Its faithful votaries from the grave,
This stone had ne’er possessed the fame
Of being marked with Lothrop’s name.”
In the meantime it may be interesting to learn what had become of Noah Hobart, the old time lover. He in due time entered the ministry, and was settled over the church in Fairfield, Conn. Though he had never held communication with Priscilla by letter or otherwise, by the wireless ways which lovers have, he had kept himself informed of the varied scenes in her life. He knew of the death of her first husband, and her second marriage, as well as the two families of children which had grown up around her. He had heard also of the death of her second husband, while with a wife and two children of his own, a veil not wholly impenetrable obscured the remembrance of his early days. About seven years after the death of Mr. Lothrop her second husband, the wife of Mr. Hobart died, and after a becoming period of mourning, his old love, which time had not obliterated, speedily revived at the thought that both he and his early love were free. Without delay he, as was the fashion of the time, drove in his chaise to Plymouth, and presented himself as suitor at the Lothrop mansion. It is unnecessary to disclose the interview. A further sacrifice was needed before in the fullness of time God should join together whom man had put asunder. She had promised her husband on his death bed that as long as his mother lived, then eighty years of age, she would like a real daughter care for her and promote her happiness. Again there was a parting which seemed to be one forever. On his way home Mr. Hobart stopped over night with his friend, Rev. Mr. Shute of Hingham, and attended with him the next day a religious service in the church held every Thursday, which was sometimes called the Thursday lecture, and sometimes the Preparatory lecture. On their way home from church a friend passed them on horseback, who said that he had ridden from Plymouth. In answer to the inquiry for news in the old town he said that just as he left he was told that old Mrs. Lothrop was found dead in her bed that morning. It is needless to say that the continuance of the journey to Fairfield was postponed, and a return to Plymouth was made. After the funeral and a due publication of the bans, the marriage took place under date of 1758, and the seventeen years which she passed in Fairfield with her third husband, were the happiest years of her life. Mr. Hobart died in 1775, and she returned to Plymouth, where the remainder of her days was spent until her death, June 23, 1796, in the 90th year of her age.
John Sloss Hobart, son of Rev. Noah Hobart, by his first wife, became United States Senator from New York, and his daughter, Ellen, married Nathaniel Lothrop, a son of Mrs. Hobart by her second husband, Isaac Lothrop.
Returning to the old house where Davis building stands, of which in my wanderings I have almost lost sight, its later occupants whom I can remember were Capt. Woodward, the driver for many years of the Boston mail stage, his son-in-law Bradford Barnes, John R. Davis and George Churchill. All of these except Mr. Davis have been noticed in other chapters. Mr. Davis was a ropemaker by trade, but when the Robbins Cordage Company discontinued work he sought other means of livelihood, chiefly that of restaurant keeper. He was a good man, of a deeply religious spirit, who carried his religion into every day life. He not only believed in the fatherhood of God, but also in the brotherhood of man. It would have been impossible to provoke him to the utterance of an angry or unkind word, and his kindly words often appeared more kind with the touch of humor in which they were uttered. His kindness of heart and gentleness of speech, and his humor as well, were illustrated when a man after eating at his lunch counter left without paying. Instead of running out to the sidewalk and calling out to the man in the hearing of passers-by “to come back and pay his bill,” he said in the mildest tone of voice, “Mr., did I give you the right change?”
The house now occupied as a public house, and called the Plymouth Tavern, was for many years identified with the family of Joshua Thomas. He bought the house in 1786, and occupied it until his death, January 10, 1821. He married in 1786 Isabella Stevenson, of Boston, who continued to occupy it until her death. Few families displayed more earnest patriotism than the family to which he belonged. His father, Dr. William Thomas, born in Boston in 1718, practised medicine in Plymouth many years, and died September 20, 1802. He was on the medical staff in the expedition against Louisburg in 1745, and at Crown Point in 1758. He had four sons born in Plymouth, Joshua, Joseph, Nathaniel and John. Joshua was born in 1751, and graduated at Harvard in 1772. After some time spent in teaching, and in theological studies, he became especially interested in public affairs, and in 1774 was adjutant of a regiment of militia organized in Plymouth County, in view of the threatening war clouds appearing above the horizon. In 1776 he served on the staff of General John Thomas on the Canadian expedition, in which General Thomas died, and soon after returned home where he studied law, and henceforth devoted himself to his profession. Having served as a member of the committee of correspondence and as Representative and Senator, he was appointed in 1792 Judge of Probate, and continued in office until his death. He was also President of the Plymouth and Norfolk counties Bible Society, the first president of the Pilgrim Society, and Moderator of town meetings twenty-eight years. He lay on his bed of death during the celebration of December 22, 1820, when Daniel Webster delivered the oration, and John Watson was selected to preside on that occasion. Judge Thomas had three sons, John Boies, 1787, William, 1788, and Joshua Barker, 1797. John Boies graduated at Harvard in 1806, and married Mary, daughter of Isaac LeBaron. He was a member of the bar, a member of the Board of Selectmen, from 1831 to 1840, inclusive, moderator of town meetings from 1829 to 1841, inclusive, President of the Old Colony Bank and Clerk of the Plymouth County Courts from 1811 to his death, December 2, 1852. William Thomas, the second son of Joshua, graduated at Harvard in 1807, and was at the time of his death, September 20, 1882, the oldest living graduate. He practiced law in Plymouth, was in 1852 sheriff of the county, and married in 1816 Sally W., daughter of John Sever of Kingston. Joshua Barker, the youngest son of Joshua, was also a member of the bar, but never practised. Though not fitted by temperament for the labors of his profession, he was a man of culture, and a conversationalist, whom it was always agreeable to meet. Much younger than his brothers, he was always an indulged and petted son. I heard when I was young of an amusing effort to send him to a boarding school. His father and mother, with great reluctance, and only from a sense of duty, decided to send him to a school known as the Wing school in Sandwich. So they started one morning with their boy in a chaise, and a trunk strapped to the axle. After leaving him in the hands of Mr. Wing they regretfully bade him good-bye and left for home. They drove into their yard, landing at the rear door, and going into the house, found Joshua sitting by the fire, having ridden home on the axle and entered the house at the front door before them. They were overjoyed to see him, and embraced him with as much fervor as if he had returned from a long term at school. He died in Plymouth unmarried, March 7, 1873.
After the death of the widow of Judge Thomas, the house was occupied for some years by Allen and S. D. Ballard as an eating saloon, with lodging rooms to let. The Ballards were succeeded by Mr. Holbrook, and under the name of the Central House it was occupied by Charles H. Snell. Mr. Huntoon and Mr. McIntire and St. George and Manley E. Dodge followed, who were succeeded by Mr. Shaw, Mr. Minchen, and Bruce and Abbot Jones followed, and then Jones alone, who was succeeded by McCarthy and Buckman, and the recent proprietor, Mr. McCarthy. The name was changed to Plymouth Tavern by Mr. Bruce. Joseph Thomas, a brother of Judge Joshua Thomas, born in 1755, was in the early part of the revolution a Lieutenant of Artillery, and later, Captain and Major. He died in Plymouth unmarried, Aug. 19, 1838. Nathaniel, another brother, born in 1756, was a Captain in the revolution, and died in Plymouth, March 22, 1838. He married in 1781 Priscilla Shaw, and second in 1796, Jane (Downs) widow of Isaac Jackson. John, a third brother of Judge Joshua Thomas, born in 1758, was on the medical staff during the revolution, and after the war settled in Poughkeepsie. Some of his descendants are living in Cleveland, Ohio.
As long ago as I can remember the house next to the store of Moore Bros., on the north was occupied by Benjamin Marston Watson, and was built by him on a vacant lot in 1811. He was a son of John and Lucia (Marston) Watson, born in 1774, and married in 1804 Lucretia Burr, daughter of Jonathan Sturges of Fairfield, Conn. His only children remembered by me were Lucretia Ann, who married Rev. Hersey B. Goodwin, and was the mother of Professor William Watson Goodwin of Cambridge; and Benjamin Marston. His son, Benjamin Marston Watson, born January 17, 1820, graduated at Harvard in 1839, and married in 1846, Mary, daughter of Thomas Russell, and died February 19, 1896. He was a lovable man, whose companionship I prized; a man of culture, who enjoyed the friendship of Emerson and Alcott and Thoreau; a man in whose presence ordinary ambitions appeared insignificant and mean; a lover of nature with its fruits and flowers, who received in return from nature’s hand congenial occupation and support.
Mr. Watson, senior, was a merchant in Plymouth, President of the Plymouth Aqueduct Company, one of the founders of the Pilgrim Society, and for many years its recording secretary. He was also chosen treasurer of the Plymouth institution for savings at the time of its organization in 1828, but declined a re-election in 1829. As a boy I remember him well looking over into the trench of the aqueduct and cleaning perch at a South Pond picnic and putting wood on the parlor fire, in doing which he had a way inherited by his son of standing with his limbs straight from feet to hips, and his body at a sharp angle straight from hips to head without a lounge or a bend. He died while on a visit to Fairfield, November 10, 1835. In 1845 his widow sold the house to William Thomas, who has been already noticed, and it is now owned and occupied by his grandchildren, children of William H. Whitman, who married his daughter Ann.