The next building was divided into two stores as long ago as I can remember it, and the southerly one was occupied by John Bartlett 3d, as a dry and West India goods store from 1827 to 1846, and the late Joseph Holmes, brother of Mrs. William Bartlett, was his assistant. Mr. Bartlett was the son of John and Polly (Morton) Bartlett, and married, 1829, Eliza, daughter of Ezra Finney, and lived in the northerly part of the house on Court street, next south of the present house of Capt. Edward B. Atwood. He afterwards removed to Boston, and engaged in the grocery business on the corner of Federal and Purchase streets, and died in 1862. He was the fourth Captain of the Standish Guards, and our townsman, J. E. Bartlett, who lives on Clyfton street, is his son. The next occupant of the store was Bradford & Gardner’s express, which suggests a word concerning the Plymouth and Boston expresses. Samuel Gardner, a former driver on the Boston line of stages, was the father of the Plymouth express business. In January, 1846, two months after the opening of the Old Colony Railroad, he started Gardner’s express with a booking office in the Pilgrim House on the corner of Middle street. In March, 1846, Edward Winslow Bradford, a former master of the packet Hector, started Bradford’s express with an office at No. 4 Main street. After the burning of the Pilgrim House in June, 1846, Bradford and Gardner formed a partnership, and established Bradford & Gardner’s express, and occupied the John Bartlett store. After a few years Harvey W. Weston bought Gardner out, and for a short time the firm name was Bradford & Weston. In the meantime Isaac B. Rich started an express with an office in Town Square. Mr. Rich next bought Bradford out, and the firm name became Rich & Weston, being succeeded by Weston alone, who finally sold out to the present company, the New York and Boston Despatch Express. Mr. Rich had immediately before the establishment of his express kept a flour and grain store on Water street. He died March 18, 1874.
Another express was started before the war by Allen Holmes, with an office first in Market street, and later in the old brick building on the corner of Court street. Mr. Holmes sold to Wait, who sold to Snow, who sold to Hubbard, who finally sold to Fowler, who had an office on Middle street. G. A. Holbrook ran an express a short time at an unknown date.
Edward Winslow Bradford, the old partner of Gardner, again started an express about 1870, which continued until his death, December 27, 1874. Still another express was started by Guilford Cunningham, and a man named Cook, which passed into the hands of Frederick W. Atwood.
Nathaniel Bradford, son of Edward Winslow Bradford, formed a partnership in the express business with Freeman E. Wells, who sold out to Simmons & Torrence, the predecessors of the present Torrence express. Benjamin H. Crandon ran an express for a short time with an office on Middle street in the easterly end of the building on the corner.
I know of no occupant of the John Bartlett store after Bradford & Gardner, until William H. Smoot occupied it as a restaurant. Mr. Smoot stuttered badly, as did our townsman, Anthony Morse, but neither knew the other’s defect in speech. Not long after he began business Mr. Morse came one day into the shop and said, “Mr. Sm-o-o-t have you any ice cr-r-earn?” “Y-y-y-es—have s-s-ome?” “D-d-d-amn your ice c-r-r-earn,” said Morse, very indignant at such an insult, and went out shutting the door with a slam. The more recent occupants, Jas. E. Dodge, who died February 20, 1888, Mr. Richards, Mr. McCoy, Martin Curly, and Manley E. Dodge, are well known to my readers.
The small store on the corner was occupied as a boot and shoe store by Bartlett Ellis from 1824 to 1831. I remember as a boy seeing in his store a box of India rubber shoes packed in sawdust, the first ever seen in Plymouth, having been imported in Boston in small quantities in the rough state from Para. This was before the process was discovered of making the rubber pliable, and the shoes were as stiff as iron, requiring to be warmed before a fire before they could be put on. Mr. Ellis was succeeded by Ephraim Bartlett, and Henry Mills, both in the same business, and later by E. D. Seymour, tailor. The more recent well known occupants have been Caleb Holmes, who died June 21, 1878, Charles H. Snell, Harrison Holmes, and the recent occupant, Henry C. Thomas, in the market business. The room over the store was occupied by the Old Colony Democrat in 1833, conducted by Benjamin H. Crandon and Thomas Allen, and in 1834 by We The People, conducted by C. A. Hack and Horace Seaver.
On the corner of Main and Middle streets there stood as long ago as I can remember the Plymouth Hotel, built by George Drew about 1825, and kept certainly in 1827, and perhaps earlier by James G. Gleason. I remember the hotel in 1828, when my aunt, Mrs. Gideon C. White was boarding there with her four children, while her husband was at sea in command, I think, of the ship Harvest, belonging to Barnabas Hedge. In the summer of the above year a small circus came to Plymouth and performed in a tent pitched in the stable yard on Middle street. Mrs. White’s children were going to the circus, attended by William Paty, a brother of the landlord’s wife, and I a boy of six years, was permitted by my mother to go with them. While the horses made no impression on my memory, I have a lively recollection of the monkey riding the pony’s back. Mr. Gleason, who was the third captain of the Standish Guards, kept the Plymouth Hotel until 1830, when he was succeeded by Ellis Wright, who kept it until 1834.
Capt. Gleason was a portly, jovial landlord, who, I think, came to Plymouth from Middleboro and married in 1816 Lucy T., daughter of Joshua Bartlett, and second in 1820, Asenath, daughter of John Paty. He was at different times landlord of the Plymouth Hotel, hairdresser on Market street, barber on Main street, landlord of the Mansion House on the corner of Court and North streets, and a purveyor of oysters and clam chowder in various places. He was a man of humor, always ready with an answer turning the laugh away from himself. In those days the price of a common drink at the bar was four pence half penny, or six and a quarter cents, but a drink of brandy was nine pence, or twelve and a half cents. One day a stranger called at the bar for a glass of brandy and Gleason in the American fashion gave him the bottle to help himself. To the astonishment of Gleason he filled his tumbler nearly full, and with a little water, drank it with gusto, and placed on the counter a nine penny piece. Gleason gave him back four pence, half penny, and the stranger said: “I thought that brandy was nine pence.” “It is,” said Gleason, “but we sell half price by wholesale.” The stranger took the hint, and insisted on paying a quarter for the extended drink. At another time, while keeping the Mansion House, a passenger by the stage arrived for supper and left after breakfast the next morning. On calling for his bill he found the charge to be five dollars. “Good gracious” said the traveller, “I never paid such a bill as that before.” “No,” said Gleason, “and I don’t suppose you ever had the honor of stopping at the Mansion House before.” Mr. Gleason died Oct. 6, 1853.
A few days after the Old Colony Railroad was opened Gleason went down to the railroad station to gratify his curiosity, and seeing a locomotive on a track he climbed on, and while fumbling about the rods and bars he turned on the steam and away the engine went. Gleason hopped off, but fortunately an engineer on another locomotive attached to a train about to start for Boston, unshackled his machine and caught up with the runaway, and brought it back. “Hem! didn’t she whiz,” said Gleason in telling the story.
Ellis Wright, who succeeded Capt. Gleason, was a Plympton man, son of Isaac and Selah (Ellis) Wright, and after leaving Plymouth removed to Boston. The hotel had a good hall in the second story, which was much used for dancing schools and cotillion parties and exhibitions of various kinds. I attended my first dancing school in that hall, and have danced there at many cotillion parties since.