Author: Sarah Currie

We hope you have had a peaceful, almost summer, week and that you were able to find last week’s site, Riverbend Farmhouse and Tavern, located on Simonds Road.

This week’s site is a bit more difficult to locate, though it is located near the center of the town’s commercial district.

The building in question is just one of several houses in town to contain remnants of an original “regulation house.”

What was a “regulation house”? In the 1750’s, when the British crown colonized this area, only white men were able to “own” land.  Land in what became Williamstown was sold by the Massachusetts Bay colony to these men through a lottery and they had to quickly erect a building on the site to stake their claim. A regulation house was the smallest structure you could build to satisfy that requirement. The settlers then built larger homes around that original structure.

The 1753 House on Field Park is a replica of a regulation house. It was built by volunteers using 18th century methods and tools to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the first proprietors’ meeting in 1953.  The photos below show the construction process and the building’s interior.  A visit to 1753 house is a must if you are spending time in Williamstown!

This week’s historic site is a structure that contains the frame of a regulation house built around 1767. The timbers of the regulation house lie fairly deeply buried here, and this is not the only building in town to contain remnants of a regulation house.

You can tell just looking at the outside of the 1753 House, such a building would have been cramped quarters for even a couple, let alone a large colonial era family. But the regulation houses were just the first step in staking claim to a land grant, and our earliest landowners were soldiers from Fort Massachusetts and the West Hoosuck Fort. Even if they were married and had children, it was unlikely that their families were with them here in the “wilderness” at first.

A regulation house was never intended to be a home. It was a quick structure to establish land ownership that would then be expanded to house a family. There are several homes in Williamstown that started life as regulation houses.

Thanks to Michael Miller for an inside look at our historic building for this week, which used to belong to his family. His comments have been edited to keep the location of the marker and the building a secret. Have you found it yet?

“The only part of the original home, owned since the 1870s by my great-grandparents, grandparents, and lastly my parents, is the smaller portion on the north side. In the “tear-down” photo you can see the original beams of the ‘regulation house’ that remains.

Following the “tear-down” photo you see the original house (with additions marked in color by Mike) from around 1900, followed by the same photo without the markings, and then a view of the building in its saltbox configuration.

From Mike: “The ‘babe in arms’ is my great aunt Catharyn Welch, born in 1899…Our family owned all the corner lot and the next two lots heading west…(former Norton and Los properties).”

From the Collection of James and Michael Miller, c. 1973

Thanks to our friend and neighbor Dick Steege for this article “The Life of a House” explaining how and why regulation houses were built and expanded over the centuries in our community.

The Life of a House by Dick Steege

From the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS) records of the Inventory of Historic Assets of the Commonwealth and National Register of Historic Places for The Massachusetts Historical Commission (MHC) 1998:

The structure presently at *** Street…is a recent recreation of 18th-century domestic architecture which incorporates into its fabric framing members of an authentic ca. 1770 residence…

During the comparatively peaceful period between the close of the Seven Years War and the onset of the Revolution, settlers streamed into Williamstown. In 1765, 285 residents inhabited 54 houses; by 1770, the population had doubled, and 30 more houses were erected. By 1774, Williamstown’s 1,015 residents occupied some 137 houses. Many of those newcomers were drawn from points south, and many were artisans who brought specialized skills to the village economy.

One of those men was cordwainer Isaac Searle, who came to Williamstown from Northampton and erected a portion of this house about 1770. Subsequent occupants included the families of Enos Wells, Joseph Osborne, William Touser, George Goodman, Norman Nichols (like Searle, an artisan; Nichols was a jeweler), and Electa Drury.

In the mid-19th century, the property passed to the family of blacksmith Michael Welch, who moved to Williamstown from Pownal, Vermont about 1868, and established his residence here, as well as a thriving shop just north…at the foot of Cole Hill.

In the late 1880s, Maggie Welch, like many women who at the turn of the century desired an occupation that would not require them to work out of the home, opened a dressmaking establishment here, assisted by her sister and neighbor Mary Welch Pike as well as Kate Donahue and Nellie Madden.

The house remained in the Welch family until the 1970s, when it was purchased by Bruce Grinnell for his offices. In 1975, the building underwent major alterations.

The Mass. Historical Commission Survey also details the 1975 overhaul of the “oldest house in town” and the North Adams Transcript covered the controversy surrounding it. Have you located the building and the historic marker yet?

“The structure presently at *** Street…is a recent recreation of 18th-century domestic architecture which incorporates into its fabric framing members of an authentic ca. 1770 residence. The newest sections of the building recreate the appearance of a two-story, side-gable, 4/4 center-chimney, Georgian-era dwelling with a on- and-a-half story rear ell. Window and door surrounds on the Latham Street facade are pedimented. Double-gable dormers are set into the one-and-a-half story ell roofline. The 18th-century framing materials are largely found in the northernmost section of the present building, today a wide, three-bay, center- chimney structure with its gable end…

In 1975, the building underwent major alterations. Nineteenth and 20th-century additions and alterations to the ca. 1770 structure were stripped away, until only the frame of the original building remained. The new and much larger building, designed by Twanette Garvey, incorporated the original post and structure into an “ell” on the north (rear) facade…The larger, two-story section was entirely new.”

Have you spotted this week’s historical marker at the corner of Latham and Water Streets? It is the northernmost portion of the house that faces east on Water Street that contains the timbers from the original 1770 regulation house.

There are many other homes in town that contain remnants of regulation houses or other colonial era structures. Here are photos of just a few of them. Take a drive down West Main Street, around the town center, and down Water Street/Green River Road to South Williamstown and keep your eyes open!

Final words from the Massachusetts Historical Commission:
“This property has been altered to the extent that its material integrity has been severely compromised. Its location and early history, however, would qualify it to contribute to the potential Town Center Historic District. The Town Center Historic District is a potential historic district that began to develop ca. 1765 and continued to the present as an industrial, commercial and working-class residential area. The district is important as the gathering place for groups from every section of the community that contributed to Williamstown’s labor history and civic development, as well as its social and recreational life.”

1136 Main Street

1165 Main Street

1166 Main Street

1174 Main Street

1192 Main Street

Have you found the site and its marker, located at 95 Water Street, at the Corner of Latham and Water Streets?  If you find it, we encourage you to photograph the building and its marker and email the images to the Williamstown Historical Museum at info@williamstownhistoricalmuseum.org so we may add it to our current day images of the town’s historic sites.  Thank you!

We hope you have had a good week and that you were able to find last week’s historic site, located on the western end of Main Street, the site of the first proprietor’s meeting.  Our next historical marker is located at River Bend Farm or Simonds’ Tavern. Built in 1770 by Benjamin Simonds (1725/6-1807), the house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Can you locate this marker? (Hint: It is NOT at the location of Simonds’ first home, pictured here.)

At the time Benjamin Simonds built his River Bend Tavern in the White Oaks section of Williamstown, there were at least three other taverns operating here, all but one at the confluence of important waterways. All or some portion of three of those four taverns are still standing today.

As you read the following paragraph, it is important to remember that colonial taverns were only accessible to white men.

Taverns were important outlets for gathering information in an age before the wide distribution of newspapers and tavern keepers were often trusted informants and confidants as well as fountains of information about the political and social turmoil of the time. Despite efforts by Puritan reformers to close taverns to reduce public drunkness and prevent anarchy, almost all politicians found it necessary to visit them if they wanted any real contact with the public.

In South Williamstown, Samuel Sloan’s tavern sat at the confluence of the east and west branches of the Green River and at the crossroads of the north/south roadway that is now US Route 7 and the roads east to Troy, NY, and other Hudson River port cities.

Site of former Sloan Tavern

Nehemiah Smedley’s tavern sat close to the confluence of the Green and Hoosic Rivers, on the Mohawk Trail, a centuries old east/west trade route.

Smedley Tavern

Josiah Horsford’s tavern, the only one not still standing, sat in the center of Williamstown, on the northeast corner of the junction of Main and North Streets (now Routes 2 & 7), where the Greylock Quad now sits. At that time Main Street continued west over the Taconic Range to Petersburgh NY and on to Troy. This tavern was kitty-corner to the meeting house which was the seat of town government at that time.

Views of River Bend Farm (Simonds Tavern) over the years. The 1876 map shows the farm under the ownership of J. L. Cole, who sold the property shortly thereafter, disillusioned by the incursion of the railroad and opening of the gravel bed. The large number of different Cole families owning property along what is now US Route 7 (Simonds Road) lent the area the name Coleville.

 

We bet this week’s historical marker will be puzzling to folks for many reasons. Where was Seth Hudson’s house? Who was Seth Hudson? Who were our first settlers? Who were the West Hoosac Proprietors?

And, most importantly, what is/was a Proprietor?

Here’s what Roy Hidemichi Akagi said in The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies (1924, University of Pennsylvania Press) which is still the authoritative work on this topic.

“[In 1753] the majority of land grants from the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were made to groups or communities for the purpose of the formation of new plantations and townships. The grantees of these township and plantation grants became known as the proprietors.

These grants gave to the proprietors both necessary ownership and local government powers. This meant that the next stage in the evolution of title was grants from the town proprietors.

Originally, there was no difference between the town and the proprietors, so that a grant from the town was a grant from the proprietors. But as the towns grew and persons who were not among the original grantees of the township came to live in the town, a difference arose between those having the right to vote as to town administration and business affairs and those who had ownership rights in the town lands.

Gradually a separation occurred and the proprietors claimed the exclusive right to convey the land belonging to the original grantees. With their organization as an independent body, they rather than the town members, exercised jurisdiction over the common and undivided lands in any township.”

If you are interested to read further, Akagi’s book is available as a free, downloadable PDF here:The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies

A close up from the 1776 map of our region in Jeffrey’s “The American Atlas: Or, A Geographical Description Of The Whole Continent Of America.”

Who were the West Hoosuck/Hoosac proprietors?

According to Arthur Latham Perry in “Williamstown and Williams College,” 1899″

“…on the 10th of September, 1753, the House of Representatives at Boston voted that William Williams [of Pittsfield, first cousin once removed of Ephraim Williams], “one of his Majesty’s justices of the peace for the County of Hampshire [it was eight years later when Berkshire County was set off], issue his warrant for calling a meeting of the proprietors of the west township of Hoosac so-called…

This vote was concurred in by Governor [William] Shirley and the Council the same day ; and on November 15, 1753, [Williams] issued his warrant to Isaac Wyman of West Hoosac, requiring him “to notify and warn the proprietors of said township that they assemble at the house of Mr. Seth Hudson in said township on Wednesday, the fifth day of December next at nine of the clock in the forenoon to act”…

Such meeting was accordingly holden at that time and place, and inaugurated a successful local self-government, which continued for twelve years the sole authority within “the west township of Hoosac.”

Portrait of William Shirley (1694-1771),
colonial governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay
by Thomas Hudson, 1750, from the National Portrait Gallery

The proprietors mentioned by name in the record of their first meeting…are : Allen Curtis, Seth Hudson, Isaac Wyman, Jonathan Meacham, Ezekiel Foster, Jabez Warren, Samuel Taylor, Gideon Warren, Thomas Train, Josiah Dean, Ebenezer Graves, — eleven [white] men.

With the exception of Allen Curtis, who was the moderator of the meeting, and who not very long after returned to his former prominent position as a citizen in Canaan, Connecticut, all these had been soldiers in Fort Massachusetts before and all took military service in some form when the French War broke out again in 1754.”

Etching of Colonel William Williams (1710-1785)

Thanks to Patricia Leach and The Clark​ Art Institute for this glimpse of the West Hoosuck Proprietors’ Book and a surveyor’s chain.

“The organization of a village and government had been approved on September 10, 1753, and a meeting of the proprietors was called to ‘determine upon a division of land or part of the lands in said township.’

Over the course of years to come, lands were divided many times and in a number of ways. About a quarter of the first lots were offered to soldiers from Fort Massachusetts in lieu of pay in cash, while many others were sold via lottery in the eastern part of the bay colony. Some of the other first lots were sold to settlers from Canaan, Wethersfield, and New London, Connecticut.

Further divisions of lands were devised to equitably allot the natural resources of the township so that each of the proprietors received a share of fresh meadowland, prime agricultural land, other agricultural lands, pine woodlot, oak woodlot, and forested land on steep slopes.

Lots were measured using a surveyor’s chain, and the measurements were recorded in this book.”

Audio File of Pat Leach’s excerpt on the surveyor’s chain.

You can learn more about the exhibit that included the surveyor’s chain here:
Clark Art Sensing Place Exhibit

Let’s meet the eleven white men who were the Proprietors of West Hoosuck at the first meeting in December, 1753. In 1753 the Massachusetts Bay Colony would only allow white men to own land in its boundaries.

ALLEN CURTIS, the moderator of the meeting, was the only Proprietor not to have been a solider at Fort Massachusetts. He was born on May 18, 1708 in Wethersfield, CT and died in 1783 in Canaan, CT. He hosted the second Proprietors meeting at his home, which stood directly across Hemlock Brook from Seth Hudson’s house.

“Captain Curtis brought his military title from Connecticut, and after a couple of years carried it back there, where he honored it by a life of usefulness.” – Arthur Latham Perry, “Origins in Williamstown,” 1894.

“The infighting between the settlers of West Hoosuck…and the powers in Fort Massachusetts continued unabated…The continuing friction was most evident between natives of Connecticut, who were in the ascendancy in West Hoosuck, and the ‘Bay’ natives at Fort Massachusetts.” – Michael D. Coe, “The Line of Forts,” 2006 (See illustration of the line of forts.)

SETH HUDSON treated soldiers at both Fort Massachusetts and Fort Hoosuck. A bill for his medical services survives and is pictured here. He was very influential in the settlement of our town and the last survivor of the original proprietors. In 1756, upon the death of William Chidester, Hudson became the commander of the fort at West Hoosuck.

ISAAC WYMAN, the clerk of that first Proprietors meeting, was the second in command at Fort Massachusetts, having been appointed by Ephraim Williams, Jr.. Born January 18, 1725 in Woburn, MA and died March 31, 1792 in Keene, NH, he married Sarah Wells in 1754 in Deerfield, MA, where the first of their ten children was born. The second was born here in “Hoosuck, Massachusetts” and remaining eight were born in Keene.

“…during the decade of the 1750’s…rancor grew between Williams loyalists like Captain Isaac Wyman and an anti-Williams group led by Seth Hudson.” – Coe “The Line of Forts” 2006

“Wyman…commenced [building] pretty soon on his lot, No. 2, which stretched along flanking North Street on the west side, and the front of which is now graced by the lodge of Kappa Alpha.” – Perry, Origins in Williamstown, 1894

“After 1759 [Wyman] continued to farm the ten acres surrounding Fort Massachusetts (acreage tat had originally been set aside for the use of the fort), but on November 13, 1761, he sold all his West Hoosuck property and moved to Keene.” – Coe “The Line of Forts” 2006

In 1762 Wyman opened a tavern on Main Street in Keene, which is now a museum (see photo). In 1770, the tavern was the gathering place for the first meeting of Dartmouth College’s Trustees. Although advanced in years, Wyman marched at the head of his company to Lexington in 1775, and later served in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

In “Origins in Williamstown (1894) Arthur Latham Perry wrote:” EZEKIEL FOSTER was from Fall Town, now Bernardston and quite constantly a sentinel in the line of forts from the beginning to the end. He drew house lot no. 13 in the original ‘lotting’ of West Hoosac…he was one of the first ‘eleaven families of us,’ already domiciled at West Hoosac, who petitioned Governor Shirley from Fort Massachusetts to which these families ‘ran for shelter upon the late alarm’ in October, 1754, for aid and military encouragement to ‘return to our settlements at the west town.’ Foster became a considerable landowner and a prominent citizen of Williamstown…”

Foster sold Lot No. 13 to Allen Curtis, another original Proprietor, but he “…continued a settler and citizen for many years. but bought lands, and had a home in different parts of town.”

Thanks to Paul W. Marino for a comprehensive, illustrated look at Fort Massachusetts.  Fort Massachusetts by Paul Marino

Postcard depicting 1930’s reconstruction of Fort Massachusetts.

JABEZ and GIDEON WARREN came from Connecticut via Brimfield, MA, and ended their lives in Vermont. Jabez was Gideon’s father, and another son, Jabez, Jr. also moved here, which adds to some confusion since our early records are incomplete.

West Hoosac House-Lots with Proprietors’ names highlighted. From “The Hoosac Valley: Its Legends and Its History” by Grace Greylock Niles, 1912

Manuscript map by Albany surveyor John Rutse Bleecker, showing Fort Massachusetts and the Hoosick circa 1745-55, around the time Williamstown (West Hoosac) was settled. Chapin Library collection.

 Here we meet some of our founding mothers for the first time, and encounter names – Blair, Meacham, and Simonds – which remain on our maps today.

JOSIAH DEAN was among the first European settlers to be granted land in what is now Hancock, and he may be the same man of that name to buy at auction in Boston the land that became the towns of Lenox and Richmond for £2,550.

His most significant action in West Hoosuck (Williamstown) was selling Lot 44 to Daniel and William Horsford of Canaan, CT, for “£260 Connecticut money old tenor.” That is the lot on which the Williams College Presidents’ house now sits. William and Esther Smedley Horsford became the second white couple to start a family in town.

JONATHAN MEACHAM, originally from New Salem, MA, bought house lot No. 43 from Seth Hudson for £5, and built his home very close to where West College now stands. Meacham most likely encountered the same problems finding water that the college did, and so he moved to lot No. 49, close to what was called the “college spring.” Later he went to farm on Bee Hill, where many generations of the Hickox family later lived.

Meacham and his wife, Thankful Rugg, were original members of the church, but in February of 1779 a committee was formed “to wait upon Jonathan Meacham to enquire the reason of his absenting himself from communion.” The Meachams were not dismissed from the church, but “are designated among those ‘removed to distant parts.'” While his cousin, James Meacham, “left a large posterity which has continued to be identified with the town…Jonathan left none.”

Jonathan Meacham was with Ephraim Williams at the Battle of Lake George in 1755.

THOMAS TRAIN, born August 1727, was originally from Weston, MA. After an engagement went awry, Train enlisted and came to serve at Fort Massachusetts, where he drew house lot No. 30 in West Hoosuck, close by Benjamin Simonds and his family.

Although he was twenty-four years her senior, Train married 19-year-old Rachel Simonds, daughter of Benjamin and Mary Davis Simonds, the first child born to a European settler in town. They set up housekeeping on the southern slope of Townsend Hill (lot No. 63) where their daughter Sarah “Sally” Train was born in October 1772, exactly nine months after her parents’ wedding.

Before Sally was born Thomas Train had gone off to Virginia and acquired “a good title to some lands.” But on his return journey north he apparently died “and lies buried no one knows where.”

After two or three years of widowhood Rachel married Benjamin Skinner and Sally was raised with the children of that marriage. In July 1792 Sally married William Blair and died in 1864, at the age of 91 “universally respected and beloved.” Her tombstone in Westlawn Cemetery is pictured. Her husband, her son James, her mother, and many other family members are also buried in town.

The museum collection contains a linen sheet from the Blair farm. The flax to make the sheet was grown, processed, and woven in Williamstown by Maria Blair who was the daughter of Sally and William Blair.

Born in 1716 in Northfield, MA, Sergeant SAMUEL TAYLOR served at both Fort Massachusetts and West Hoosuck Fort, where he was the first commander, continuously from 1746-1757. His wife was with him much of the time and their daughter Susanna was born in Fort Massachusetts in 1754, and their son, Elias, in West Hoosuck Fort two years later. Elias Taylor was the first white male baby born in this community.

The year after Elias was born Seth Hudson recounts that Taylor was ordered by Isaac Wyatt to forcibly remove Jabez Warren and his family from rooms William Chidester had agreed they could occupy in his home. According to Hudson’s account, Taylor “…Halled out man, woman & Children Stole their Cloaths & broke to bitts & Destroyed some of Mr. Chidester’s goods…”Not surprisingly, Taylor moved his family out of town shortly thereafter.

Samuel Taylor was the first owner of lot No. 63 at the junction of Hopper Brook and the Green River, known as “The Crotch” or “Taylor’s Crotch” and now called Sweet’s Corners (see map). Ten acres there were set aside as a “Mill Lot.” After the Taylor family moved away, Asa Douglass of Hancock, the father-in-law of Samuel Sloan, purchased an interest in this lot. On October 15, 1767, the proprietors voted to grant William, John, and Peter Kreiger, a Dutch family who operated Kreiger Rock Mill in Pownal, “liberty to sett up a corn-mill and saw-mill at Taylor’s Crotch” before August 1st of the following year.

Water-powered mills of all varieties were vitally important to the growth of towns in the 18th and 19th centuries. Our most recent WHM newsletter contains a fascinating article on the early mills of Williamstown by Mary Fuqua.  Early Williamstown Mills article.

EBENEZER GRAVES, was born March 15, 1726 in Hatfield, MA. He served at Fort Massachusetts from 1746-1752. Graves was one of the thirteen original settlers of West Hoosuck to build regulation house here between September of 1752 and September of 1753, having drawn lots Nos. 53 & 56. In January, 1753, he married Prudence Hastings of Greenfield, where the couple later settled and where Graves died on October 19, 1814, aged 88 years.

The original house in which the First Proprietors meeting took place was moved to Bulkley Street from the southeast corner of the Hemlock Brook bridge on Main Street via Hemlock Brook.  The current address of the building (or what might remain of it within) is 56 Bulkley Street, and is drastically changed from the original regulation house.

 

The map below shows the path of the move of the Seth Hudson House down Hemlock Brook to Bulkley Street.

If you can find the site of the First Proprietor’s Meeting, and its marker, we hope you will send a picture to us at info@williamstownhsitoricalmuseum.org.  For extra credit, can you find the “new” location of the house on Bulkley Street?