with its captain's walk, its semicircular portico whose exquisite entablature is supported by Ionic columns, its stair- case both unique and beautiful, its mullioned windows and superb interior
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finish, place it in the foremost rank as one of the finest examples of colonial architecture in Maine. Pilgrimages are made every summer by artists and architects to sketch or to measure the former home of Hon. Silas Lee.
Judge Lee sold his High Street house to Gen. David Payson in June, 1807. Shortly after the death of General Payson in 1831, it passed into the hands of Samuel Emerson Smith, who was about that time governor of the state of Maine, and it is still the home of his descendants.9
In 1806, Judge Lee built on Court Street, a two story and a half house, which, in 1857, became the parsonage of the Congregational Church. It had a well-finished basement with dining room and kitchen in which there was a brick oven and fire-place. Between the chimney and the outer wall a secret stairway led from the basement to the second story similar to that in the House of Seven Gables in Salem.
Then there was the Birch Point villa which stood about a quarter of a mile to the eastward of the road and about two miles from the town, built on the erstwhile Whitehaven property of Jonathan Williamson. It was ap- proached by a bridge 200 feet in length, in the center of which was a gate with a fine Grecian arch turned over it. The villa was situated nearly in the center of the peninsula, with an enchanting prospect on every side. It is sup- posed that Judge Lee's villa included the Stinson house and that the Stinson house was originally connected by a one-story circular gallery to another two-story part which stood on an old cellar hole near to the old well. The villa was in semicircular form facing east, with the two extremities exactly corresponding with each other, and one of these houses so joined was hauled down from what is now Grant's field near the house of Gustavus R. Hilton. In the rear were the houses of the gardener and farmer and out buildings. To the south was a spacious garden where honeysuckle and wood- bine hung in graceful festoons framing the landscape beyond.
The most conspicuous of the Lee houses is that at the southern end of High Street now owned by the heirs of Capt. Richard Holbrook Tucker. It was erected in 1807-1808 on a choice site overlooking the whole harbor. It is said to have been a replica of Sheriff Manor in Dunbar, Scotland, and the architect was Robert Stuart, a Scotchman. Its general appearance remained unchanged until Captain Tucker added the glass-inclosed piazza in the sum- mer of 1859. The elliptical flying staircase is a distinguishing interior fea-
9. Further items in regard to this house will be found under the section "Bunch of Grapes Tavern."
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ture, and with one exception it is said to be the only one of its kind in the United States.1º The grace of its curve and lightness of its spindles give a pleasing effect to the hall.
Since it was occupied by Judge and Mrs. Lee it has had many residents. At one time Franklin Tinkham lived there; then William Bowman and his wife, and after them one Mr. Sullivan. Then came a strange man with his mother from unknown parts, a sinister person who kept school and remained only a short time, when both of them disappeared as mysteriously as they had come. Dr. Moses Shaw who had married Victoria Aurelia, the daughter of Hon. Orchard Cook and Mary Hodge, was the next owner and he was succeeded by Hon. Franklin Clark, a member of the Thirtieth Congress. When Mr. Clark removed to Brooklyn he mortgaged the estate to Swan- ton and Jameson of Bath, and from them Capt. Richard Holbrook Tucker bought it in 1859.
Many distinguished visitors have passed happy hours in this stately man- sion. Captain Tucker's son Richard Hawley Tucker, the noted astronomer, and Patience Stapleton, the authoress, were reared in this house; and Sig- nora Avigliana, the prima donna, a sister of Mrs. Tucker, called it her home although many years of her life were passed in Italy and later in Boston.
When Judge Lee died of spotted fever, his widow Temperance Lee, built the wooden house in the hollow on the Lee estate and there she lived until her death in 1845. This house, although comfortable, does not compare in architectural value with those built by her husband.
Maj. Abiel Wood built the house on the opposite corner of High and Lee Streets. Although begun in 1811, owing to unavoidable delays incident to the War of 1812, it stood unfinished for many years. After the death of Hannah Hodge, Mr. Wood's first wife, one of the victims of the epidemic of 1814, he married Jane Dunlap, the widow of Frank Anderson of Bel- fast, and it was she who finished the house in the autumn of 1824. Mr. Wood's third wife was Miss Lydia Theobald. Wilmot Wood, the son of Maj. Abiel Wood by his first wife, inherited this property on the death of his father. Hon. Erastus Foote, who married Sarah Page, the daughter of Wilmot Wood, was a later occupant. For twenty-five years this house was owned by Freeman Parker Erskine, or his family, but it was purchased from his widow in 1908 by Erastus Foote, Jr., the son of its previous owner.
Io. The other staircase built on an ellipse is in the Nathaniel Russell house on Meeting Street, Charleston, South Carolina.
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Capt. Richard H. Tucker House built by Hon. Silas Lee in 1807-1808. Photograph by Brayton.
House built by Hon. Abiel Wood. Begun in 1811 and completed in 1824. Photograph by Brayton.
The house Moses Carlton, Jr., bought for one hundred puncheons of rum. Photograph by Brayton.
The Scott House on High Street. Originally a double house. Built in 1852 by Henry Clark, Esq., and Capt. George H. Wood.
Old Houses
The front porch which was added by Mr. Erskine in 1883 was removed in 1935 by the heirs of Erastus Foote and its original portico restored.
The brick house known as the old Richard Tucker house, now owned by Mrs. Richmond White, stands between the Abiel Wood home and the house built by Joseph Tinkham Wood and sold to Maj. Moses Carlton, Jr. The Carlton house built in 1805 was subjected to alterations in 1858, but its most interesting features were fortunately retained and it is still notable for its stately entrance, the symmetry of its front hall with its beautiful winding staircase and delicate interior finish. Soon after it was completed Mr. Wood traded the house and the land on which it stands to Maj. Moses Carlton, Jr., for a hundred puncheons of rum, which cargo then recently landed on the latter's wharf in Wiscasset, was sold for $12,000. Major Carlton and his family lived there for fifty years, and during that half cen- tury many little orphans called it home. His own children were Susan, Miles, William, Eliza, Nancy, Henry, Moses and Abby. Little Abby died when she was eight years old. Rachel Quin ran away from home and bare- headed attended the funeral of her playmate, and, braving the grim pro- prieties of a country funeral in those days, joined the procession as it wound its way afoot to the Central burying ground on Federal Street on that Fourth of July so many years ago ( 1815).
Major Carlton was a gentleman of the old school. He wore a queue and small clothes to the day of his death, and he lived to the ripe old age of ninety. He and his wife were the happiest couple in the world, and in their home the poor and defenceless ones never failed to find refuge. Among their protégés were James and Mary Ann Babbage (grandchildren of Rev. Thomas Moore, Wiscasset's first settled minister), who found a home with the Carltons when their father, Captain Babbage, died. Peggy Waters was another child who lived there; and Patty Bolton who, with her brother John, had lived in a little log house on Sweet Auburn found shelter under this hospitable roof. Two colored women did the work; Pendy, whom they took from the Boston alms-house, and "Aunt" Kezia Shiney, the nurse, who brought up the whole brood, a full baker's dozen of babies. When this faithful soul died in 1859, in her seventy-seventh year, she was placed be- side the children in the Carlton family lot.
The architect of this house is said to have been Nicholas Codd,11 who de-
11. He is called by some Nicholas Cobb, but no written record save that of a later date has been found to settle the point.
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signed the James Kavanagh house at Damariscotta Mills, immortalized by Longfellow; the Matthew Cottrill house in Damariscotta; the Charles Nickels house with the monitor roof, on the road from Sheepscot to New- castle (the old cart path of Walter Phillips) nearly opposite the land where stood the old town house of Newcastle beside the Indian trail. All three of the Nickels houses are still standing and in good preservation. Tradition says that in a state of inebriation Codd was shanghaied and brought across the water from Ireland in one of the Kavanagh-Cottrill vessels and that when his work was completed he returned to his home in the British Isles. He is also said to have come here from Boston, but exhaustive search both by Mr. Patterson and the noted Boston architect, Charles Kimball Cum- mings, has failed to reveal anything whatever concerning him, negative evi- dence at least being in favor of the kidnap tradition. His hall-mark, a satin- wood star inlaid on the newel, is found in the Moses Carlton house, and the same mark appears in the inlay of the hall of the Cottrill (Stetson) house in Damariscotta.
After the death of Moses Carlton the house passed into the hands of Alexander Johnston, Jr., who after an occupancy of about twenty-four years sold it to Mr. Charles Weeks. Later it became the property of William Davis Patterson.
Mr. Patrick Lennox built the house next to the Moses Carlton house in 1844 and passed the rest of his life there. Since his death there have been many changes of ownership. Capt. Nelson Greenleaf with his family lived there and then William Hannibal Small, and after the Small family moved it was owned by Abijah Greenleaf. Then Mrs. Frances Erskine purchased the place and her son and daughter have lived there. It is at present owned by Mrs. Cora Merry Groves, and called Elm Lodge.
The double house was built in 1852 by Henry Clark and Capt. George H. Wood and by them occupied. Henry Clark formerly lived on Federal Street, where Mrs. Mary Gould Hilton afterwards lived. Capt. Jonathan Edwards Scott married Eliza Ann, the daughter of Henry Clark, and came into possession of the house. It is now owned by the children of his grand- daughter, Mrs. Walter Greenough Chase, the author of this volume.
Capt. Peter Brayson built the house next to the meeting-house in the first decade of the nineteenth century. It was for several years the home of Thomas Nickels who married Jane Hodge. In 1820 Alexander Johnston came into possession of it and lived in it until his death thirty-seven years
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afterward. Mary Ann Swett kept house there until Hon. Alfred Lennox purchased it in 1872 and made exterior alterations, but the interior has not been changed and the door trim both in the hall and the living room are worthy of mention.
Judge Jeremiah Bailey built the corner house upon land which came to him by his marriage with Maria, the daughter of Capt. John Sevey. She in- herited it from her father. Mrs. Bailey owned all of the land running west to Mary Greenough's place. She willed her holdings to her husband when she was so weak she could hardly hold a pen, and knowing that she could live but a short time, she selected two of her Boston friends and school- mates, and begged Judge Bailey to choose one of them as her successor. Three years after his first wife's death he chose Charlotte Welch (who was one of the two recommended by Mrs. Bailey) and she became the mother of his six children.
Capt. Joseph Tucker bought this property in 1872, added the mansard roof and made other additions and alterations. Mr. William D. Patterson, a more recent owner who lived there for a few years, purchased this estate from Captain Tucker's son.
Henry Hodge, known as "Squire Hodge" came here in 1773 from New- castle where "he lived over west of Crumbie's Reach." He bought land in Wiscasset (where Hodge Street intersects Washington) from Samuel Groves in 1787.
His brother, Robert Hodge of Newcastle, called junior though named for his uncle whose heir he was, had three sons and six pretty daughters. One by one Squire Hodge invited his six nieces to visit him, until he had married them all off to prominent Wiscasset citizens and each niece lived on a corner lot.
Sarah Hodge married Maj. Joseph Tinkham Wood, the son of General Wood, in 1801 and lived first in his father's house at the foot of the Com- mon, until he came into possession of General Wood's great house at the Point where is now the post-office, and here made his home until his death in 1820.
Mary (Polly) Hodge married Spencer Tinkham and lived at the south- west corner of Fort Hill and State Streets. This was long known as the Harriman house. It was destroyed by fire in 1891.
Margaret (Peggy) Hodge married Henry Robie and lived on the south- east corner of State and Middle Streets, where the Rundlett Block now
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stands. The Robie house was sold later to Joshua Blinn, who many years afterwards sold it to Gardiner Walker, where the latter kept a never-to-be- forgotten shop.
Sally married her first cousin, Henry Hodge, Jr., and lived in the house built for them by his father on the southeast corner of Fort Hill and State Streets. This was later called the Col. John Erskine house. Among the sub- sequent occupants have been Capt. Joseph Gardiner White and his son-in- law, Capt. Richard Tucker Rundlett, and Charles L. Macurda, Esq., whose heirs now occupy it.
Jane Hodge married Thomas Nickels and lived at Stacy's Corner. Their home was later in the house afterwards occupied for so many years by Alex- ander Johnston, Sr., and now the home of Mrs. Alfred H. Lennox.
Hannah Hodge married Abiel Wood, Jr., and lived in the old Groves house in which Abiel Wood, Senior, had lived for so long, the site of which is now occupied in part by the post office.
Mary, the only daughter of Henry Hodge, married Orchard Cook and lived in a house which stood on the western part of the present post-office lot opposite the home of Frederic Lewis. Later Orchard Cook came into possession of the parcel of real estate bought by his father-in-law, Henry Hodge, from Samuel Groves.
The square house north of the Common, since 1870 the home of the family of Edward Ballard Neal, was built in 1805 by Joseph Swett. It soon passed into the hands of Capt. John Johnston, master of the ship Stirling of Wiscasset, in which J. Fenimore Cooper made his first voyage to European ports. Its distinguishing architectural features are the spiral staircase which leads to the second story where, in both of the front chambers, are found garrison blinds. These solid wooden shutters slide back into the wall parti- tion, but when drawn out fit so closely that they entirely cover the window space, making it impossible for anyone on the outside to discern the light within. They are a relic of garrison life and are found in the few surviving defensible houses which were so equipped for protection against the arrows of marauding Indians.
Next to the eastward of the Colby house stands on the site of the former home of Gen. Abiel Wood a house which was built by the Clark family in 1845. It is of substantial structure, two years having been taken to season the lumber. Thirteen years after its erection it was purchased by Capt. Sam- uel Boyd Doane, who met a tragic death in the Chincha Islands about ten
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Nickels-Sortavell House, erected in 1807 for Capt. William Nickels, its first owner. Present owner is Mrs. Alvin F. Sortwell. Courtesy of C. M. Whitney.
Francis Cook House, 1795. Photograph by Brayton.
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The Hartley Wood House built in 1807. Photograph by Labbie.
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Joseph Christophers' House built in 1786.
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