October 20, 1847.—A walk in a warm and pleasant afternoon to Browne's Hill, not uncommonly called Browne's Folly, from the mansion which one of that family, before the Revolution, erected on its summit. (On October 14, 1837, I recorded a walk thither.) In a line with the length of the ridge, the ascent is gradual and easy, but straight up the sides it is steep. There is a large and well-kept orchard at the foot, through which I passed, gradually ascending; then, surmounting a stone wall, beneath chestnut-trees which had thrown their dry leaves down, I climbed the remainder of the hill. There were still the frequent barberry-bushes; and the wood-wax has begun to tuft itself over the sides and summit, which seem to be devoted to pasture. On the very highest part are still the traces of the foundation of the old mansion. The hall had a gallery running round it beneath the ceiling, and was a famous place for dancing. The house stood, I believe, till some years subsequent to the Revolution, and was then removed in three portions, each of which became a house somewhere on the plain, and perhaps they are standing now. The proprietor, being a royalist, became an exile when the Revolution broke out, and I suppose died abroad. I know not whether the house was intended as a permanent family-residence or merely as a pleasure-place for the summer; but from its extent I should conceive the former to have been its purpose. Be that as it may, it has perpetuated an imputation of folly upon the poor man who erected it, which still keeps his memory disagreeably alive after a hundred years. The house must have made a splendid appearance for many miles around; and the glare of the old-fashioned festivities would be visible, doubtless, in the streets of Salem, when he illuminated his windows to celebrate a king's birthday, or some other loyal occasion. The barberry-bushes, clustering within the cellars, offer the harsh acidity of their fruit to-day, instead of the ripe wines which used to be stored there.
Descending the hill, I entered a green, seldom-trodden lane, which runs along at a hundred yards or two from its base, and parallel with its ridge. It was overshadowed by chestnut-trees, and bordered with the prevalent barberry-bush, and between ran the track,—the beaten path of the horses' feet, and the even way of either wheel, with green strips between. It was a very lonely lane, and very pleasant in the warm, declining sun; and, following it a third of a mile, I came to a place that was familiar to me when I was a child, as the residence of a country cousin whom I used to be brought to see. There was his old house still standing, but deserted, with all the windows boarded up, and the door likewise, and the chimneys removed,—a most desolate-looking place. A young dog came barking towards me as I approached,—barking, but frisking, between play and watchfulness. Within fifty yards of the old house, farther back from the road, stands a stone house, of some dozen or twenty years' endurance,—an ugly affair, so plain is it,—which was built by the old man in his latter days. The well of the old house, out of which I have often drunk, and over the curb of which I have peeped to see my own boy-visage closing the far vista below, seems to be still in use for the new edifice. Passing on a little farther, I came to a brook, which, I remember, the old man's son and I dammed up, so that it almost overflowed the road. The stream has strangely shrunken now; it is a mere ditch, indeed, and almost a dry one. Going a little farther, I came to a graveyard by the roadside,—not apparently a public graveyard, but the resting-place of a family or two, with half a dozen gravestones. On two marble stones, standing side by side, I read the names of Benjamin Foster and Anstiss Foster, the people whom I used to be brought to visit. He had died in 1824, aged seventy-five; she in 1837, aged seventy.
A young woman in England, poisoned by an East Indian barbed dart, which her brother had brought home as a curiosity.
The old house on Browne's Hill was removed from the summit to the plain, at a short distance from the foot of the hill. Colonel Putnam, of the Custom-House, recollects it there, standing unoccupied, but with the furniture still in it. It seems to have been accessible to all who wished to enter. It was at that time under the care of Richard Derby, an ancestor of the present Derbys, who had a claim to the property through his wife, who was a Browne. The owner of the house had fled during the Revolution, and Richard Derby seems to have held the estate as it was when the refugee left it, in expectation of his eventual return. There was one closet in the house which everybody was afraid to open, it being supposed that the Devil was in it. One day, above fifty years ago, or threescore it may have been, Putnam and other boys were playing in the house, and took it into their heads to peep into this closet. It was locked, but Putnam pried open the door, with great difficulty and much tremor. At last it flew open, and out fell a great pile of family portraits, faces of gentlemen in wigs, and ladies in quaint head-dresses, displaying themselves on the floor, startling the urchins out of their wits. They all fled, but returned after a while, piled up the pictures again, and nailed up the door of the closet.
The house, according to the same authority, was not tenanted after the earthquake of 1775; at least, it was removed from the summit of the hill on that occasion, it having been greatly shaken by the earthquake.
The house formerly inhabited by Rev. Mr. Paris, and in which the witchcraft business of 1692 had its origin, is still standing in the north parish of Danvers. It has been long since removed from its original site. The workmen at first found great difficulty in removing it; and an old man assured them that the house was still under the influence of the Devil, and would remain so unless they took off the roof. Finally they did take off the roof, and then succeeded in moving the house. Putnam was personally cognizant of this fact.