S NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
long-ago day with a cloth for the table of the great 
General Lafayette, was visiting the Lee mansion. The 
attendant who was showing her about brought her in here 
to the banquet hall and began to tell her of the entertain- 
ment of Lafayette. The visitor listened, smilingly, then 
finished the story by telling that she had the cloth that 
had been so honored. She told, too, what her grand- 
mother had told her of the bustle and preparation of that 
night and of how, instead of going home, as she was bid, 
she had stayed to help in passing the dishes to the great 
table. When she was going the visitor offered the prized 
cloth of her great grandmother to the old house where 
its won its glory. 
From the banquet hall we pass into the family 
dining room. It is smaller and its windows look out 
on the old-fashioned garden. At the right of its fire- 
place a panel slips out on invisible hinges and discloses 
the iron doors of a safe where, in case of danger, the 
family silver might be quickly hidden. 
Across the hall, at the rear, is the kitchen. It bears 
no resemblance to the kitchenette of our acquaintance, 
but it is small in proportion with the size of the house, 
and its fireplace could hardly have served to cook for 
the family of eight children and the retinue of servants 
that constituted Col. Lee’s household—to say nothing of 
the guests that his hospitality made welcome at all times. 
It is probable, therefore, that its purpose was to keep 
dishes warm for the family table and that the cook 
house was situated in the brick building at the left of 
the mansion, where the slaves were housed. Col. Lee 
kept as many as forty slaves, we are told, who worked 
at loading and unloading his merchant ships and served 
in various capacities about the great house. 
A door at the right of the kitchen leads to the hali 
of the side entrance to the house. Across this narrow 
entry is the parlor or reception room, which opens also 
on the great front hall. Here, too, are deep window 
seats and a wide fireplace. The wainscoting, the beauti- 
fully carved frieze and the Corinthian columns that flank 
the fireplace are all in white. A charming room it must 
have been when Mistress Lee was hostess here. Many 
a sociable dish of tea was taken beside its glowing 
hearth when the long, shadowy fingers of twilight came 
to draw away the reluctant day, and many a nightly 
gathering, lighted by scores of candles, made of it a 
brilliant spectacle. 
We have made the circle of the lower story and are 
once more in the wide entrance hall. The low-stepping 
staircase invites us to explore the upper part of the 
house, and thoughts of other days come crowding as 
we make the ascent. Reverently we touch the hand-rail 
and think of the many, long-still fingers that smoothed 
its polished surface in the countless, daily journeyings 
up and down; the stately Mistress Lee in her trailing 
silken gown, coming down to a dinner of state; the great- 
hearted Lafayette ascending to repair the damage to his 
toilet after his long ride to the banquet in his honor; 
the little Lee children, with small hands clutching the 
rail, making careful progress up or down; and, later, 
when Chief Justice Sewall owned the house, the slow 
processiqn of sad-hearted widows and fatherless children, 
the latter eager-eyed and curious, to whom he opened 
the great house when the terrific gale of 1846 had robbed 
them of the husbands and fathers who were their shields 
against the world. 
Upstairs,°on the second story, we find the same 
generous proportions that characterize the lower part of 
the mansion. Off the wide hall the bedrooms open; there, 
over the banquet hall, the state chamber and here a 
smaller one, over the parlor, while the bedroom that is 
Aug. 4, 1916. 
supposed to have been used by Mistress Lee is over 
the dining room and has a small dressing room opening 
off it. ‘Lhe stairway to the third story runs from a 
small side hall, which connects the smaller front bed- 
room with the kitchen chamber. But this is not the only 
means of access to the upper part of the house. In the 
kitchen chamber what seems to be half of a double 
closet door opens on a narrow stairway. ‘This is often 
referred to as the secret staircase, because at the.top 
a painted area is said to mark the place where a secret 
panel gave entrance to a long, dark closet formed by 
double partitions between two rooms. But those of 
practical mind scout the idea and argue that there was 
no reason why Col. Jeremiah Lee should have had a 
secret stairway. They claim that it was a shorter way 
for taking the children up to bed, but the dreamers will 
have their -way, and it is fascinating to think that the 
unsuspected, little flight of steep stairs offered a safe 
and quick retreat for those who wished to avoid capture. - 
Certain it is that there was need of just such hasty 
and unpretentious avenues of escape in those early days, 
and Col. Lee, himself, had an opportunity to experience 
that need. But not in his own house. 
It was on the day before the battle of Lexington that . 
the Province Committee of Safety and Supplies, of which — 
Col. Lee was a member, met at Wetherby’s Black Horse 
Tavern, between Cambridge and Lexington. The meet- 
ing was a lengthy one and it was almost nightfall before 
it was finally adjourned. Col. Lee and his companions, 
Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orne, also representing Mar- 
blehead, decided to remain at the tavern for the night, 
while others of the committee, including John Hancock 
and Samuel Adams, proceeded to Lexington. A little. 
later, before it became quite dark, small companies of 
British*soldiers were seen to pass the tavern, and word 
was sent by messenger to Hancock and Adams. 
With no thought of danger to themselves, Col. Lee 
and his associates went to bed. They were awakened 
by the filing past the tavern of a company of British, 
but not until the front had passed on and halted and an 
officer and file of men had been dispatched by signal 
toward the house, did Col. Lee and his friends realize 
that they were in danger. Then would a secret stair- 
way, with a quick and secure retreat to safety, have 
been appreciated. As it was, they were obliged to flee, 
half-clothed, to a field back of the tavern and to remain 
there for over an hour while the house was thoroughly 
searched for the “members of the Rebel Congress.” 
Although it was the middle of April, the night was - 
cold and the men suffered from exposure. Col. Lee 
contracted a heavy cold from which a few days later 
a severe fever developed, and he died at his country 
home in Newburyport on the 1oth of May, just three 
weeks after his unfortunate exposure. Never had his 
town and province needed him more and Marblehead 
was plunged into mourning. His body was brought here 
for burial and his tomb may be seen in the churchyard 
of the New Meeting House. 
It was in 1909 that the Marblehead Historical Society 
came into possession of the Lee mansion. At that time 
it was a mere shell. its lower rooms pervaded by the 
atmosphere of business and sundry partitions and “im- 
provements” diverting its original purposes. In the short 
space of seven years they have reclaimed it and the great 
rooms, appropriately furnished with gifts of rare, highly- 
prized heirlooms of the sons and daughters and friends 
of Marblehead, have all the charm and stateliness of 
their early days. 
But it is when the Historical Society gives one of its 
(Continued to page 63) 
