Historic Shrines of America Part 6

Six years later the Registry of Deeds at Salem told of the sale, to Richard Leader, Gent, of England, of a bit of the farm on which Governor Broadstreet held a mortgage. Mr. Leader was the agent of "ye Company of undertakers of ye Iron Works," and he thought that Dexter had the best location for the purposes of the company that proposed to start what proved to be the first successful iron works in the Colonies. The quaint story of the transaction was entered thus:

"Thomas Dexter of Lyn in the County of Ess.e.x ye[oman] for the sum of 40 st[erling] hath sowld unto Richard Leder for ye use of ye Iron works all that land, wch by reason of [a]

damme now agreed to be made, shall overflow and all sufficient ground for a water course from the damme, to the works to be erected, and alsoe all [the] land betwene the an[cient] water course and the new extended flume or water course togeather with five acres and an halfe of land lying in the corn field most convenient for the Iron Works and also tooe convenient cartwayes that is to one on each side of the premises as by a deed indented bearing date the twentie seaventh of January, 1645, more at lardge apth."

On the ground thus bought a st.u.r.dy house, Broadhearth, was built in 1646. The second story overhung the first story, after the manner of many English houses of the period. The overhang is still in evidence, though a veranda has hidden it except to the careful observer.

The first product of the iron works, a kettle, was made in 1642. This is still in existence. During more than one hundred years neighboring colonists looked to the foundry for their supplies of house hardware, furnishings, and implements of iron. The site of the foundry was opposite the house, while traces of the pits from which the bog ore was dug are easily found in the field at the rear. Remains of scoria and slag are also pointed out to the visitor by employees of the Wallace Nutting Corporation, which has restored the house as nearly as possible to its original condition and has placed in it furniture of the period. A caretaker has been placed in charge who will copy for applicants iron work in the house, or other old examples. Thus, in a modest way, the Saugus Iron Works has been reestablished.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BENNET-BOARDMAN HOUSE, SAUGUS, Ma.s.s.

_Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company_ See page 69]

Another specimen of the overhang house is not far away. This is the house built some time between 1649 and 1656 by Samuel Bennet, carpenter. It is famous as the house that has been in two counties, Suffolk and Ess.e.x, and in four towns, Boston, Lynn, Chelsea, and Saugus.

That it was once in Boston was due to the narrow strip of the territory of the city that stretched far out in the country, somewhat after the manner of a portion of a modern gerrymandered legislative district. When the district was set off as Chelsea and Lynn, in response to a pet.i.tion of citizens who were inconvenienced by their distance from town meetings, the boundaries between Chelsea and Lynn were carelessly marked; one line ran directly through the front door and the chimney of the Bennet house. This mistake, which caused annoyance and expense to those who occupied the house, was not corrected for more than one hundred years. Finally Abijah Boardman asked that he be relieved of his double liability to Lynn and Chelsea, and in 1803, by Act of the General Court, the pet.i.tion was granted.

Bennet, the builder of the house, figured more than once in the courts. In 1644 the Grand Jury indicted him as "a Common sleeper in time of exercise," and he was fined 2s. 6d. In 1671 he brought suit against the Iron Works Company for 400 for labor. In connection with this suit John Paule, whose "constant employment was to repair carts, coale carts, mine carts, and other working materials" for the "tiemes"

at the iron works, testified that "my master Bennet did yearly yearme a vast sum from said Iron Works, for he commonly yearmed forty or fifty shillings a daye, for he had five or six teemes goeing generally every faire day."

Bennets and Boardmans have held the house from the beginning. The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities has interested itself in the protection of the property.

XIV

THE COLONEL JEREMIAH LEE HOUSE, MARBLEHEAD, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

THE HOME OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST MARTYRS TO THE CAUSE OF THE COLONIES

Marblehead was a comparatively insignificant port when Jeremiah Lee came to town. At once he made a place for himself among the humble fishermen and other seafaring men of the place. He was a member of the Board of Firewards in the town's first fire department, and he served on important committees.

When, in 1768, he built a wonderful mansion that cost more than ten thousand pounds, the most wonderful house in Ma.s.sachusetts at the time, his townsmen knew him well enough to understand that he was their good friend, even if he did have much more money than any of them.

The Lee Mansion was a hospitable home. The Colonel and his wife Martha entertained lavishly, not only the people of the town but famous men from abroad. In 1789 Washington was entertained in the house. But it was one of the glories of the mansion that the humblest mariner in the place was not slow to go there if he wished to have a chat with the bluff owner or if he desired to go to the quaint cupola from which it is possible to look far out to sea. To this outlook Colonel Lee himself often went, for his ships were sailing to Marblehead from all parts of the world, and he was as eager as any one to turn his eyes seaward.

The house is sixty-four feet by forty-six feet, and the walls are of brick, though they are covered with wooden clapboards two feet by one and a half feet. There are fifteen rooms, in addition to the great halls that make the house seem like a palace.

In these rooms the Colonel conferred with other patriots as to the welfare of Ma.s.sachusetts and all the colonies. From the house he went out to the town meetings where the men gathered to talk over the Boston Port Bill and the Boston Tea Party and questions of Taxation without Representation.

He rejoiced to serve as a representative in the General Court and on the Committee of Safety and Supplies of the Province. He was chosen to represent the town in the Continental Congress, and when he was unable to go, Elbridge Gerry, who later became Vice-President of the United States, was sent in his place at the expense of the town.

On the night of April 18, 1775, in company with Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orin, who were members with him of the Committee of Safety and Supplies, he was attending a meeting at Weatherby's Black Horse Tavern just outside of Cambridge. The meeting adjourned so late that the three men decided to spend the night at the tavern. The eight hundred British soldiers who were on their way that night to Lexington learned of the presence in Cambridge of the patriots. Some one rushed to the tavern and roused them from slumber. They did not even have time to put on their clothes, but ran at once from the house and hid themselves at some distance from the tavern. When the disappointed troops had gone on, the hunted men returned to their room.

Three weeks later Lee died as the result of the exposure. He has been called one of the earliest martyrs to the cause of the Colonies.

Before he died he left directions that five thousand pounds should be given to the treasury of the provinces.

Mrs. Lee, who was Martha Swett of Marblehead, lived on in the mansion with those of her eight children who had not gone already to homes of their own. Under her guidance the hospitality for which the house had become noted was maintained.

Those who pa.s.s between the beautiful porch pillars and enter the chaste colonial doorway are amazed at the remarkable hallway and the stairs. The hall is fifteen feet wide and extends the length of the house. It is heavily wainscoted with mahogany. On the walls hangs remarkable panelled paper whose designs, depicting ancient architecture, are in keeping with the majestic proportions of the place. The stairway is so wide that four or five people can climb it abreast and the bal.u.s.trade and the spindles are of exquisite workmanship.

The rear stairway is far more ornate than the best stairway in most houses, and the rooms are in keeping with the hall and the stairways.

The cupola is one of the most striking features of the house. Here six windows give a view that is worth going far to see.

When Mrs. Lee died, the property descended to her son. Judge Samuel Sewell was a later owner. But the day came when it was to be sold at auction. All Marblehead feared that the historic place would be destroyed. Fortunately the Marblehead Historical Society was able to raise the fifty-five hundred dollars needed to secure it.

Since July 9, 1909, the Society has owned the mansion. For six months of every year it is open to visitors who throng to see the choice collection of china, portraits, embroidery, and furniture that has been gathered together by the Society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, Ma.s.s.

_Photo Furnished by Rev. A. McDonald, Newburyport, Ma.s.s._ See page 75]

XV

THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, NEWBURYPORT, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

WHERE GEORGE WHITEFIELD, THE GREAT EVANGELIST, IS BURIED

More than one hundred years after the organization of the First Church of Newburyport, Rev. George Whitefield, then a young man of twenty-six, preached in the community. "The Great Awakening," which followed, spread all over New England, and more than thirty thousand were converted. Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, the Tennents, and others led in the work that had such wonderful results.

Five years after Whitefield's visit to Newburyport the Old South Church was organized, most of those who became members having been converted under Whitefield's preaching. The new church was actually a Presbyterian church from the beginning, though it did not finally adopt the Presbyterian form of government until 1802.

The members of the new church were called "a misguided band," and "new schemers." Their first pastor was called a dissenting minister. Their protest against these aspersions took the form of a pet.i.tion to "The King's Most Excellent Majesty," which was a prayer for that "equal liberty of conscience in worshipping G.o.d" that had already been granted to others. The pet.i.tion recited the desire of the people to be relieved of taxation "for the support of ministers on whose ministry they cannot in conscience attend," and stated that, because of their refusal to pay what they felt were unjust taxes, "honest and peaceable men have been hauled away to prison to their great hurt and damage."

When the pet.i.tion was presented to the king by Mr. Partridge, their agent, he declared that they were not "a wild, friekish people," and cited as an argument for relief from double taxation that, while they had some wealthy members, there were among them "more poor widows than all the other congregations in town put together." He said those who protested against double taxation had been "dragged about upon the ground," dressed up in bear skins and worried, and imprisoned.

The protest did not bring relief at once; it was 1773 before the General Court granted the plea of the members. For more than twenty years more the town tried to collect double taxes, but in 1795 the rights of the members of Old South were conceded.

The first building, erected in 1743, gave way in 1756 to the structure still in use. Alterations made since that time have not made any great change in its appearance, except in the tower, which was repaired in 1848, because it was thought that the timber must be decaying.

However, to the surprise of the carpenters who undertook the repairs, they were found as sound as ever. A half-hour was required to saw through one of them!

The bell in the new tower was cast by Paul Revere. Surmounting the spire is a c.o.c.k which was perched on the original tower. When this tower, after the carpenters had done all they could with their saws, was pulled over by horses and oxen, the c.o.c.k broke loose and fell at some distance. The man who picked up the figure was surprised to find that it was of solid copper, instead of wood, as had been thought, and that it weighed more than fifty pounds.

In the original pews there was a central chair, surrounded by seats hung on hinges. Over the pulpit was a sounding board. At the head of the pulpit stair a seat was provided for the s.e.xton, that he might be on hand to trim the candles during the evening service.

The official history of the church, written by Dr. H. C. Hovey, gives interesting facts concerning the heating of the old building:

"For seventy years those who crowded this church depended on footstoves altogether for warmth in winter; while the minister preached in his ample cloak, and wore gloves with a finger and thumb cut off to enable him the better to turn the leaves. A law was made allowing the s.e.xton twenty cents for each footstove that he had to fill before service and remove afterward. A great sensation was made in 1819 by the introduction of wood stoves at an outlay of $100. The first day they were in place the people were so overcome that some of them fainted away and were carried out of the house; but they revived on learning that as yet no fire had been kindled in the new stoves. The doors of the stoves opened into the ample vestibule, where the custom continued of ranging the many footstoves in a wide circle to be filled with live coals from the stove."

On the Sunday after the battle of Lexington Dr. Jonathan Parsons made an appeal in the name of liberty. After this Captain Ezra Lunt stepped into the aisle and formed a company of sixty men, which is said to have been the first company of volunteers to join the Continental Army.

Later Newburyport supplied a number of companies. But the call came for still another company. "Day after day the recruiting officers toiled in vain," Dr. Hovey writes, "Finally the regiment was invited to the Presbyterian church, where they were addressed in such spirited and stirring words that once again a number of this church stepped forth to take the covenant, and in two hours after the benediction had been spoken the entire company was raised."

During the war twenty-two vessels and one thousand men, from the towns of Newbury and Newburyport, were lost at sea. The first American flag seen in British waters, after the cessation of hostilities, was displayed in the Thames by Nicholas Johnson of Newburyport, captain of the _Compte de Gra.s.se_.

Among the treasures of the church is the Bible which Whitefield used.

The evangelist, who died Sunday, September 30, 1770, is buried in the crypt under the pulpit where he had planned to preach on the very day of his death, as he had preached many times during the years since the building of the church. To this dark crypt thousands of reverent visitors have groped their way. One, less reverent, removed an arm of the skeleton and carried it to England as a relic. No one knew what had become of it until, after the death of the thief, it was returned to Newburyport, together with a bust of Whitefield. This bust is also one of the treasures of Old South.

Those who love this old church at Newburyport delight in the lines of John Greenleaf Whittier:

"Under the church of Federal Street, Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, Walled about by its bas.e.m.e.nt stones, Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.