8 Nie Oo Rei 
Noted Old Revolutionary Houses of Cape Ann Still Exist 
S H OR E 
Bie Aaa 
BY MARY TAYLOR FALT 
HE Ellery house on Washington street, Glouces- 
ter, located on the ‘‘Green’’ or the famous 
‘‘Meetinghouse Green’’ of colonial history, has 
a very interesting connection with the traditions 
of the olden times in that city. It was the original home 
of the first pastor of Gloucester’s first parish, Rev. John 
White, whose long and peaceful ministry lasted fifty 
years. He was born in Watertown in 1678, and was 
eraduated at Harvard College in 1698. He was or- 
dained in Gloucester, April 21, 1703. This venerable, 
colonial divine lived to the advanced age of 83 years 
and his ‘‘learned, pious, humble, prudent and faithful’’ 
characteristics made him one of the most useful men in 
the broadening aspects of colonization in Gloucester. 
Some of his learned religious productions have come 
down to us in printed form. 
Rev. John White’s parsonage later became the home 
of Capt. Wm. Ellery, who followed the sea and lke- 
wise conducted one of the noted Colonial taverns of 
Gloucester. Today this famous old house is standing 
and its external appearance is significant of its 
antiquity. 
The lineal descendants of the original Wm. Ellery, 
who settled in Gloucester before 1663, have two ances- 
tors of distinectionn—Wm. Ellery Channing, D.D., the 
Gistinguished theologian and divine, and Wm. Ellery of 
Newport,—who was a great grandson of the original 
settler, was noted as a signer of the Declaration of In- 
dependence. 
The old ‘‘Witch House’’ or ‘‘Garrison House’’ at 
Pigeon Cove, Rockport, revives the traditions of the 
eolonial seafarers, who discovered the merits of Rock- 
port’s shores and waters for maritime pursuits and who 
aided in founding her first settlement known as Sandy 
Ray, a territory fertile for planting with primeval for- 
ests and with the broad Atlantic, in all her varying 
moods, at her very footstool, assets for founding the 
fourishing town now such a rapidly growing and such 
a popular summer resort. 
The first two permanent settlers of Rockport were 
Richard Tarr in 1697, and John Pool in 1700, and their 
numerous descendants are still among the leading citi- 
zens of Rockport. 
During the Witcheraft era of 1692, the old 
‘* Witch House,’’ later called the ‘‘Garrison House,’’ on 
Pigeon Hill, Pigeon Cove, Rockport, according to tradi- 
tron, concealed a Salem woman accused of witchcraft, 
her sons bringing her there for safety and retirement. 
The old ‘‘Garrison’’ or ‘‘Witch House’’ stands in 
a field bordering on Granite street and nearby and 
across the street from the modern summer mansion of 
Clarence W. Seamans, of Brooklyn, N. Y. It is said 
te be one of the oldest, if not the oldest house on Cape 
‘im. There are old trees in the yard and the house 
has been modified considerably, but its thick oak walls, 
low-studded rooms, great corner posts, cross-beams, 
chimneys and small window frames are significant of 
its antiquity. 
Joshua Norwood, another early Rockport settler, 
lived in this old house, afterward enlarging and improv- 
ing it and for some length of time made it his home. 
In 1740, he left it and bought land at Gap Head on the 
Straitsmouth end of Rockport, and settled there with 
his son, Joshua, in that section of the Sandy Bay settle- 
ment which now embraces Marmion Way, one of Rock-_ 
port’s leading summer resort sections with its fine array 
of summer homes and its picturesque Straitsmouth Inn 
on its bold and rocky promontory. 
The old ‘‘ Witch House’’ is still a landmark of great 
interest in a growing summer community and has itself 
dispensed summer hospitality to many men eminent for 
taste and culture. 
Another tradition, which introduces the former 
owner of the Witch House in relation to Rockport’s 
early history, was Joshua Norwood’s purchase of land 
a: Straitsmouth from the ‘‘Chebacco fishermen,’’ who 
were believed to have been Jefford Cogswell, Jacob Per- 
Lins and James Smith of Ipswich, who purchased the 
oviginal land from John Babson, who had a grant at 
Straitsmouth in 1695, 
Either Babson or a member of his family were at- 
tacked one day by a bear. and after a terrible struggle 
with their wild antagonist succeeded in slaying him 
with a knife. His skin was preserved and laid out on 
the rocks near the sea to dry. This neck of land was 
plainly visible to the fishermen, who frequented Sandy 
Bay’s shores and they gave it the name of Bearskin 
Neck, from this incident, the name it now bears. 
The old Revolutionary House on Middle street, 
Gloucester, is quite the most interesting and notable of 
the trio of houses described in this article and stands 
out as a refreshing landmark of the old fishing port’s 
quaint and individual, by-gone days. 
The ‘‘Old Revolutionary House’’ was originally 
built for John Stevens, a Gloucester merchant and 
trader, who had a hazardous business career and be- 
came a bankrupt. To avoid arrest for debt, he fled in 
a vessel belonging to his father-in-law to St. Eustatia, 
where he died. His foreign voyages were of some frui- 
licn, however, for all the beautiful woodwork of this old 
mansion was brought from abroad. 
Ionic and Corinthian pillars adorn the beautiful 
portio which faced the harbor in the olden days, and 
the ground sloped to the water to ‘‘Front street,’’? now 
Gloucester’s busy Main street, the grounds being laid 
cut in terraces and tastefully arranged flower plots. 
‘he old portico still remains and a portion of the 
terraces. The old mansion, which has been preserved, 
consists of nineteen rooms and was hand-made through- 
out as itspresent substantial appearance attests and is 
as habitable as when the old merchant erected it. To 
éppreciate its rich colonial charms, one must personally 
examine the beautifully carved and decorative mantles, 
the exquisitively hand-carved staircase, the beautifully 
frosted window on its first landing surmounted by the 
Corinthian pillars. 
. It is not surprising that the merchant’s widow, who 
was Judith Sargent, the daughter of his close friend, 
Winthrop Sargent, born in 1751, should have won the 
beart of Rev. John Murray, the founder of Universalism 
in America, the site of whose first church of that de- 
nomination which bears the modern church of that name 
stands today nearly opposite the ‘‘Old Revolutionary 
House,’’ a lasting monument of his endeavors to found 
that denomination with Gloucester, the initial locality, 
for his religious activities in that direction. 
(Continued on Page 39). 
