House-lots would thus be first assigned, and then in proportion to each of them, the farm lands, called variously, ox-ground, meadow- land, ploughing ground, or mowing land, double the amount being given to the owner of an eight-acre house-lot, and such lands being held an essential part of the property. A portion of each township was reserved as "common or undivided land," not in the sense in which "common" is used in the New England village of to- day, but simply for general pasturage. With Andover, as with many other of the first settlements, these lands were granted or sold from time to time up to the year 1800, when a final sale was made, and the money appropriated for the use of free schools.
As the settlement became more secure, many built houses on the farm lands, and removed from the town, but this was at first peremptorily forbidden, and for many years after could not be done without express permission. Mr. Bradstreet, as magistrate, naturally remained in the town, and the new house, the admiration of all and the envy of a few discontented spirits, was watched as it grew, by its mistress, who must have rejoiced that at last some prospect of permanence lay before her. The log house in which she waited, probably had not more than four rooms, at most, and forced them to a crowding which her ample English life had made doubly distasteful. She had a terror of fire and with reason, for while still at Cambridge her father's family had had in 1632 the narrowest of escapes, recorded by Winthrop in his Journal: "About this time Mr. Dudley, his house, at Newtown, was preserved from burning down, and all his family from being destroyed by gunpowder, by a marvellous deliverance—the hearth of the hall chimney burning all night upon a principal beam, and store of powder being near, and not discovered till they arose in the morning, and then it began to flame out."
The thatch of the early house, which were of logs rilled in with clay, was always liable to take fire, the chimneys being of logs and often not clayed at the top. Dudley had warned against this carelessness in the first year of their coming, writing: "In our new town, intended this summer to be builded, we have ordered, that no man there shall build his chimney with wood, nor cover his house with thatch, which was readily assented unto; for that divers houses since our arrival (the fire always beginning in the wooden chimneys), and some English wigwams, which have taken fire in the roofs covered with thatch or boughs." With every precaution, there was still constant dread of fire, and Anne must have rejoiced in the enormous chimney of the new house, heavily buttressed, running up through the centre and showing in the garret like a fortification. This may have been an enlargement on the plan of the first, for the house now standing, took the place of the one burned to the ground in July, 1666, but duplicated as exactly as possible, at a very short time thereafter. Doubts have been expressed as to whether she ever lived in it, but they have small ground for existence. It is certain that Dudley Bradstreet occupied it, and it has been known from the beginning as the "Governor's house." Its size fitted it for the large hospitality to which she had been brought up and which was one of the necessities of their position, and its location is a conspicuous and important one.
Whatever temptation there may have been to set houses in the midst of grounds, and make their surroundings hold some reminder of the fair English homes they had left, was never yielded to. To be near the street, and within hailing distance of one another, was a necessity born of their circumstances. Dread of Indians, and need of mutual help, massed them closely together, and the town ordinances forbade scattering. So the great house, as it must have been for long, stood but a few feet from the old Haverhill and Boston road, surrounded by mighty elms, one of which measured, twenty-five years ago, "sixteen and a half feet in circumference, at one foot above the ground, well deserving of mention in the 'Autocrat's' list of famous trees." The house faces the south, and has a peculiar effect, from being two full stories high in front, and sloping to one, and that a very low one, at the back. The distance between caves and ground is here so slight, that one may fancy a venturous boy in some winter when the snow had drifted high, sliding from ridge pole to ground, and even tempting a small and ambitious sister to the same feat. Massive old timbers form the frame of the house, and the enormous chimney heavily buttressed on the four sides is exactly in the center, the fireplaces being rooms in themselves. The rooms at present are high studded, the floor having been sunk some time ago, but the doors are small and low, indicating the former proportions and making a tall man's progress a series of bows. Some of the walls are wainscotted and some papered, modern taste, the taste of twenty-five years ago, having probably chosen to remove wainscotting, as despised then as it is now desired. At the east is a deep hollow through which flows a little brook, skirted by alders, "green in summer, white in winter," where the Bradstreet children waded, and fished for shiners with a crooked pin, and made dams, and conducted themselves in all points like the children of to-day. Beyond the brook rises the hill, on the slope of which the meeting-house once stood, and where wild strawberries grew as they grow to-day.
A dense and unbroken circle of woods must have surrounded the settlement, and cut off many glimpses of river and hill that to- day make the drives about Andover full of surprise and charm. Slight changes came in the first hundred years. The great mills at Lawrence were undreamed of and the Merrimack flowed silently to the sea, untroubled by any of mans' uses.
Today the hillsides are green and smooth. Scattered farms are seen, and houses outside the town proper are few, and the quiet country gives small hint of the active, eager life so near it. In 1810, Dr. Timothy Dwight, whose travels in America were read with the same interest that we bestow now upon the "Merv Oasis," or the "Land of the White Elephant," wrote of North Andover, which then held many of its original features:
"North Andover is a very beautiful piece of ground. Its surface is elegantly undulating, and its soil in an eminent degree, fertile. The meadows are numerous, large and of the first quality. The groves, charmingly interspersed, are tall and thrifty. The landscape, everywhere varied, neat and cheerful, is also everywhere rich.
"The Parish is a mere collection of plantations, without anything like a village. The houses are generally good, some are large and elegant The barns are large and well-built and indicate a fertile and well-cultivated soil.
"Upon the whole, Andover is one of the best farming towns in
Eastern Massachusetts."
Andover roads were of incredible crookedness, though the Rev. Timothy makes no mention of this fact: "They were at first designed to accommodate individuals, and laid out from house to house," and thus the traveller found himself quite as often landed in a farm-yard, as at the point aimed for. All about are traces of disused and forgotten path-ways—