Building
584 Main Street
by Doris Sherrow
On February
21, 1774, a housewright named John Williams began work for
the construction of the house at 584 Main Street. He had been hired by
47-year-old Ebenezer White, a farmer and town official who lived
at 582 Main Street. White tracked the construction process day by day
in his journal, which is now at the Connecticut Historical Society
in Hartford.
"Feby AD 1774, 21th [sic] Day Mr. Williams
Began to work for me and made windo frame"
It was too cold, and possibly snowy, to
do anything outdoors, so Williams continued to make "windo frame"
until March. Then he began "sawing Sash Stuff," "Hewing
Timber," and occasionally, "Dressing Clabord."
For five days in early March, Ithamar
Pelton helped hew timber. Pelton lived at 613 Main Street, and had,
in fact, enlarged that house from its very early one-over-one-room plan
to a four-room colonial. He had married in 1767, and had four small children
by 1774.
Around the same time, a Mr. Cook,
likely someone from out of town, also appeared in White’s notes.
Initially he also dressed clapboard, but on the 12th of March, the weather
must have gotten spring-like enough for him to begin "Diging Seller
[cellar]." (White enjoyed his capital letters, though he often spelled
phonetically. He was a bright, careful man, and I cannot get rid of the
sense that accurate spelling was simply not the social requirement that
it is today.)
To the extent that I could find vital statistics
information on the sixteen men who worked on the house, I found that most
were young, and John Williams, who worked consistently from February to
November, was probably no exception. On March 25th, "Mr John Williams
a child born he did very little work."
Cook worked on digging and "Stoning"
the cellar, and later "Broke Stone," presumably for the cellar.
Wherever Cook came from, he appears to have been a specialist in creating
cellars. This cellar would have been a rectangular hole in the ground
six-to-eight feet deep, lined with large, rough chunks of stone. Above
ground-level, the stone would be near-perfect rectangular blocks.
On the first of April, 26-year-old Eliakim
Ufford, who later built the brick colonial house at 1331 Portland-Cobalt
Road, arrived and "Laid ye foundation of ye Chimny." This would
have been rough-cut stone like the lower foundation. Ufford later started
a brick-making business, using the clay from the Connecticut River bank
at Jobs Landing, but at this time, he could only lay the stone. The job
took him two days.
Williams continued to make sashes and hew
timber, and Cook broke stones and also sometimes hewed timber till mid-April.
Then White wrote, "April ye 18th Being Monday Will’ms Cook &
David framing."
David was Ebenezer’s son for
whom the house was being built. He was only 19 years old. Apparently his
father had begun the construction because David was smitten with Mary
Ann Stocking, a girl from Upper Houses (it was not yet called Cromwell).
Historical research has revealed that most colonial young couples were
in or near their middle twenties when they married--they appear to have
wanted to set themselves up independently. David and Mary Ann were quite
young to be considering marriage. With Ebenezer’s social status and
financial success, college could even have been an option for young David
— but he was desperately in love and wanted to get married. Or so
I’m guessing.
So on Monday the 18th of April, David helped
Williams and Cook frame the house. This meant putting together, on the
ground, the rectangles of massive timber which would outline each side
of the building. For the next couple weeks, all continued framing the
house, though David missed May 2nd because he had militia training. On
the third of May, even Ebenezer joined in, and the "4 Day of May
we Raised the fraim in the afternoon" — they levered the individual
sides up to form the block of the house!
Two days later, White, who had "agreed
with Mr Cook for 2/ [2 shillings] a Day while Laying Stone," paid
him 3 pounds, 2 shillings, 6 pence, and "Mr Cook set out for home."
The cellar was formed, the frame stood upon it, and his work was done.
By mid-May, Williams, and occasionally,
David began casing the outside of the frame, and on May 26th, they were
"making schaffling [scaffolding] and prepareing [sic] ye Roof for
Shingling." Two days later, he and Peter Butler, who lived
in the vicinity of the intersection of Sage Hollow and Meadow roads, were
"Bording ye roof and began to Shingle." By June 4th, they had
finished the roof.
Toward the end of June, another specialist
came to work: "June ye 20 Mr Gipson & his apprentice Sage
all this week building Chimney." While Portland had several Sages
around, no Mr. Gipson lived in the immediate area. Many of the men who
did specialty work came from other towns. Some migrated through the area
looking for work, or perhaps the outgoing and widely traveled Ebenezer
knew of skilled individuals and requested their labor. Gipson and Sage
finished on the 28th, and White paid them "7 ¾"-- presumably
pounds.
John Williams and David White commenced
"Shingling about ye Chimney" after it was finished, then Williams
busied himself making doors for perhaps a week. The standard colonial
house had at least two exterior doors, probably six interior doors on
the first floor, and several more upstairs.
On the afternoon of July 6th, Williams began
"Claboarding ye front" of the house. He progressed to the south
end of the house, then "began to put in ye windo fraimes ye front
side."
During the week of July 18th, construction
came to a halt. Even Williams stopped building: "J:W all this week
reaping wheat..." All week long, no one built anything--there was
wheat to gather. Samuel and David Bates, two young men who
lived in my house at the time, were also enlisted to bring in the wheat.
Three years later, Samuel would die in the Revolution.
The following week, Williams resumed clapboarding.
On Saturday July 30th he was clapboarding part of the day "... and
ye remainder putting on ye cove." This was probably a decorative
entry porch shielding the front door; if so, it no longer remains.
Williams was clapboarding the back of the
house by August 3rd, then "making windo fraim & soffits,"
"Laying parler floor," and finally "Laying north Bedroom
floor & ye petition [partition] between that floor & ye parler."
In late August, he moved on to "Framing ye Sashes," "Triming
ye Sashes [and] fixing ym [them] in ye fraimes," then "Seting
Glass."
In his journal, White wrote the date and
each man’s work, Monday through Saturday. Then on Sunday, he wrote
"B" rather than the number, and usually nothing beside it--working
on the sabbath would be a sin. On the September 4th however, White did
choose to write something: "this Day News came yt Boston was fired
on by ye Soldgers & Shippin"--the Revolution was beginning.
On September 6th, Joseph Raney came
to work on the house. Thus far, I have not been able to find anything
on Raney, but there is a good chance that he came from Upper Houses (Cromwell)--not
only did White have many contacts in the county, but his daughter-in-law-to-be
came from that area, where there were many Raneys. (And Rannys.)
Raney
worked along with Williams to do framing and casing on the interior. They
also began to lay flooring and build stairs, both from the first to the
second floor, and from the second to the attic. A Mr. Savage, and
a Mr. Hall with Eben Hall (probably his son) also began
to work on the floors. 19-year-old Eber Stocking, who lived in the house
at the corner of Cornwall Street and Rose Hill Road, joined the group,
"Laying Chamber Floor" and then the "garret floor."
On
October 1st, Raney began work on the "bowfat"--a built-in cabinet
with a door or doors and molding--which took him about a week to complete.
John Williams continued to work on windows and walls. At this point, White
seems to have had about three men working on the house at any given time,
always Williams, and usually Joseph Raney and Eber Stocking.
On
the 22nd of October, Joseph Raney worked "on Stares Went home at
night." When White specified that someone "went home,"
that seems to have meant that they were not a local.
John
Williams and Eber Stocking labored on, hanging doors, trimming doors,
making "Seller Door," "making bow fat doors" until
the 5th of November. Then suddenly White wrote only the numbers, "B"
for Sunday, November 6th, and 7 through 15, with no notations beside them.
He resumed on November 16th, saying "Eliakim Ufford Come here to
work on Lathing."
Ufford
seems to have finished the house, with only a day or two from Williams
"making Book Shelves putin in Lock &c" and two others, who
did lathing. Ufford worked on lathing till the 6th of December, when he
"finishd [sic] last one [at] nite." On the 8th and half of the
9th he "whitewashd Dwelling house," and that was the end.
Ebenezer
omitted one incident from this diary: on the 23rd of November his brother
Stephen, only 43 years old, died. Ebenezer’s only notes for that
day are: "23 E:U [Eliakim Ufford] Dito [working on lathing] Elisha
Hale spliting Lath." The following day, the day they almost certainly
would have buried Stephen, he wrote only, "this is Thanksgiving Day."
It is tempting to think that perhaps Stephen was suffering from illness
or injury during the blank days of the diary, and that Ebenezer was too
wrapped up in fetching a doctor, or tending Stephen’s five children,
or helping take care of him, to be able to think about the house construction.
But there is no mention of the death, or of the funeral.
On
December 29th, 1774, David, who had turned 20 on the 7th of September,
married Mary Ann Stocking, and they must have taken up residence in their
beautiful new house.
