Read by Mary Nye Gifford to the Duxbury Rural & Historical Society, Aug. 9, 1950

Mary Nye Gifford (1866-1958) was the daughter of Stephen Nye Gifford and Ada J. Winsor. She grew up on Cedar Street and later lived on Standish Street. She was an early member of the Duxbury Rural Society, later the Duxbury Rural & Historical Society, and was the treasurer for many years. The Gifford Family Collection, DAL.MSS.028, includes many of her papers.

I am afraid my reminiscences of Duxbury in the 1870s and 80s will seem very dull but people have asked for them so here is an attempt at what I remember.

I was born in the house at the top of the hill on the east side, next to the Dwinnells, which was the first house on the hill and was built by Levi Sampson who had shipyards on the south shore of Bluefish River – the house I was born in, I think but I don’t know was built by Augustus Sampson, son of Levi. Father must have rented it of him, probably when Mr. Sampson was in East Boston where he was in the shipping business, I think. He was one of a large family and this rhyme was made about them, something like “Cheaper by the Dozen.

Erastus and Augustus and pretty little Noah
Daniel and Simeon and half a dozen more.

Erastus was Mrs. Bigelow’s grandfather and Augustus, the Ford’s grandfather.

People are asking me about the house but as I left it before I was two years old, I can’t tell them anything, except that my mother said it was the coldest house she ever lived in.

We moved to the house where Mrs. Randall and the Ames now live, so my memories are about this part of town. I went to school first in the Engine house which was on the marsh on the left going west from here, and there was hose made of cotton on a cart in the lower room, at any rate it was white. I don’t remember the engine. Children went to school when they were five, then. I also went to a private school kept by Miss Lucy Wilde, the doctor’s daughter who lived in the house opposite the Engine house. My companions there were Alvine Thomas who lived next door and the Lorings who lived in the Runkle house. Later I went to the Union school which was on what is now Chapel street, until I was twelve – rather a long walk for child, a mile or more, but we didn’t seem to mind it. Mrs. Crocker taught it, an excellent teacher, but we only learned reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography, but were thoroughly drilled in those. Mrs. Soule went there with me when she first came to Duxbury. It was heated by a stove, and the teacher used to warm a log of wood for us to carry in our mittened hands to keep them warm in our long walk home. We had a water bucket with one cup, but apparently didn’t acquire any germs, as I don’t remember but on death of a child, and that was from scarlet fever.

At twelve I went to Partridge Academy. Nobody was supposed to go before they were twelve. We went for all day, taking our lunches, and the closing hour was four o’clock. We walked both ways, a matter of two miles or more each way, but on stormy days, we rode, as we had a horse and carriage, taking the neighborhood girls. Mr. Maglathlin was our teacher, a retired Unitarian minister, and Miss Stetson, Mrs. Alderman’s aunt, the assistant. I went there four years.

The mail and papers were brought down to the Union Store, which was in this Historical building, the southern half. There was a stove in the middle and two long seats each side and there the men congregated to discuss the affairs of the day, but of course they didn’t gossip. Men never do. The flag pole opposite was always called the Liberty Pole. One of the stories told about it was that the letters East West North South E.W.N.S. meant Ezra Weston’s New Ship. The store was kept by Mr. Josiah Peterson whose picture is in the south room and who lived in Dr. Deacon’s house. He would call in the morning, take mother’s orders and bring them in the afternoon. All our food was brought to the house. The butcher came in a white covered cart twice a week. Butter was brought by Bailey Chandler from Cranberry Factory neighborhood. Milk we got from Harvey Baker who lived in the MacDondald house. Of course we kept hens. No one had fruit for sale, such as oranges and bananas, but everyone had barrels of apples in the cellar. We had oranges that father brought from Boston every week. There were only three bathrooms in town, the Fords, Lorings, and the Wrights. There was no way to get weather except by pump.

The streets weren’t named except Cove Street but the street by the Francke’s was called front street, and Cedar Street was called back street, until my great aunt, Elizabeth Winsor Bird, who came every summer to be with her sister, my grandmother, Jane Winsor, in the house next to the Conant’s, said she wouldn’t live on Back Street and called it Cedar Street for the trees my father planted at the front of our place which weren’t cedars, by the way, but spruces, and it has been called Cedar Street ever since.

The streets were dusty and sandy, my mother said in her day, the sand was so deep, ti would follow the wheel around. In some places, the one I especially remember, was at the corner of Cedar and Cove Street, where little one room houses where shoes were brought from the factories and finished and the leather trimmings were spread on the roads that helped to lay the dust. In this house, in his later years lived Charles Soule, known as “Bidley.” He was a character. He never washed, his his hair was never brushed or bombed and stood up all over his head, his clothes were ragged. He did mowing for people, and odd jobs. He was a brother, I believe of Capt. Simeon Soule, whose picture is on the wall here and who built the Chappa Challa house. Bidley had a dry wit. A Mrs. Caroline Bradford lived in the house opposite Miss Delano’s, who had a tongue of her own. He was passing one day and she said, “You are a pretty looking object.” Bailey stopped, made her a low bow, and said, “I’m sorry if I can’t say the same of you, madam.” When he lived in the little house at the corner of Cedar and Cove, father and I used to walk past after getting our mail. He would be sitting in the doorway with a bowl of chowder on his knees, surrounded by cats and he would invite father for dinner. I suppose I was six years old. I was so afraid father would stop, that I would tug at his hand to go home. It never occurred to me that father would no more stop than I would.

In those days everyone lived in their own house. We had no summer visitors, except that relatives came to stay with their families. All my grandmother’s sisters and her brother, Henry Winsor from Philadelphia, stayed with her, the Ellisons with their grandmother.

The Wrights arrived in town, our first foreigners, about 1869, I think. Mr. Wright was much older than his wife, a Miss Buckham of New York. The youngest son, George, was a contemporary of mind, and he was killed when he was about twenty-one, by falling down an elevator well, where he was employed, hence, St. George Street.

The Cable landing brought many men here. Mr. Gaines who was superintendent and who lived in the Miller house, father of very pretty daughters, one of whom married Mr. Sanderson, a Frenchman who was also on the Cable. There wer two Mr. Green’s, no relation I believe, who were called light and dark Green. Mr. Alfred and Mr. George Green, who was father of the Misses Green who live on Cedar Street. Mr. Colmache, a French man, Mr. Collicut, Mri. Cuttrain, Mr. Colley, Mr. Dishon. Several married Duxbury girls. Duxbury was said to be famous for its pretty girls. Mr. Collicut was said to be the only one who had the right to write Esq. after his name. They used to bring me the lovely pictures from the London Graphic. Dick Gaines was about ten when he came and everyone laughed at him because he wore a tall hat and Eton clothes.

We had a few amusements so got up plays ourselves to raise money for different things, mostly for Duxbury Hall. There was not hall in town at the time, and ladies from the village and point got together and mother among them, and bought the Eden Sampson lively stable and turned it into a hall where young people could have dances. It is now the Unitarian Parish House given by the Misses Hathaway.

Alden Weston lived in King Caesar’s house, and I barely remember seeing him, an old man, driving a fast horse through town. Ezra Weston I who died in 1822 was the first King Caesar and he lived in the gambrel roofed house next to the big house. The one there now is not the original which burned in 1886, but is a copy. All the things we have in the Historical Rooms came from King Caesar I, his watch, the tall clock, tureen, and plates marked EW are from him, mostly from descendants of his third wife, Mrs. Priscilla Virgin of Plymouth whose portrait we have, also. A ring and the tureen came from Mrs. Alice Winslow Hunt, his great great granddaughter. I don’t know how many greats there ought to be.

His son, King Caesar II, built the big house and was a famous shipbuilder and owner. He had three sons, Gershom B., who built the Wright house but it was then a square house, no French roof, Alden who lived in my day in the big house opposite Bumpus Park, and Ezra III, who is listed as a farmer. Mother said he was sent to England and studied forestry. He is responsible for the English oaks that he planted in bands across the point, see old pictures in scrapbook. I think he also planted chestnut trees now no more next to the Standish burying ground – hence Chestnut Street. The “Clipper” says the acorns came as packing for China, but I never heard that.

Surplus Street was called Poverty Street when I was young because it ran to the Poor House which stood on Depot Street and had six chimneys, and must have had a lovely lot of open fireplaces, to keep filled with wood, but of course that was the only heat they had. The Duxbury jail, a one room house with barred windows stood there too. Tramps used to be put in it nights in my day. People objected to the name Poverty so it was changed to Surplus.

I think this is enough of my remembrances, and I hope you’ve found them interesting.