The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees

Part 1

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Little Pilgrimages

The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees

Mary C. Crawford

Illustrated

Boston L. C. Page & Company Mdcccciii

Copyright, 1902 by L. C. Page & Company (Incorporated)

All rights reserved

Published, September, 1902

Colonial Press Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

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FOREWORD

These little sketches have been written to supply what seemed to the author a real need,--a volume which should give clearly, compactly, and with a fair degree of readableness, the stories connected with the surviving old houses of New England. That delightful writer, Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, has in his many works on the historic mansions of colonial times, provided all necessary data for the serious student, and to him the deep indebtedness of this work is fully and frankly acknowledged. Yet there was no volume which gave entire the tales of chief interest to the majority of readers. It is, therefore, to such searchers after the romantic in New England's history that the present book is offered.

It but remains to mention with gratitude the many kind friends far and near who have helped in the preparation of the material, and especially to thank Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of the works of Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, and Higginson, by permission of and special arrangement with whom the selections of the authors named, are used; the Macmillan Co., for permission to use the extracts from Lindsay Swift's "Brook Farm"; G. P. Putnam's Sons for their kindness in allowing quotations from their work, "Historic Towns of New England"; Small, Maynard & Co., for the use of the anecdote credited to their Beacon Biography of Samuel F. B. Morse; Little, Brown & Co., for their marked courtesy in the extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. Samuel T. Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, for the new Whittier material here given.

M. C. C.

Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1902.

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"All houses wherein men have lived and died are haunted houses."

Longfellow.

"So very difficult a matter is it to trace and find out the truth of anything by history."

Plutarch.

"... Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever."

Shelley.

"... I discern Infinite passion and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn."

Browning.

"'Tis an old tale and often told."

Scott.

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Part 2

Contents

Page

Foreword iii

The Heir of Swift's Vanessa 11

The Maid of Marblehead 37

An American-Born Baronet 59

Molly Stark's Gentleman-Son 74

A Soldier of Fortune 90

The Message of the Lanterns 104

Hancock's Dorothy Q. 117

Baroness Riedesel and Her Tory Friends 130

Doctor Church: First Traitor to the American Cause 147

A Victim of Two Revolutions 159

The Woman Veteran of the Continental Army 170

The Redeemed Captive 190

New England's First "Club Woman" 210

In the Reign of the Witches 225

Lady Wentworth of the Hall 241

An Historic Tragedy 251

Inventor Morse's Unfulfilled Ambition 264

Where the "Brothers and Sisters" Met 279

The Brook Farmers 293

Margaret Fuller: Marchesa d'Ossoli 307

The Old Manse and Some of Its Mosses 324

Salem's Chinese God 341

The Well-Sweep of a Song 356

Whittier's Lost Love 366

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page

Part 3

Sir Harry Frankland (See page 48) Frontispiece

Whitehall, Newport, R. I. 31

Agnes Surriage Pump, Marblehead, Mass. 39

Summer House, Royall Estate, Medford, Mass. 63

Royall House, Medford, Mass.--Pepperell House, Kittery, Maine 66

Stark House, Dunbarton, N. H. 79

General Lee's Headquarters, Somerville, Mass. 94

Christ Church--Paul Revere House, Boston, Mass. 104

Robert Newman House, Boston, Mass. 110

Clark House, Lexington, Mass. 118

Dorothy Q. House, Quincy, Mass. 123

Riedesel House, Cambridge, Mass. 145

House Where Doctor Church Was Confined, Cambridge, Mass. 149

Swan House, Dorchester, Mass. 164

Deborah Sampson Gannett 170

Gannett House, Sharon, Mass. 188

Williams House, Deerfield, Mass. 193

Reverend Stephen Williams 204

Old Corner Bookstore, Site of the Hutchinson House, Boston, Mass. 214

Old Witch House, Salem, Mass. 225

Rebecca Nourse House, Danvers, Mass. 229

Red Horse Tavern, Sudbury, Mass. 242

Governor Wentworth House, Portsmouth, N. H. 246

Fairbanks House, Dedham, Mass. 260

Edes House, Birthplace of Professor Morse, Charlestown, Mass. 264

Oval Parlour, Fay House, Cambridge, Mass. 286

Brook Farm, West Roxbury, Mass. 296

Fuller House, Cambridgeport, Mass. 312

Part 4

Old Manse, Concord, Mass. 324

Townsend House, Salem, Mass. 342

Old Oaken Bucket House, Scituate, Mass. 359

Whittier's Birthplace, East Haverhill, Mass. 380

THE ROMANCE OF OLD NEW ENGLAND ROOFTREES

THE HEIR OF SWIFT'S VANESSA

Nowhere in the annals of our history is recorded an odder phase of curious fortune than that by which Bishop Berkeley, of Cloyne, was enabled early in the eighteenth century to sail o'erseas to Newport, Rhode Island, there to build (in 1729) the beautiful old place, Whitehall, which is still standing. Hundreds of interested visitors drive every summer to the old house, to take a cup of tea, to muse on the strange story with which the ancient dwelling is connected, and to pay the meed of respectful memory to the eminent philosopher who there lived and wrote.

The poet Pope once assigned to this bishop "every virtue under heaven," and this high reputation a study of the man's character faithfully confirms. As a student at Dublin University, George Berkeley won many friends, because of his handsome face and lovable nature, and many honours by reason of his brilliancy in mathematics. Later he became a fellow of Trinity College, and made the acquaintance of Swift, Steele, and the other members of that brilliant Old World literary circle, by all of whom he seems to have been sincerely beloved.

A large part of Berkeley's early life was passed as a travelling tutor, but soon after Pope had introduced him to the Earl of Burlington, he was made dean of Derry, through the good offices of that gentleman, and of his friend, the Duke of Grafton, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Berkeley, however, never cared for personal aggrandisement, and he had long been cherishing a project which he soon announced to his friends as a "scheme for converting the savage Americans to Christianity by a college to be erected in the Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda."

In a letter from London to his lifelong friend and patron, Lord Percival, then at Bath, we find Berkeley, under date of March, 1723, writing thus of the enterprise which had gradually fired his imagination: "It is now about ten months since I have determined to spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where I trust in Providence I may be the mean instrument of doing great good to mankind. The reformation of manners among the English in our western plantations, and the propagation of the gospel among the American savages, are two points of high moment. The natural way of doing this is by founding a college or seminary in some convenient part of the West Indies, where the English youth of our plantations may be educated in such sort as to supply their churches with pastors of good morals and good learning--a thing (God knows) much wanted. In the same seminary a number of young American savages may also be educated until they have taken the degree of Master of Arts. And being by that time well instructed in the Christian religion, practical mathematics, and other liberal arts and sciences, and early imbued with public-spirited principles and inclinations, they may become the fittest instruments for spreading religion, morals, and civil life among their countrymen, who can entertain no suspicion or jealousy of men of their own blood and language, as they might do of English missionaries, who can never be well qualified for that work."

Berkeley then goes on to describe the plans of education for American youths which he had conceived, gives his reasons for preferring the Bermudas as a site for the college, and presents a bright vision of an academic centre from which should radiate numerous beautiful influences that should make for Christian civilisation in America. Even the gift of the best deanery in England failed to divert him from thoughts of this Utopia. "Derry," he wrote, "is said to be worth L1,500 per annum, but I do not consider it with a view to enriching myself. I shall be perfectly contented if it facilitates and recommends my scheme of Bermuda."

But the thing which finally made it possible for Berkeley to come to America, the incident which is responsible for Whitehall's existence to-day in a grassy valley to the south of Honeyman's Hill, two miles back from the "second beach," at Newport, was the tragic ending of as sad and as romantic a story as is to be found anywhere in the literary life of England.

Swift, as has been said, was one of the friends who was of great service to Berkeley when he went up to London for the first time. The witty and impecunious dean had then been living in London for more than four years, in his "lodging in Berry Street," absorbed in the political intrigue of the last years of Queen Anne, and sending to Stella, in Dublin, the daily journal, which so faithfully preserves the incidents of those years. Under date of an April Sunday in 1713, we find in this journal these lines, Swift's first mention of our present hero: "I went to court to-day on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of our fellows at Trinity College. That Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great philosopher, and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I can."

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