THE DWELLING HOUSE
The area around the house and barn had been cleared for farming and
other uses, totaling perhaps twelve acres. The contour of this land
is relatively flat, a somewhat rare occurrence here, and possibly a
major reason for its selection for a farm and dwelling. Initially such
clearing was backbreaking work requiring many years, using the stump
burning methods and removal by oxen if available, or planting around
the stumps which would eventually rot. Most of this land today except
for four or five acres around the house has reverted to forest and high
white pine trees. I have some photographs taken perhaps a hundred years
ago which show open fields with crops at that time. From about 1870 on
it is evident that farming came to a gradual halt.
In this woodland before settlement there had been a small piece of
meadow by the Pond as described in the Churchill deed. Some patches
of this meadow grass are still growing. This was a treeless area with
rich soil and some moisture. The Pond could supply water for cattle and
crops, a supply of which was necessary for any husbandman to succeed.
Perhaps it can be said that the ponds supplied a source of food from
the abundant fish available which could be caught in great quantity.
There was also an ice house near the shore of the Pond in the old
photographs. If the settlers took time for bathing and swimming it
would be delightful.
There is now an oil painting on canvas in the house showing the house
and surroundings from a distance in the east front. This was painted by
Alonzo Warren in 1884. Its many colors with full sky and a glimpse of
South Pond give it a landscape effect.
In an article that appeared in the _Boston Sunday Globe_ Magazine
of November 19, 1972, Jeff Wylie wrote about archaeological diggings in
old Plymouth. He indicates that Dr. James Deetz, Assistant Director of
Plimoth Plantation and professor of anthropology at Brown University
has a hypothesis that three periods of culture emerged. In the first
period, 1620-1660, yeomen were predominant, conservative in customs
and deeply rooted in the medieval tradition. From 1660-1760 an
Anglo-American culture began to emerge. “It was a typical folk culture,
so resistant to change that in the rural areas of New England it
persisted until past the middle of the 18th century.” The third period
from 1760 through 1835 was one in which the impact of the Renaissance,
in the form of the Georgian tradition finally reached the deep
countryside of New England. The reign of George I began in 1714 and
the elite of that period built houses of the type known as Georgian,
but it was not until the latter half of the century that the medieval
tradition in the rural areas began to give way to the new style.
In a conversation I had with Susan Burgess during her visit here in
1962 she pointed out that the dwelling house was not the conventional
farm type house but rather traced its design to Georgian influences
in England of a slightly earlier period. I believe her evaluation to
have been a correct one. The main part of the house is two full stories
with attic above and has a plain Georgian classic simplicity. By 1769,
the date of the building of the house, such a design was culturally
possible.
Those who are familiar with Eleazer Wheelock and the founding of
Dartmouth College in Hanover, N. H., are aware that the year 1769 also
marks that date. The present weather vane on the barn depicts Eleazer
Wheelock, the Indian Ocean, the old pine, the barrel of rum in the
starting of the college.
[Illustration]
I would like to describe the house. It was built on a slight rise
of ground on three sides, providing excellent drainage under the
foundation, well preserved to the present. There were supporting
beams used over large field stones spaced randomly. The main house,
rectangular in shape, running about 75 feet north to south faced east.
It contains a large attic, used in the 1850’s or earlier for weaving
and sewing activities. Sheep on the farm provided wool for clothing,
a universal custom in the eighteenth century. Woolen clothes were
valuable enough to be mentioned in filed inventories of estates. Indian
women from the vicinity would provide help for these activities.
On the front on each floor there are two windows left of the front door
and one to the right. Continuing on the front northward is a kitchen
with center door and window on either side. As mentioned earlier, the
kitchen seems to have been a small cottage in its own right, added to
the house at some early date. It has a slight slope from front to back,
in the wooden ceiling and in the floor. Much of the original beams
are exposed. At the west end rear of the main house was an extended
one-story with gable which had a small kitchen area, perhaps the
original one, with rear entrance to the north with its outside stepping
stone. There is a large cellar below and bulkhead entrance to it from
the west or pond side. The front of the house had a large parlor-like
room with door to the south to the side road. This room now runs along
the full south side of the house for forty-two feet. Miss Mary Burgess
told me that when she was very young, a girl came in this door riding
a small horse or pony. In the 1920’s a fireplace and hearth was added
along the north wall of the room. The room has five windows and two
glass French doors and is a most pleasant and sunny room. About a
hundred years ago it was heated with a large round stove.
[Illustration]
There is a small hall inside the front door and a stairway with curved
ceiling up to five bedrooms, one of which contains a fireplace
and small wrought iron Franklin stove that can be used on occasion.
There is a stairway up from the kitchen to the ample kitchen loft and
leading into the other rooms. Underneath the front stairs is a clothes
closet, the only one in the house, which is I believe typical of the
construction of the time.
About 1870 the one-story gabled area on the west side of the house was
altered to make a large bedroom on the second floor over the area and
the roof was extended upward to make two full stories with attic above.
The room faces the pond. Also a small room was made for a cistern to
store a water supply before the days of automatic pumps. Downstairs, in
addition to the living room is a sitting room, once used as a dining
room with an original fireplace, a small borning room on the front, now
used as a den, and the kitchen. The kitchen has five windows and two
glass Christian type doors, providing lots of morning and afternoon
sunlight with open views. The kitchen was thoroughly done over in
1961 without changing its essential appearance, pine paneled and with
a brick wall for oven and small hearth and new pine cabinets. A new
subfloor was laid and the original wide pine boards restored to their
pristine natural color and relaid.
The floor and subfloors throughout the house were made of thick wide
white pine boards of the 1760 era. For generations they were covered
with many layers of dark green paint. The paint did help to preserve
their surface. It has been a project of mine over several years to
remove the paint and restore them to their natural warm golden color.
At some time earlier in the life of the house, probably before the
1850’s, a small ell was brought down from their neighbor’s house to the
north, as recounted earlier. This had a dirt floor and was used partly
for a woodshed and storage area. It has now been made into a bathroom,
utility room and area with closets, with outside door north to the
barn.
A little more than two hundred years later the house, with its
alterations is now basically the same as it was in its first decades, a
tribute to the good workmanship of its builders and their materials.
Its beautiful setting on a rise of ground has been enhanced by the
planting over many years of a variety of trees by the Burgess family.
In fact the house has outlasted many of the first trees, such as a huge
apple tree outside the kitchen door, once as high as the house. There
is a tall catalpa between the house, planted by Mary Burgess, which is
covered in July with white blossoms. There is a tamarack or larch tree,
very tall now, a tree which the settlers called a candle tree, for when
its leaves become yellow after a frost the setting sun shining through
it gives it the appearance of a lighted candle. This tree is unusual in
that it is a deciduous conifer. In the spring it has tiny ruby blossoms
that grow into small brown cones. It drops its needles after frost.
An old wooden fence encloses an open lawn area across the front of the
house, constructed originally, I suppose, to keep the chickens and farm
animals in their proper area. Some sections have been restored, but
the original fence has great age. It is seen in the 1884 painting of
the house and probably goes back to the 1850’s. It has trumpet vines
covering it in summer which attract humming birds. Many years ago it
used to be annually painted with whitewash. There were also several
wooden hitching posts in front of it to tie up the horses, as can be
seen in the photograph.
Some bayberry shrubs spread naturally near the front side of the house.
There are a few very old apple trees flourishing on the pond side of
the house and fill the May air with blossoms. There is also a mulberry
tree of good age which produces a bumper crop of berries all during the
month of July, for birds and humans alike. There are several hemlock
and fir trees at the rear of the house which are now quite high,
providing welcome shade in the summer and greenery in the winter. An
ancient wisteria vine is alive and well and blossoms each year. It is
an indication of its vigor that a shoot has come up from underneath the
kitchen floor through a tiny seam by a supporting post and has a length
of 18 inches and many leaves.
Birds are all around the house and property. Most of the year one
can see partridges close to the house feeding on seeds and berries.
Bluejays are always around, as are chickadees and buntings. Yellow
grosbeaks come in clusters in early spring. Each year as soon as the
buds come out on the oaks a pair or two of Baltimore orioles arrive and
sing constantly until their departure about the fourth of July. Towhees
are here during the summer and the lower field has hosts of robins.
Varieties of humming birds can be seen, also infrequently a scarlet
tanager. The old maple tree is host to many woodpeckers, including the
downy variety. There are many flickers with their red heads digging
worms from the grass. Wren families and yellow finches live close to
the house. Friendly catbirds are here during the season. Occasionally
a bobwhite can be heard or seen in the yard. Mourning doves and
whippoorwills are common and the hoot or screetch of owls can be heard
on many nights.
Along our northeastern boundary which starts at the shore of South Pond
and runs easterly a distance of 1200 feet to Boot Pond Road, there is
an area of continuous high ground sloping southward at various degrees
for 300 feet or more, making a sort of wooded hillside. It has an
abundance of tall white pines which makes a sylvan grove. The ground
has become cushion-like by pine needles fallen since early times. It is
a pleasant place for quiet and revery.
[Illustration]
I would like to mention the continuous cluster of wild beach plums
along the southern side of the house near the road. Their botanical
name is _prunus maritima_, plums near the sea. They are an
indication of the age and tranquility of the house location. Whether
some were first brought here and transplanted, or more likely, by
chance arrived by natural methods is not known. We are almost five
miles from the sandy seashore which is their natural habitat. An
occasional surviving clump can still be seen in a few spots on the
incoming roads. The soil around the house seems to be hospitable for
their thriving, since there is a small residue of white sand in it, a
remnant of the scouring of the bed rock by the ice sheets. The bush has
deep tap roots going down several feet. There are also side roots for
shoots. The beach plums seem to be almost indestructible, for some were
chopped down to the base of the trunks of 3 inches in diameter, perhaps
fifty or more years ago, yet have come back to heights of 7 or 8 feet.
They have thrived and spread out over the years and run continuously
for a distance of 100 feet. Toward the end of April or early May they
are in bloom along each spikey branch for a period of two weeks. They
always bloom even if they later do not produce fruit. They are a
delightful sight.
Their fruit yield has a wide variation from year to year. Some years
there are no plums. Occasionally they are bountiful and might produce
up to a bushel or more. They are considered to be self sterile and
require cross pollination, so having blossoms from other growing things
nearby is helpful, so that the bees can act. Late spring frosts or
too much rain at the wrong time can have effects. The color of the
beach plum varies from a deep purple, light red, light green, and a
few with yellow skins. Some of this variation is due to plums maturing
at different intervals on the same bush. Their size is not uniform,
either, but most of them are hazel nut and some are like cranberries in
size.
They were noted along the shores of New York and Narragansett Bays by
John de Verrazano, the Florentine voyager, in 1524, who called them
“damson trees.” They are a fine gift from nature to this homestead.
In 1959 after being in the Burgess family for a period of 158 years,
the homestead and lands at Boot Pond were sold by Susan and Mary
Burgess to Warren Reed, Judge Paul Reardon, and Dr. Milton Brougham,
friends of mine and summer residents and neighbors of the Burgess
sisters who had spent their summers at the Pond continuously since 1918.
From them the writer bought the homestead and barn with sixteen acres
of surrounding fields and woodlands and part of the shoreline in 1959.
The house contained the furniture and household possessions, some going
back to early days and with restoration are still used. The barn,
built in the 1850’s and converted by the sisters into a studio and
recreational area can also be used as a large indoor porch in addition
to its other uses. It still has many implements used in the house and
farm from its earliest days. A lean-to, attached to the south side of
the barn when it was built, served as a buggy stall and now as a wood
shed.
One of the great pleasures that came from my purchase of the Burgess
Place was a warm friendship that developed with Charles H. Packard. He
lived close by on the Pond since the 1920’s. He was a veteran Plymouth
police officer with a host of friends and was retired when I came to
know him. He had the flavor of an earlier America about him, and was of
an open, warm, friendly disposition. He cultivated a large vegetable
garden in the open field between the house and the Pond. He was helpful
to the Burgess sisters in many ways.
He really loved this area by the Pond and it was easy for me to catch
his affection. He helped me in innumerable ways to restore the house
where repairs were needed. He was skilled in carpentry, painting,
roofing, and could fix most anything that needed fixing.
He was nearing his seventies when I first got to know him. He would
visit the house each morning and evening for friendly greetings and
conversation. He showed enthusiasm and devotion in his many projects
about this place because he was very fond of it. The pleasant memory of
Charlie Packard is a part of this homestead.
One of the seasons at the Pond I particularly enjoy is the autumn
months of September and October. Frosts usually do not occur until
about the first of November, but as the days get shorter the foliage
changes and colors are produced. Since there is such a variety of trees
and shrubs the range of colors is vast. For a period of eight weeks
every few days there are new and different delights for the eye. With
most days of clear blue skies and sunshine and pleasant temperatures
autumn can bring ecstatic experience here.