Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

The firm of Alderman & Gooding consisted of Orin F. Alderman and George Gooding. They had previously occupied a store where John E. Jordan’s hardware store now is. Mr. Alderman came to Plymouth from some town unknown to me, and married Eliza Ann, daughter of John and Deborah (Barnes) Gooding of Plymouth, and sister of his partner. After closing his business in Plymouth, he removed to Framingham, where he and his wife are still living.

George Gooding, son of John and Deborah Gooding, above mentioned, was born in Plymouth in 1822. He was my playmate and schoolmate, and I may say my comrade in arms, as we were members of a boys’ military company, of which he was captain, and I was lieutenant. In our Saturday afternoon parades with drum and fife, we flattered ourselves that we excited the admiration of the misses in their teens, but we failed to be appreciated by our fellow citizens, for to their shame, be it said, they did not even offer us a thirty thousand dollar armory for our use. Mr. Gooding married Eliza Merrill of Concord, N. H., and died in Plymouth, March 5, 1850.

Mr. Jameson, the head of the firm of Jameson & Co., came to Plymouth from one of the Bridgewaters and died in 1854.

Benjamin Owen Strong, son of Ely and Betsey (Baldwin) Strong was born in Granville, Mass., February 25, 1832, and came to Plymouth in the autumn of 1851, when nineteen years of age. He first held the position of clerk in the Mansion House at the corner of Court and North streets, then conducted by N. M. Perry, but in May, 1852, he became a clerk in the dry goods store of Jameson & Company. On the death of Mr. Jameson in 1854, Mr. Strong assumed control of the store. He later bought out the establishment, and from that time to this has carried on the dry goods business with honor and success. He married Betsey J. Chute of Newburyport, and again, February 17, 1891, Elizabeth H. Snow of Orleans. His son, Charles Alexander, became his partner in 1884. As the Nestor of the merchants of Plymouth, I make an exception of him among the living, and award to him a special notice.

The next building was erected by Wm. Sampson Bartlett in 1840, and the store on the lower floor was occupied by him as a book store until 1846, when he removed to Boston. Dr. Benjamin Hubbard has since that time occupied the tenement in the building as his home, and has also until a very recent date occupied the store as an apothecary shop.

The next building was occupied from 1826 to 1832 by Isaac Sampson as a dry goods store, and the late James Cox was his assistant. Mr. Sampson was the son of Benjamin and Priscilla (Churchill) Sampson of Plymouth, and married in 1822, Elizabeth, daughter of William Sherman. The late George Sampson of the firm of Sampson and Murdock, publishers of the Boston Directory, was his son. He died May 7, 1832, forty-two years of age. After the death of Mr. Sampson the store was occupied by various tenants, among whom were Reuben Peterson, who kept a hat store, Calvin Ripley, James Barnes, Stephen Lucas and Charles H. Churchill, who preceded D. Flanzbaum, a tailor, the present occupant.

A part of the store was set off as a separate room, and has been occupied at various times by Winslow S. Holmes and others. Calvin Ripley died May 1, 1874.

The next building was occupied for some years previous to 1852 by Thomas Davis and Wm. S. Russell, under the firm name of Davis & Russell, who kept a general store for the sale of dry goods and crockery. The importation of the Pilgrim plates was due to their enterprise. The tradition that they were manufactured expressly for use at the dinner in 1820 on the anniversary of the “Landing” is not correct. Messrs. Davis & Russell, impressed with the idea that an invoice of Pilgrim china would prove a profitable venture, ordered of Enoch Wood & Sons of Burslem, England, a considerable quantity of large sized plates and two sizes of pitchers. Happening to arrive not long before the celebration, they were hired for the dinner, and afterwards sold as mementoes of the occasion. They took so well with the public, and brought such high prices, that the firm ordered an additional invoice, which included in all six sizes of plates and the same two sizes of pitchers, and the pieces have been scattered far and wide, the market value in bric-a-brac stores being twelve dollars for the large plates, and fifteen and ten dollars for the two sizes of pitchers, while the small sized plates are unobtainable. There is a group of these various sizes owned by a collector in New York, a photograph of which may be seen in Pilgrim Hall. At this time it is impossible to distinguish the pieces originally imported from those which came afterward.

Davis & Russell were succeeded by John S. Hayward in 1827, who continued in the dry goods business until 1831. The store was afterwards occupied by the Plymouth Institution for savings, the Old Colony Insurance Co., and a reading room, until 1842, and was bought in 1847 by Jason Hart, who moved his dry goods business from Summer street, and occupied the store until 1856, when Leander Lovell and John H. Harlow, under the firm name of Lovell & Harlow, became its occupants. John H. Harlow and Albert Barnes succeeded Lovell & Harlow, they in turn being succeeded by Wm. Atwood, clothier, the predecessor of H. H. Cole, the present occupant. Jason Hart died February 20, 1874, at the age of seventy-one. The room over the store was occupied at various times by Joseph W. Hodgkins, tailor, Wm. Whiting and Wm. G. Russell, teachers of private schools, Wm. Davis, attorney-at-law, and Stephen Lucas and others, photographers. William Davis died, February 19, 1853, and Mr. Hodgkins died, May 11, 1872.

William G. Russell was the son of Thomas and Mary Ann (Goodwin) Russell, and graduated at Harvard in 1840. He studied law with Wm. Whiting, his brother-in-law, and became an eminent member of the Boston bar. He married in 1847, May Ellen, daughter of Thomas and Lydia (Coffin) Hedge, and died in Boston, February 6, 1896.