General Goodwin and General Burgoyne became friends, and as a memento of their friendship, Burgoyne gave to General Goodwin his rapier, which was also given to me by his grandson, and is now a loan from me in the cabinet of the Pilgrim Society. General Goodwin was like Mr. Roberts and Mr. Hedge, an original subscriber to stock in the Plymouth Bank in 1803, and was a Director from the date of its organization until his death in 1819.
General Goodwin, I have always heard, was a man of fine figure and bearing, and vain of his appearance, especially when in uniform. His grandson, Capt. Nathaniel Goodwin, told me the following story about him and his negro servant Pompey, a freed slave, which illustrates the familiarity of the slaves with their old masters and the characteristic vanity of the General. One muster day morning the General, wearing his regimentals, said: “Pompey, how do I look?” “You look like a lion, massa.” “Lion, Pompey; you never saw a lion.” “Yes I have, massa; massa Davis hab got one.” “That isn’t a lion, you fool, that is a jackass.” “I don’t care, massa, you look just like dat er animal.”
Thomas Russell, who bought the above mentioned Goodwin house in 1827, and occupied it until his death, was a brother of Captain John Russell, mentioned in a previous chapter as an enterprising ship owner, and married in 1814 Mary Ann, daughter of William Goodwin, and their children were Elizabeth, born in 1815, Lydia Cushing, 1817, who married Hon. Wm. Whiting; Mary, who married Benjamin Marston Watson of Plymouth; William Goodwin, 1821, Thomas, 1825, and Jane Frances, who married Abraham Firth of Boston. Of these children Mrs. Watson alone survives. Mr. Russell was for many years the treasurer and manager of the Cotton Mill at Eel River, established in 1812. After his retirement from that position, he was often the trusted adviser in the settlement of estates, and in 1837 Mr. Barnabas Hedge, supposing himself seriously involved in the liabilities of the Tremont Iron Works in Wareham, in which he was largely interested, made an assignment to his son-in-law, Charles H. Warren and Mr. Russell for the security of his indebtedness. Mr. Hedge was, however, under the management of his assignees extricated from his embarrassments, and was left with a handsome fortune. In accordance with the provisions of law then in force, Mr. Russell was chosen by the legislature in 1842 Treasurer and Receiver General of the Commonwealth, and again in 1844. It is worthy of mention that within eighty-five years from the adoption of the constitution in 1780 to 1865 three citizens of Plymouth should have served as treasurer during a period of fourteen years. These were Thomas Davis, from 1792 to 1797, Thomas Russell in 1842 and 1844, and Jacob H. Loud in 1853 and 1854, and from 1866 to 1871. If the term of Hon. Nahum Mitchell of East Bridgewater of five years from 1822 to 1827 be added, the county of Plymouth was represented in the treasurer’s office more than a quarter of the time.
The various occupants of the site on which the Baptist church stands, are deserving of notice. The house, taken down when the church was erected in 1865, was built in 1703 by Dr. Francis LeBaron, who was a passenger in a French vessel wrecked on Cape Cod in 1694, and settled in Plymouth. A family tradition says that he was a Roman Catholic, and was buried with a cross on his breast, but Mrs. James Humphrey of New York told me that her grandmother, Elizabeth wife of Ammi Ruhama Robbins of Norfolk, Conn., who was a granddaughter of Dr. LeBaron, told her that the Doctor was a Huguenot. It is a singular fact that one hundred years later in 1794 or 1795, another French vessel was wrecked on Cape Cod, on which there was a passenger named LeBaron, whose descendants are living in one or more of the southern states. From Francis LeBaron the house descended to his son, Dr. Lazarus LeBaron, who sold it in 1765 to Nathaniel Goodwin, the husband of his daughter, Lydia. From Nathaniel Goodwin it descended to his son, General Nathaniel Goodwin, who occupied it until, in 1807, he built and occupied the W. H. H. Weston house. The General leased the house to John Bartlett and William White, who occupied it as a tavern. I have no knowledge as to who John Bartlett was, but William White came from New Bedford, having married Fanny Gibbs of Wareham, and was the father of Arabella White, who married the late Capt. Nathaniel Goodwin. I have no means of knowing precisely when Bartlett and White terminated their lease, but it is certain that in October, 1818, John H. Bradford kept a tavern in the house, as on the 9th of that month George Cooper, clerk of the Standish Guards, notified the members of the company to meet on the 21st at the house of John H. Bradford. At first the tavern was called as above, “the house of John H. Bradford,” but later it came to be called Bradford’s Tavern, and was so called until it was sold in 1857. It was a stately mansion. Its broad front, its spacious doorway, its broad hall, and its large wainscotted rooms, told the story of its ancient grandeur. There the “daughters of Lazarus” reigned as queens, and the fashion of the town engaged in the minuet of the olden time.
John Howland Bradford, or Uncle Johnny, as he was affectionately called, the landlord during a period of forty years, perhaps more widely known than any landlord of his time, was born in Plymouth, July 14, 1780, and never married. He was an interesting character, such as only an old New England town could produce, with only an ordinary public school education, but under the moral influences of an enlightened Christian home, he grew into manhood with habits of truth, industry, kindness of heart, and correct living, which no worldly influences could weaken. No better man has within my observation ever lived. His sphere of life was narrow, but he filled it full. Let every man do this and the machinery of social life will run without friction or jar. I never knew of his attendance at any church, and I do not believe that any theological question ever presented itself to his mind. His character, however, was such as Christianity seeks to form, and as long as it is formed, it is not worth while to ask whether it be the result of the lessons of Christianity acting directly on the man, or on those under whose ministrations his habits have been formed. When he died, December 7, 1863, we may be sure that the promise made to the pure in heart was kept that “they shall see God.”
The hostess of Bradford’s Tavern was Mrs. Abigail (Leonard) Hollis, wife of Henry Hollis and daughter of Thomas Leonard, of Plymouth. Mr. Hollis came from Weymouth and married his wife in 1819. He died March 9, 1838, and his widow died September 27, 1859. Two of their children were John Henry, a merchant in New York at the time of his death, and our late townsman, William T. Hollis. I have no recollection of Mr. Hollis, or his occupation, but I have no doubt that he was connected in some capacity with the tavern. His wife was a strong minded, vigorous woman, and was the mainstay in everything connected with the domestic concerns of the house. Her oldest son, John Henry, was my schoolmate in the High school, and I can testify to the care she bestowed on his moral and intellectual instruction. The inscription on her gravestone:
“Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die,” was not only intended as the statement of a general truth, but also as a recognition of its truth as specially applicable to her.
Among the guests at Bradford’s Tavern the memory of some lingers in my mind. When I was quite young, perhaps about the year 1830, a stranger arrived at the tavern on the evening stage from Boston, who was destined to keep the tongue of gossip wagging for some time. He was somewhat portly, but moderate in height, and dressed in linen and broadcloth of immaculate neatness and fashionable in style. His name was Surrey, but the register contained no place of residence. Occasional visitors for a day or two were not uncommon, and excited no remark, but when this stranger remained for a week or more with neither acquaintance nor business to protract his stay, the gossips began to wonder who he was, whence he came, to what nationality he belonged, and what the purpose of his visit could be. In suitable weather he took his morning and evening walk about the town, making no visits, entering no store or church or public meeting, and asking no questions concerning the town or people. From his dignified bearing he won the name of Lord Surrey, and was never referred to by any other name. He made occasional excursions to Boston, where apparently he received funds, and bought new clothes. He paid his board promptly, and his habits and demeanor were beyond criticism. At the end of a year he left town and gossips were left to wonder where he had gone, whether he was a refugee from abroad, or whether he was merely an eccentric man who was floating about the world at the dictate of a capricious will.
I remember another visitor at the tavern quite as mysterious, a man of gentlemanly appearance, who could not speak a word of English, and who remained six months without disclosing his nationality, and went as he came, a stranger in a strange land. Mr. Salisbury Jackson, whose humor led him to speak of every day incidents in a manner to amuse his hearers, in describing a visit to the unknown, said that he tried him in French, but found that he was not a Frenchman. He then tried him in Spanish, but he was not a Spaniard. He then tried him in German, but he was not a German. He then, after failing to make him out an Italian, tried him in the original tongue and fixed him. No efforts of available linguists could fix his nationality more successfully than the humor of Mr. Jackson, and he went as he came, and was for a long time remembered as the mysterious stranger.
In 1857 the tavern house was sold to Wm. Churchill, who sold it to Wm. Finney, who resold it to Mr. Churchill, from whom it was bought by the Baptist Society in 1862. From 1857 to the date of his death, December 7, 1863, Mr. Bradford boarded with Jacob Howland, who occupied chambers in the Witherell building on the corner of Main street and Town Square.