Historic Shrines of America Part 4

The second of the Quincy line was a leader in the town. At one time he was its representative in the General Court, and as colonel of the Suffolk Regiment, he was the first of a long list of colonels in the family. But the day came when it was written of him, "Unkel Quincy grows exceeding crazy," and in 1698 the second Edmund yielded the house to Edmund the third.

This Edmund also became a colonel and a representative and, later, a judge of the Supreme Court. His pastor said of him, "This great man was of a manly Stature and Aspect, of a Strong Const.i.tution and of Good Courage, fitted for any Business of Life, to serve G.o.d, his King and Country." Not only did he enlarge the glory of the family, but, in 1706, he enlarged the house, yet in such a way that the original Coddington house could be clearly traced after the improvements were finished. Judge Sewell, the cousin of the builder, was one of the welcome occupants of the improved house. On his way to Plymouth he stopped at "Braintry." "I turned in to Cousin Quinsey," he said, "where I had the pleasure to see G.o.d in his Providence s.h.i.+ning again upon the Persons and Affairs of the Family after long distressing Sickness and Losses. Lodged in the chamber next the Brooke." Later on another chamber near the brook was provided for Mrs. Quincy's brother, Tutor Flynt of Harvard, when he came that way for rest and change.

The oldest child of this generation was Edmund, whose daughter, Dorothy Quincy, married John Hanc.o.c.k, while the fourth child was Dorothy Quincy, the great-grandmother of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The continuity of life at the mansion was sadly broken when, within a year, the grandmother, the mother, and the father died. The death of the latter occurred in England, where he had gone on business for the colony. When news came of the ending of his life, the General Court of Ma.s.sachusetts declared that "he departed the delight of his own people, but of none more than the Senate, who, as a testimony of their love and grat.i.tude, have ordered this epitaph to be inscribed on his tomb in Bunhill Fields, London."

For a year Dorothy Quincy remained in the house; but on her marriage the place ceased for a time to be the chief residence of a Quincy.

Edmund was in business in Boston. He resorted to the house for a season now and then, but his Boston home remained his permanent abiding place until after the birth of his daughter Dorothy. Then failing fortune sent him back to the ancestral home.

During the next few years John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hanc.o.c.k were favored visitors at the mansion. John Hanc.o.c.k won Dorothy Quincy for his bride, and family tradition says that preparations were made for the wedding in the old home. "The large north parlor was adorned with a new wall paper, express from Paris, and appropriately figured with the forms of Venus and Cupid in blue, and pendant wreaths of flowers in red," writes the author of "Where American Independence Began." But the approaching Revolution interfered. The bridegroom hurried away to Boston and then to Lexington. Dorothy, under the care of Mrs. Hanc.o.c.k, the mother of John Hanc.o.c.k, also went to Lexington on April 18, 1775, the very day when Paul Revere aroused the patriots, and Hanc.o.c.k was once more compelled to flee for his life. Four months later, at Fairfield, Connecticut, the lovers were married.

The old mansion was never again the home of the Quincys. Josiah, brother of Edmund the fourth, built for himself in 1770 a beautiful home not far from the family headquarters. Here he lived through the war. Visitors to the house are shown on one of the windows the record he made of the departure of the British from Boston Harbor, scratched there when he saw the welcome sight, on October 17, 1775.

For much more than a century the house was in the hands of other families, but, fortunately, it has come under the control of the Colonial Dames of Ma.s.sachusetts. They have made it the historic monument it deserves to be. The visitors who are privileged to wander through the rooms hallowed by the presence of men and women who helped to pave the way for American independence read with hearty appreciation the lines which Holmes addressed to the portrait of his ancestress, "My Dorothy Q," as he called her:

"Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess Thirteen summers, or something less; Girlish bust, but womanly air; Smooth, square forehead, with uprolled hair; Lips that lover has never kissed, Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FERNSIDE FARM, HAVERHILL, Ma.s.s.

_Photo by Halliday Historic Photograph Company_ See page 54]

IX

FERNSIDE FARM, HAVERHILL, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

THE BIRTHPLACE AND BOYHOOD HOME OF JOHN G. WHITTIER

The first house built by Thomas Whittier, the three-hundred-pound ancestor of the poet Whittier, and first representative of the family in America, was a little log cabin. There he took his wife, Ruth Flint, and there ten children were born. Five of them were boys, and each of them was more than six feet tall.

No wonder the log house grew too small for the family. So, probably in 1688, he built a house whose ma.s.sive hewn beams were fifteen inches square, whose kitchen was thirty feet long, with a fireplace eight feet wide. The rooms cl.u.s.tered about a central chimney.

In this house the poet was born December 17, 1807, and here he spent the formative years of his life. When he was twenty-seven years old he wrote for _The Little Pilgrim_ of Philadelphia a paper on "The Fish I Didn't Catch." In this he described the home of his boyhood:

"Our old homestead nestled under a long range of hills which stretched off to the west. It was surrounded by woods in all directions save to the southeast, where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low, green meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes of upland. Through these, a small brook, noisy enough as it foamed, rippled and laughed down its rocky falls by our garden-side, wound, silently and scarcely visible, to a still larger stream, known as the Country Brook. This brook in its time, after doing duty at two or three saw and grist mills, the clack of which we could hear across the intervening woodlands, found its way to the great river, and the river took it up and bore it down to the great sea."

Whittier's poems are full of references to the life on the farm; many of his best verses had their inspiration in memories of the past. For instance, the description of the building of the fire in "Snow-Bound,"

a poem which describes the life at the farm when he was twelve years old, is a faithful picture of what took place in the old kitchen every night of the long New England winter, when

"We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney back-- The oaken log, green, huge and thick, And on its top the thick back-stick; The knotty fore-stick laid apart, And filled between with curious art.

The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-fas.h.i.+oned room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom."

Young Whittier was a faithful worker on the farm. One day, when he was nineteen years old, William Lloyd Garrison, the young editor of a Newburyport newspaper, to which Whittier had contributed a poem, found him a.s.sisting in repairing a stone wall. The visitor urged the father of the young poet to send him to school. As a result of this visit Whittier entered the Academy in Haverhill, with the understanding that he was to earn his way.

At intervals during the succeeding ten years the poet returned to the old farm, but when he was thirty years old the place was sold, the family went to Amesbury, and he left soon afterward for Philadelphia, where he was to edit an anti-slavery paper.

All through life Whittier dreamed of buying back the homestead. When he received a check for $1,000 as the first proceeds from "Snow-Bound," he set the sum aside as the beginning of a redemption fund.

But the citizens of Haverhill, led by Alfred A. Ordway, asked the privilege of buying the property themselves, and making it a memorial to the poet. Whittier died before the purchase was completed, but soon afterward Fernside Farm, as the poet called it, was taken over by Mr.

Ordway. It is now in the hands of an a.s.sociation that has restored it and keeps it open to visitors whose hearts have been stirred by the work of the Quaker poet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DUSTON GARRISON HOUSE, HAVERHILL, Ma.s.s.

_Photo by W. R. Merryman, Haverhill_ See page 57]

X

THE DUSTON GARRISON HOUSE, HAVERHILL, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS

FROM WHICH HANNAH DUSTON WAS CARRIED AWAY BY THE INDIANS

The attention of visitors to Haverhill, Ma.s.sachusetts, is attracted to a great granite boulder set in a place of honor in the old town. When they ask about it they are told the story of Hannah Duston, heroine.

Thomas and Hannah Duston were married in 1677, and at once built a humble house of imported brick on the spot where the boulder now stands. Frequently one of the bricks is uncovered on the site; those who examine it marvel at the thought of the building material brought across the sea.

Later Thomas Duston uncovered deposits of clay near his home which led him to make experiments in brick making. He was so successful that his product was in demand; villagers said that the Haverhill bricks were fully as good as those brought from England.

Strong building material was needed, for hostile Indians were all about. In order to afford protection against them, Mr. Duston determined to build a new house, which should serve as a garrison in time of danger. By the village authorities he was appointed keeper of the garrison, as this commission shows:

"To Thomas Duston, upon the settlement of garrisons. You being appointed master of the garrison at your house, you are hereby in his Maj's name, required to see that a good watch is kept at your garrison both by night and by day by those persons hereafter named who are to be under your command and inspection in building or repairing your garrison, and if any person refuse or neglect their duty, you are accordingly required to make return of the same, under your hand to the Committee of militia in Haverhill."

The new house was well under way when this command was given. As it is still standing, it is possible to tell of its construction. A Haverhill writer says that "white oak, which is to-day well preserved, was used in its ma.s.sive framework, and the floor and roof timbers are put together with great wooden pins. In early days the windows swung outward, and the gla.s.s was very thick, and set into the frames with lead."

On March 15, 1697, the watching Indians decided that their opportunity had come to attack the village. They knew that if they waited for the completion of the new garrison, there would be little chance of success. So they struck at once.

The story of what followed was told by Cotton Mather, in his "Magnalia Christi Americana," published in London in 1702:

"On March 15, 1697, the Salvages made a Descent upon the Skirts of Haverhil, Murdering and Captiving about Thirty-nine Persons, and Burning about half a Dozen Houses. In the Broil, one Hannah Dustan having lain-in about a Week, attended with her Nurse, Mary Neffe a Widow, a Body of terrible Indians drew near unto the House where she lay, with Design to carry on their b.l.o.o.d.y Devastations. Her Husband hastened from his Employment abroad unto the relief of his Distressed Family; and first bidding Seven of his Eight Children (which were from Two to Seventeen Years of Age) to get away as fast as they could into some Garrison in the Town, he went in to inform his Wife of the horrible Distress come upon them. E'er he could get up, the fierce Indians were got so near, that utterly despairing to do her any Service, he ran out after his Children.... He overtook his children about Forty Rod from his Door, ... a party of Indians came up with him; and now though they Fired at him, and he Fired at them, yet he Manfully kept at the Reer of his Little Army of Unarmed Children, while they Marched off with the Pace of a Child of Five Years Old; until, by the Singular Providence of G.o.d, he arrived safe with them all unto a Place of Safety about a Mile or two from his House....

"The Nurse, trying to escape with the New-born Infant, fell into the Hands of the Formidable Salvages; and those furious Tawnies coming into the House, bid poor Dustan to rise immediately....

"Dustan (with her Nurse) ... travelled that Night about a Dozen Miles, and then kept up with their New Masters in a long Travel of an Hundred and Fifty Miles....

"The poor Women had nothing but Fervent Prayers to make their Lives Comfortable or Tolerable, and by being daily sent out upon Business, they had Opportunities together and asunder to do like another Hannah, in pouring out their Souls before the Lord."

The Indians were "now Travelling with these Two Captive Women, (and an English Youth taken from Worcester a Year and half before,) unto a Rendezvous of Salvages which they call a Town somewhere beyond Penacook; and they still told, these poor Women, that when they came to this Town they must be Stript, and Scourg'd, and Run the Gantlet through the whole Army of Indians. They said this was the Fas.h.i.+on when the Captives first came to a Town;...

"But on April 30, while they were yet, it may be, about an Hundred and Fifty Miles from the Indian Town, a little before break of Day, when the whole Crew was in a Dead Sleep ... one of these Women took up a Resolution to imitate the Action of Jael upon Sisera; and being where she had not her own Life secured by any Law unto her, she thought she was not forbidden by any Law to take away the Life of the Murderers.... She heartened the Nurse and the Youth to a.s.sist her in this Enterprize; and all furnis.h.i.+ng themselves with Hatchets for the purpose, they struck such home Blows upon the Heads of their Sleeping Oppressors, that e'er they could any of them struggle into any effectual resistance, at the Feet of those poor Prisoners, they bow'd, they fell, they lay down; at their Feet they bowed, they fell; where they bowed, there they fell down Dead."

One old squaw and a boy of eleven escaped to the forest. The scalps were not taken at first, but soon Hannah Duston returned to the camp and gathered the trophies, in order that she might claim the bounty offered by the colony for the scalps of hostile Indians. Then all the Indians' canoes were scuttled, their arms were taken, and the party of three embarked.

Day after day they paddled down the Merrimac, the three taking turns in the unaccustomed labour. At night they paused to rest. Cautiously a fire was kindled, and food was cooked. Always they feared discovery by the bands of Indians. Two slept, while a third stood guard. But no Indians appeared.

At last the home village was in sight. The wondering villagers came out to see who the visitors could be. Their astonishment and delight can be imagined.

The General a.s.sembly of Ma.s.sachusetts voted Mrs. Duston twenty-five pounds' reward, while a similar amount was divided between Mrs. Neff and the boy Samuel Lennardson. Later the governor of Maryland sent Mrs. Duston a silver tankard.

The Duston descendants, who hold a reunion every year, prize these souvenirs. But most of all they prize a letter (the original of which is in the possession of the Haverhill Historical Society) written by Mrs. Duston in 1723, in which she gave a wonderful testimony to G.o.d's goodness to her and hers. This is the message she gave to children and grandchildren: