Chapter 28
The Sea Captain's Daughter and Her House
[617 South Washington Street. Owners: Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm Westcott Hill.]
This large, almost square house, rises three stories in a stately pile of soft red brick, flanked by two ancient tulip trees towering twenty-five feet above the pavilion roof, while a great box hedge partially hides the front façade and large garden. Five generations of the same family have called it home.
It is a romantic and interesting house. Built prior to 1853 by Reuben Roberts on a half-acre of unimproved ground, it lay "in the country" for some years. Roberts, a Quaker of the family of Cameron Farms, died in 1853; his widow moved to New Jersey, and the house stood new and tenantless until 1857, when it was purchased by Captain Samuel Bancroft Hussey of Portland, Maine, as a bridal gift for his only daughter, Melissa Ann. And thereby hangs a tale.
Gallant Captain Hussey is reported to have been a descendant of that Christopher Hussey who arrived in Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1630 and became one of the large proprietors. Intended for the Navy at an early age he ran away to sea and became a master of Clipper ships that raced the seas in the China trade. Captain in succession of the Reindeer, the Strabo, earlier and smaller vessels, he became Captain of the Westward Ho on which, in 1854, he made a record trip of eighty-five days from Canton to New York. In 1857 he speeded the same vessel from Boston around the Horn to San Francisco in a hundred days. Two years later he died on the Stag Hound of which he was master and part owner.
