Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

In 1800 the house came into the possession of Asa Hall, who came from Boston, and fitted up its lower room for a watchmaker’s shop. From that time to this, a period of one hundred and six years the site has been identified with the watch making business. In 1802 John Gooding, who came to Plymouth from Taunton, succeeded Mr. Hall in the shop, and in 1805 married Deborah, daughter of Benjamin Barnes. In the next year Mr. Barnes bought the house, and his son-in-law, Mr. Gooding, continued to occupy it, finally receiving in 1836 a deed of the property from Mr. Barnes. Not many years after Mr. Gooding obtained possession, he took down the old house and built the present one. I remember the old house well. The shop door was divided across the middle, the lower part wood, the upper part glass, and in suitable weather, the upper part was swung back. The other doors which I remember like this, were in the harness shop of Barnabas Otis on the south side of Summer street, the second or third above Spring street, the office of Dr. Amariah Preston, next north of the Gooding house, in the old house where Davis building now stands, and in the Solomon Churchill shop on the east side of Main street. Mr. Gooding was the son of Joseph and Rebecca (Macomber) Gooding of Taunton, and was born in 1780. His father was a watchmaker, and he had at least one, and I think two brothers, who followed the same trade. His brother Josiah and nephew Josiah, kept within my recollection a watchmaker’s and jeweller’s store in Joy’s building on Washington street, in Boston, many years. A member of one of the branches of Jos. Gooding’s family, Mr. A. W. B. Gooding, married Mary Woodward Barnes, a daughter of Bradford Barnes. Mr. Gooding was a member of the Board of Selectmen from 1825 to 1831, inclusive, a Director of the Plymouth Bank from 1839 to 1865, inclusive, and died September 25, 1870, at the age of ninety years. He had seven children, Deborah Barnes, who married Aurin Bugbee, John, 1808, who married Betsey H., daughter of Ephraim Morton, and became a well known master of the Bark Yeoman, William, 1810, who married Lydia Ann, daughter of Putnam Kimball, Benjamin Barnes, 1813, who married Harriet, daughter of Charles Goodwin, Eliza Ann, 1818, who married Orin F. Alderman, George Barnes, who married Eliza Merrill of Concord, N. H., and James Bugbee, 1823, who married first, 1851, Almira T., daughter of Henry Morton of Plymouth, and second, Rhoda Ann White of Worcester. Benjamin Barnes Gooding succeeded his father in business in the same store, and died June 28, 1900, at the age of 87. Two sons of Benjamin Barnes Gooding, Benjamin W. and George, succeeded their father and continued until the spring of 1905, when their partnership was dissolved, George continuing in the business. Thus for 103 years, three generations of the Gooding family have carried on the business of watch making on the same site, and as Earl W. Gooding, the son of George, has become associated with his father, it may with some degree of certainty be predicted that a fourth generation will continue the business. What I have said does not tell the whole story. James Bugbee, the youngest son of John Gooding, learned the watchmaker’s trade, and established himself in Worcester, finally becoming connected with the Waltham watch factory. His ingenuity and skill soon gave him a leading position in that concern and improvements invented by him in watchmaking machinery for which numerous patents were secured, enabled him to leave at his death a substantial property for his widow and son, who are still living. The upper part of the building in question is occupied by Dr. E. E. Fuller.

The next house is occupied by two stores and a tenement. As long ago as I can remember, the small store now occupied by Mr. Loring as a watchmaker’s shop, was the office of Dr. Amariah Preston, the father of Dr. Hervey N. Preston, previously mentioned. Dr. Preston was born February 5, 1758, and entered the army in 1777. After the war he lived a short time in Uxbridge, Mass., and Ashford, Conn., and then removed to Dighton, Mass., to learn a trade. In 1785 he began the study of medicine, and in 1790 settled in Bedford, where he married October 18, in that year, Hannah Read, and second, May 15, 1796, Ruhamah Lane. After practising in Bedford forty-three years, he removed in 1833 to Plymouth, and occupied the office in question. He practised in Plymouth until 1845, eight years after the death of his son, and in that year at the age of 87 went to Billerica to live with another son, Marshall Preston, and finally removed with him to Lexington, where he died, October 29, 1853, at the age of ninety-five. I remember well the kindly manner of the old gentleman when I went frequently to his shop to buy gamboge to paint the pictures in my geography.

After the departure of Dr. Preston from Plymouth in 1845, his office was taken by Dr. Samuel Merritt, who has been already noticed in connection with the exodus to California in 1849. After the removal of Dr. Merritt to the Union Hall building, after its erection in 1848, Dr. Ervin Webster succeeded to the office and occupied it until his sad death, and that of his son, Olin E. Webster by drowning in Billington Sea, August 28, 1856. Since that time the office has been occupied by Charles C. Doten, Ichabod Carver, Edward W. Atwood, Benjamin H. Crandon, Sarah Morton Holmes, and B. D. Loring, its present tenant.

The store on the north corner of the building was taken by Bartlett Ellis, for the sale of fancy goods, and for a circulating library, after he gave up his shoe store on the corner of Middle street in 1831, and was occupied by him many years. His successors in the store I think, have been a Mrs. Richards, and the present occupant, Miss F. F. Simmons both in the millinery business.

The tenement above the stores was occupied until 1831 by John Churchill, and after his death, George Churchill, his son, sold the building to Thomas Burgess Bartlett, who occupied it until his recent death. Thomas Burgess Bartlett married Bethiah, a daughter of John Churchill, while Bartlett Ellis, the occupant of the store, married in 1821 for his second wife, Hannah, another daughter of Mr. Churchill.

During my boyhood the house which stood on the site of the Plymouth Savings Bank, was occupied by two brothers, Thomas and William Jackson, substantial merchants for many years, Thomas occupying the southerly part, and William, the northerly. Thomas, called Thomas, Jr., born in 1757, was the son of Thomas and Sarah (Taylor) Jackson, and married in 1788 Sally May. They had three children, Thomas, Edwin and Sarah, but I have no recollection of any child in their family. He was one of the founders of the Plymouth Bank in 1803, and a subscriber for thirty shares of stock, and was a director from 1826 until his death, August 8, 1837. William Jackson, known as Major Jackson from his rank in the militia, was born in 1763, and married in 1788, Anna, daughter of David Barnes of Scituate, and had Francis Leonard in 1789, who married Samuel Maynard, Leavitt Taylor, 1790, and David Barnes, 1794. He married second in 1795, Mercy, daughter of John and Mercy (Foster) Russell, and had Frederick William, 1798, Anna, 1799, and William R., 1801. He married third in 1804, widow Esther (Phillips) Parsons. Mr. Jackson was one of the founders of the Plymouth Bank, a subscriber for twenty-seven shares of stock, and a director from 1803 to 1815, and again from 1827 to 1836. He died in Plymouth, October 22, 1836.

There was a vacant lot belonging to the Messrs. Jackson with two cellars, the remains of houses taken down long before my remembrance, and in the Jackson yard there was a Jackson apple tree, from which in season apples would fall upon a shed and roll into the vacant lot, and in recess there was a race to capture such apples as might have fallen during school hours. What has been the fate of the Jackson apple trees of my youth, and where have they gone? It was a red, juicy, early summer apple, a fit prize for the race, and where have the queen apple trees gone, only one of which is left in Plymouth. That in the yard of Wm. Rider Drew was cut down during the last year, leaving the one in the yard of Mrs. Lothrop, solitary and alone. And where are the June Eatings, a name corrupted into Jenitons, of which I think there is only one left in the yard of Miss Lydia Jackson in North street. And I must not forget those favorites with the boys, the button pears. Not especially prized by their owners we boys were permitted to take all we could find on the ground. With our trouser’s pockets bulging with the little fellows, we would find our way to school, little suspecting that we were paying dearly for them in the cost of a doctor’s visit, and a dose of picra.

In the vacant lot above mentioned, the most conspicuous feature was a large sty in which Major Jackson kept his hogs. So far from such appurtenance being considered a nuisance in those days, a family without one or more hogs was an exception. In earlier times they were permitted to run at large, though not within my day in Plymouth, but it may surprise my younger readers to know that in New York and Washington, as late as the civil war, they roved about the streets as freely as dogs. As late as 1721 it was voted by the inhabitants of Plymouth that they might run at large that year if properly ringed and yoked, and hog constables were annually chosen to see that the condition was complied with. The custom of keeping hogs was so universal in my day that perhaps a dozen times during the season a dealer would buy in the Brighton market a drove of hogs and drive them home over the road, selling them on the way. When a sale was made the drivers would tie the four legs of the hog and raise it to a pair of steelyards, hanging from a bar supported by their shoulders, and thus find the weight. While this operation was going on the drove would roam at their own sweet will, nosing up the gutters and sidewalks in every direction. I remember James Ruggles of Rochester, the donor to the county of the fountain in front of the Court house, and Swift, one of the members of the firm of pork packers in Chicago, driving their hogs from house to house. Until a very recent date, more in deference to an old custom, than to any necessity, hog-reeves were chosen each year by the town, and recently married grooms were selected for the honor.

The occupants of the house in question after the Jacksons were, Madam Mary Warren and Wm. F. Peterson, in the southerly part, and Susan, Sarah and Deborah L. Turner, daughters of Lothrop Turner, and Miss Deborah L. Turner, Dr. Alexander Jackson, and Hannah D. Washburn, milliners, and Sarah M. Holmes and Mrs. Charles Campbell, in the northerly part, until the house was taken down, and the present building was erected in 1887, the occupants of which are now the Old Colony National Bank, Plymouth Saving’s Bank, the Black & White Club, Dr. Schubert and Dr. Lothrop, and the Natural History Society. After the Jackson house came into the possession of the Savings Bank, a one story building was erected on the northerly line of the lot, which was occupied at various times by the Public Library, and by Arthur Lord and Albert Mason, attorneys-at-law, and finally removed to the Hathaway land on Middle street.

Before speaking of the occupants of the two houses which stood north of the vacant lot on which the Bank building was erected in 1842, I will state that in 1851 a slice fifteen or twenty feet deep was cut from the two lots, including the front yard of the Thomas house, now the Plymouth Tavern, and enough from the lot south of it to make the present line to which Davis building when soon after erected, was made to conform. As long ago as I can remember, the old house which stood on the site of Davis building was occupied by Timothy Goodwin, a tinman by trade, who occupied for his tinshop the upper story of a projection in the rear of the main building. I have an impression that he was club footed, and that he had two sons older than myself, who with their father must have moved from Plymouth not far from the year, 1835.