THE ROYALL HOUSE, MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS
FROM WHOSE ROOF MOLLY STARK SIGNALLED TO
HER HUSBAND
One who is familiar with the old plantation houses of Virginia is tempted to rub his eyes when he first sees the Royall House at Medford, Massachusetts, for this relic of Colonial days has the outbuildings, the slave-quarters, and other characteristics of so many Virginia houses. True, it has not the low wings and the stately columns at the entrance, but the doorway is so chaste and dignified that this is not felt to be a lack. Those who enter the doorway and walk reverently through the rooms of what has been called the finest specimen of colonial architecture in the vicinity of Boston, are filled anew with admiration for the builders of another day who chose the finest white pine for their work, and would not dream of scamping anywhere. Evidently there was little need in those days of the services of an inspector to see that the terms of a contract were carried out.
The history of the property goes back to 1631, when Governor John Winthrop, the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who served for nineteen years, secured a grant to the farm on which, within six or seven years, the original dormer-windowed Royall House was built. This was smaller than the present house, but it was later incorporated in the present stately mansion; one story was added, and the outer wall was moved a few feet. Thus it is really a house within a house.
At the time of Governor Winthrop's ownership it was called the Ten-Hill Farmhouse, because ten hills could be seen from its windows. John Winthrop, Jr., sold the place to Mrs. Elizabeth Lidgett. Lieutenant Governor Usher married a Lidgett, and owned the estate until he lost it through business reverses. The name was not changed until 1732, when the house was bought by Isaac Royall, a planter from Antigua, in the Leeward Islands, a descendant of William Royall of Salem. He paid £10,350 for the estate, which then consisted of five hundred and four acres. It was he who enlarged the house. For five years the neighbors watched the transformation of the comfortable Ten-Hill Farmhouse to the great Royall House, with its enclosing wall, elm-bordered driveway, pleasing garden, summerhouse, great barn, and rambling slave-quarters.
Two generations of Royalls entertained lavishly here. Among the guests were the most celebrated men of the time, as well as many who were not so well known, for all were welcome there. Many of these guests drove up the driveway to the paved courtyard in their own grand equipages. Some were brought in the four-horse Royall chariot. But those who came on foot were welcomed as heartily.
Isaac Royall, II, was a Tory, and in 1775 he was compelled to abandon the property. Thereupon Colonel, later General, John Stark made it his headquarters. The regiment which he had himself raised, and whose wages he paid for a time from his own pocket, was encamped near by. From the Royall house these men and their intrepid leader went out to the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Under the direction of Molly Stark the house maintained its reputation for hospitality, and she did her best to make the place the abode of patriotism. On the day when the British evacuated Boston she promised her husband to signal to him from the roof the movements of the enemy. Passing on with his soldiers to Dorchester Heights, he anxiously awaited the news sent to him by his faithful Molly.
The Royall family regained possession of the property in 1805. To-day it is owned by the Royall House Association, which keeps it open to the visitors. These come in large numbers to see relics of former days, including what is said to be the only chest that survived the Boston Tea Party, the sign of the Royall Oak Tavern in Medford, which bears the marks of the bullets of the soldiers who were on their way to the Battle of Bunker Hill, the old furniture, the first fork used in the Colony, and the furnishings of the quaint kitchen fireplace, which dates from 1732.
Photo by Wallace Nutting, Inc., Framingham Center, Mass
BROADHEARTH, SAUGUS, MASS.
BROADHEARTH AND THE BENNET-BOARDMAN
HOUSE, SAUGUS, MASSACHUSETTS
TWO REMARKABLE SPECIMENS OF THE OVERHANG HOUSE
"Thomas Dexter of Lyn, yeoman," was the first owner of much of the land on which Lynn, Massachusetts, is built. Evidently he was land poor, for on October 22, 1639, he "mortgaged his fearme in Lyn ... for two oxen & 2 bulls upon condition of payment to Simon Broadstreet of Ipswich £90 the first day of August, the next following with a reservation upon the sale of the said fearme to give the said Dexter the overflow above the debt and damages of the said £90."
Six years later the Registry of Deeds at Salem told of the sale, to Richard Leader, Gent, of England, of a bit of the farm on which Governor Broadstreet held a mortgage. Mr. Leader was the agent of "ye Company of undertakers of ye Iron Works," and he thought that Dexter had the best location for the purposes of the company that proposed to start what proved to be the first successful iron works in the Colonies. The quaint story of the transaction was entered thus:
"Thomas Dexter of Lyn in the County of Essex ye[oman] for the sum of 40 £ st[erling] hath sowld unto Richard Leder for ye use of ye Iron works all that land, wch by reason of [a] damme now agreed to be made, shall overflow and all sufficient ground for a water course from the damme, to the works to be erected, and alsoe all [the] land betwene the an[cient] water course and the new extended flume or water course togeather with five acres and an halfe of land lying in the corn field most convenient for the Iron Works and also tooe convenient cartwayes that is to one on each side of the premises as by a deed indented bearing date the twentie seaventh of January, 1645, more at lardge apth."
On the ground thus bought a sturdy house, Broadhearth, was built in 1646. The second story overhung the first story, after the manner of many English houses of the period. The overhang is still in evidence, though a veranda has hidden it except to the careful observer.
The first product of the iron works, a kettle, was made in 1642. This is still in existence. During more than one hundred years neighboring colonists looked to the foundry for their supplies of house hardware, furnishings, and implements of iron. The site of the foundry was opposite the house, while traces of the pits from which the bog ore was dug are easily found in the field at the rear. Remains of scoria and slag are also pointed out to the visitor by employees of the Wallace Nutting Corporation, which has restored the house as nearly as possible to its original condition and has placed in it furniture of the period. A caretaker has been placed in charge who will copy for applicants iron work in the house, or other old examples. Thus, in a modest way, the Saugus Iron Works has been reëstablished.
Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company
BENNET-BOARDMAN HOUSE, SAUGUS, MASS.
Another specimen of the overhang house is not far away. This is the house built some time between 1649 and 1656 by Samuel Bennet, carpenter. It is famous as the house that has been in two counties, Suffolk and Essex, and in four towns, Boston, Lynn, Chelsea, and Saugus.
That it was once in Boston was due to the narrow strip of the territory of the city that stretched far out in the country, somewhat after the manner of a portion of a modern gerrymandered legislative district. When the district was set off as Chelsea and Lynn, in response to a petition of citizens who were inconvenienced by their distance from town meetings, the boundaries between Chelsea and Lynn were carelessly marked; one line ran directly through the front door and the chimney of the Bennet house. This mistake, which caused annoyance and expense to those who occupied the house, was not corrected for more than one hundred years. Finally Abijah Boardman asked that he be relieved of his double liability to Lynn and Chelsea, and in 1803, by Act of the General Court, the petition was granted.
Bennet, the builder of the house, figured more than once in the courts. In 1644 the Grand Jury indicted him as "a Common sleeper in time of exercise," and he was fined 2s. 6d. In 1671 he brought suit against the Iron Works Company for £400 for labor. In connection with this suit John Paule, whose "constant employment was to repair carts, coale carts, mine carts, and other working materials" for the "tiemes" at the iron works, testified that "my master Bennet did yearly yearme a vast sum from said Iron Works, for he commonly yearmed forty or fifty shillings a daye, for he had five or six teemes goeing generally every faire day."
Bennets and Boardmans have held the house from the beginning. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities has interested itself in the protection of the property.
XIV
THE COLONEL JEREMIAH LEE HOUSE,
MARBLEHEAD, MASSACHUSETTS
THE HOME OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST MARTYRS TO THE CAUSE OF THE COLONIES
Marblehead was a comparatively insignificant port when Jeremiah Lee came to town. At once he made a place for himself among the humble fishermen and other seafaring men of the place. He was a member of the Board of Firewards in the town's first fire department, and he served on important committees.
When, in 1768, he built a wonderful mansion that cost more than ten thousand pounds, the most wonderful house in Massachusetts at the time, his townsmen knew him well enough to understand that he was their good friend, even if he did have much more money than any of them.
The Lee Mansion was a hospitable home. The Colonel and his wife Martha entertained lavishly, not only the people of the town but famous men from abroad. In 1789 Washington was entertained in the house. But it was one of the glories of the mansion that the humblest mariner in the place was not slow to go there if he wished to have a chat with the bluff owner or if he desired to go to the quaint cupola from which it is possible to look far out to sea. To this outlook Colonel Lee himself often went, for his ships were sailing to Marblehead from all parts of the world, and he was as eager as any one to turn his eyes seaward.
The house is sixty-four feet by forty-six feet, and the walls are of brick, though they are covered with wooden clapboards two feet by one and a half feet. There are fifteen rooms, in addition to the great halls that make the house seem like a palace.
In these rooms the Colonel conferred with other patriots as to the welfare of Massachusetts and all the colonies. From the house he went out to the town meetings where the men gathered to talk over the Boston Port Bill and the Boston Tea Party and questions of Taxation without Representation.
He rejoiced to serve as a representative in the General Court and on the Committee of Safety and Supplies of the Province. He was chosen to represent the town in the Continental Congress, and when he was unable to go, Elbridge Gerry, who later became Vice-President of the United States, was sent in his place at the expense of the town.
On the night of April 18, 1775, in company with Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orin, who were members with him of the Committee of Safety and Supplies, he was attending a meeting at Weatherby's Black Horse Tavern just outside of Cambridge. The meeting adjourned so late that the three men decided to spend the night at the tavern. The eight hundred British soldiers who were on their way that night to Lexington learned of the presence in Cambridge of the patriots. Some one rushed to the tavern and roused them from slumber. They did not even have time to put on their clothes, but ran at once from the house and hid themselves at some distance from the tavern. When the disappointed troops had gone on, the hunted men returned to their room.
Three weeks later Lee died as the result of the exposure. He has been called one of the earliest martyrs to the cause of the Colonies. Before he died he left directions that five thousand pounds should be given to the treasury of the provinces.
Mrs. Lee, who was Martha Swett of Marblehead, lived on in the mansion with those of her eight children who had not gone already to homes of their own. Under her guidance the hospitality for which the house had become noted was maintained.
Those who pass between the beautiful porch pillars and enter the chaste colonial doorway are amazed at the remarkable hallway and the stairs. The hall is fifteen feet wide and extends the length of the house. It is heavily wainscoted with mahogany. On the walls hangs remarkable panelled paper whose designs, depicting ancient architecture, are in keeping with the majestic proportions of the place. The stairway is so wide that four or five people can climb it abreast and the balustrade and the spindles are of exquisite workmanship.
The rear stairway is far more ornate than the best stairway in most houses, and the rooms are in keeping with the hall and the stairways.
The cupola is one of the most striking features of the house. Here six windows give a view that is worth going far to see.
When Mrs. Lee died, the property descended to her son. Judge Samuel Sewell was a later owner. But the day came when it was to be sold at auction. All Marblehead feared that the historic place would be destroyed. Fortunately the Marblehead Historical Society was able to raise the fifty-five hundred dollars needed to secure it.
Since July 9, 1909, the Society has owned the mansion. For six months of every year it is open to visitors who throng to see the choice collection of china, portraits, embroidery, and furniture that has been gathered together by the Society.
Photo Furnished by Rev. A. McDonald, Newburyport, Mass.
OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, MASS.
XV
THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT,
MASSACHUSETTS
WHERE GEORGE WHITEFIELD, THE GREAT EVANGELIST,
IS BURIED
More than one hundred years after the organization of the First Church of Newburyport, Rev. George Whitefield, then a young man of twenty-six, preached in the community. "The Great Awakening," which followed, spread all over New England, and more than thirty thousand were converted. Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, the Tennents, and others led in the work that had such wonderful results.
Five years after Whitefield's visit to Newburyport the Old South Church was organized, most of those who became members having been converted under Whitefield's preaching. The new church was actually a Presbyterian church from the beginning, though it did not finally adopt the Presbyterian form of government until 1802.
The members of the new church were called "a misguided band," and "new schemers." Their first pastor was called a dissenting minister. Their protest against these aspersions took the form of a petition to "The King's Most Excellent Majesty," which was a prayer for that "equal liberty of conscience in worshipping God" that had already been granted to others. The petition recited the desire of the people to be relieved of taxation "for the support of ministers on whose ministry they cannot in conscience attend," and stated that, because of their refusal to pay what they felt were unjust taxes, "honest and peaceable men have been hauled away to prison to their great hurt and damage."
When the petition was presented to the king by Mr. Partridge, their agent, he declared that they were not "a wild, friekish people," and cited as an argument for relief from double taxation that, while they had some wealthy members, there were among them "more poor widows than all the other congregations in town put together." He said those who protested against double taxation had been "dragged about upon the ground," dressed up in bear skins and worried, and imprisoned.
The protest did not bring relief at once; it was 1773 before the General Court granted the plea of the members. For more than twenty years more the town tried to collect double taxes, but in 1795 the rights of the members of Old South were conceded.
The first building, erected in 1743, gave way in 1756 to the structure still in use. Alterations made since that time have not made any great change in its appearance, except in the tower, which was repaired in 1848, because it was thought that the timber must be decaying. However, to the surprise of the carpenters who undertook the repairs, they were found as sound as ever. A half-hour was required to saw through one of them!
The bell in the new tower was cast by Paul Revere. Surmounting the spire is a cock which was perched on the original tower. When this tower, after the carpenters had done all they could with their saws, was pulled over by horses and oxen, the cock broke loose and fell at some distance. The man who picked up the figure was surprised to find that it was of solid copper, instead of wood, as had been thought, and that it weighed more than fifty pounds.
In the original pews there was a central chair, surrounded by seats hung on hinges. Over the pulpit was a sounding board. At the head of the pulpit stair a seat was provided for the sexton, that he might be on hand to trim the candles during the evening service.
The official history of the church, written by Dr. H. C. Hovey, gives interesting facts concerning the heating of the old building:
"For seventy years those who crowded this church depended on footstoves altogether for warmth in winter; while the minister preached in his ample cloak, and wore gloves with a finger and thumb cut off to enable him the better to turn the leaves. A law was made allowing the sexton twenty cents for each footstove that he had to fill before service and remove afterward. A great sensation was made in 1819 by the introduction of wood stoves at an outlay of $100. The first day they were in place the people were so overcome that some of them fainted away and were carried out of the house; but they revived on learning that as yet no fire had been kindled in the new stoves. The doors of the stoves opened into the ample vestibule, where the custom continued of ranging the many footstoves in a wide circle to be filled with live coals from the stove."
On the Sunday after the battle of Lexington Dr. Jonathan Parsons made an appeal in the name of liberty. After this Captain Ezra Lunt stepped into the aisle and formed a company of sixty men, which is said to have been the first company of volunteers to join the Continental Army.
Later Newburyport supplied a number of companies. But the call came for still another company. "Day after day the recruiting officers toiled in vain," Dr. Hovey writes, "Finally the regiment was invited to the Presbyterian church, where they were addressed in such spirited and stirring words that once again a number of this church stepped forth to take the covenant, and in two hours after the benediction had been spoken the entire company was raised."
During the war twenty-two vessels and one thousand men, from the towns of Newbury and Newburyport, were lost at sea. The first American flag seen in British waters, after the cessation of hostilities, was displayed in the Thames by Nicholas Johnson of Newburyport, captain of the Compte de Grasse.
Among the treasures of the church is the Bible which Whitefield used. The evangelist, who died Sunday, September 30, 1770, is buried in the crypt under the pulpit where he had planned to preach on the very day of his death, as he had preached many times during the years since the building of the church. To this dark crypt thousands of reverent visitors have groped their way. One, less reverent, removed an arm of the skeleton and carried it to England as a relic. No one knew what had become of it until, after the death of the thief, it was returned to Newburyport, together with a bust of Whitefield. This bust is also one of the treasures of Old South.
Those who love this old church at Newburyport delight in the lines of John Greenleaf Whittier:
"Under the church of Federal Street,
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet,
Walled about by its basement stones,
Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.
No saintly honors to them are shown,
No sign nor miracle have they known;
But he who passes the ancient church
Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch,
And ponders the wonderful life of him
Who lies at rest in that charnel dim.
Long shall the traveller strain his eye
From the railroad car, as it plunges by,
And the vanishing town behind him search
For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church;
And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade
And fashion and folly and pleasure laid,
By the thought of that life of pure intent,
That voice of warning, yet eloquent,
Of one on the errands of angels sent.
Like the tide from the harbor-bar sets in.
And over a life of time and sense
The church-spires lift their vain defence,
As if to scatter the bolts of God
With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod,—
Still, as the gem of its civic crown,
Precious beyond the world's renown,
His memory hallows the ancient town!"
THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, PROVIDENCE,
RHODE ISLAND
THE OLDEST BAPTIST CHURCH IN AMERICA
When Roger Williams, Welshman, left England for America because he could not find in the Church of England freedom to worship God according to his conscience, he came to Salem, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There he joined others who had sought America for the same purpose, but to his disappointment he found that his ideas of liberty of worship did not agree with theirs, and he was once more adrift. On October 9, 1635, the authorities of the Colony ordered that he "shall depart out of this jurisdiction." He was later given permission to remain until spring, on condition that he make no attempt "to draw others to his opinions."
On the ground that he had broken the implied agreement, the Governor, on January 11, 1636, sent for him to go to Boston, from whence he was to be banished to England. Williams sent word that he was ill and could not come at the time. A force of men was sent to seize him, but when they reached his house he had departed already, turning his face toward the southern wilderness. He was "sorely tossed for fourteen weeks in a bitter winter season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean."
On April 30, 1636, he came to the country of the Wampanoags, where the sachem Massasoit made him a grant of land. Within a short time some of his friends joined him, and primitive houses were built. Then came word from the Governor of Massachusetts Bay that he must go beyond the bounds of the Plymouth Colony. Accordingly, with six others, he embarked in canoes and sought for a location. When this was found Canonicus and Mantonomi agreed to let the company have lands, and soon the new settlement was made and named Providence, in recognition of God's care of him during his journey. Then others joined him and his companions.
Two years after the settlement of Providence twelve of the citizens decided that they must have a church. One of the company, Ezekiel Hollyman, baptized Roger Williams and Williams baptized Hollyman and ten others. The twelve then baptized were the original members of the first church of Providence, Rhode Island, the first Baptist church in America, and the second in the world. Roger Williams was the first pastor, but he withdrew before the close of the year in which the church was organised. During the remaining forty-five years of his life he remained in Providence as a missionary among the Indians, whose friendship he had won by his scrupulously careful and honorable method of dealing with them.
The church met in private houses or under the trees, for more than sixty years. The first meeting house was not erected until 1700. The builder was Pardon Tillinghast, the sixth pastor of the church, who, like his predecessors, served without salary. However, he urged that the church should begin to pay its way, and that his successor should receive a stipulated salary. The Tillinghast building was in use for fifteen years after it was deeded to the congregation, in 1711. The deed, which is on record at the Providence City Hall, calls the church a "Six-Principle church."
The growth of the congregation called for a larger building. This was erected in 1726 and was used until 1774. An old document gives an interesting side light on the building of the meeting house. This is an account of Richard Brown, dated May 30, 1726, which reads:
The account of what charge I have been at this day as to the providing a dinner for the people that raised the Baptist meeting-house at Providence (it being raised this day,) is as followeth:
| One fat sheep, which weighed forty-three lbs. | £0,14,04 |
| For roasting the said sheep, etc. | 8 |
| For one lb. butter | 1 |
| For two loaves of bread which weighed fifteen lbs. | 2 |
| For half a peck of peas | 1,03 |
When the building was planned the Charitable Baptist Society was incorporated, that it might hold title to "a meeting-house for the public worship of Almighty God, and to hold Commencement in." Nearly a third of the £7,000 required for the new building was raised by a lottery, authorized by the State. The architects modelled the church after the popular St. Martins-in-the-Fields in London, whose designer was James Gibbs, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren.
In the two-hundred-foot spire was hung the bell made in London, on which were inscribed the strange words:
"For freedom of conscience this town was first planted;
Persuasion, not force was used by the people:
This Church is the eldest, and has not recanted,
Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple."
The pastor at the time the new church was first occupied, on May 28, 1775, was president of Rhode Island College, an institution which had been located in Providence in 1773, in consequence of the generosity and activity of the members of the church. The institution later became Brown University. Every one of the presidents of the college has been a member of the First Church.
A church whose building was dedicated "midway between the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill" should have a patriotic history. The story of Providence during the Revolution shows that the members were keenly alive to their opportunities. The first suggestion for the Continental Congress came from Providence. Rhode Island was the first State to declare for independence. Pastor and people were ardent supporters of these movements. Many soldiers were furnished to the army by the congregation.
Naturally, then, people would be interested in a man like Stephen Gano, who became pastor in 1792. He had been a surgeon in the Revolutionary Army, and had been taken prisoner, put on board a prison-ship, and bound in chains, which made scars that lasted for life. His pastorate of thirty-six years was the longest in the history of the church.
The stately building erected in 1774 is still in use. The gallery long set apart for the use of slaves has given way to a square loft, the old pews have been displaced by modern seats, and the lofty pulpit and sounding-board have disappeared. Otherwise the church is much as it was when the first congregation entered its doors in 1775.