Ever since we first saw this house, and heard the story of Daniel and Abigail (who originally built it), we’ve felt a strong connection to them. Daniel was a patriot. They were young and in love, getting married just days before he went off to fight in The Revolution, and they remained married for 53 years while raising 7 children. They lived a hard life by today’s standard, but we surmise it was a quality life. They knew how, and had to DO things… with their hands. They knew how to take care of themselves, their family, and their neighbors. They built a barn, a house, a farm, a home, a life… in an unforgiving landscape. I cannot imagine farming in this soil- there are literally boulders and rocks everywhere. You cannot stick a shovel in the ground without it hitting something solid. Their answer was to take the rocks from the ground and turn them into something useful- stacking up them into walls to pen the animals, keep critters out of the fields, and any other reason one would build a fence. They were resourceful in ways we can’t relate to today. They just dealt with things, and figured it out.
Daniel (Jr.) was born in Westborough, MA in June of 1752, to Daniel and Martha (Coolidge). We took the 90 minute drive down to Westborough last week (it’s just west of Boston), enjoying the fall colors, and the many small, historical towns along the way. (There are few interstates around here, so it’s pretty much all back roads and two-lane highways to get anywhere). We went with the intention of solidifying the data we have so far, hoping to see Daniel’s boyhood home. The holy grail would be to find a portrait, a direct descendent, or his signature on a document. We started off at the town hall, where we found his birth record, his marriage record to Abigail, and some other tidbits. All records at that time were recorded by the town clerk, so we were unable to find a signature on this trip. We also found that Daniel’s surname was spelled Warrin until his father changed it to Warren in roughly 1726. His great-grandfather, Captain John Warrin, came from Suffolk, England, as an 8 year old boy in 1630, just ten years after the Mayflower, so Daniel Jr was a fifth-generation colonist. You can see in Daniel’s “Intention of Marriage” record (“int.” in the middle image below), his name is still spelled Warrin. We’re not sure if this was his spelling, or an error on the clerk’s part. We also found his father’s death record. The bottom image is the actual town record of Daniel and Abigail’s marriage, written in quill pen. Note that the spelling of “Westborough” is sometimes “Westboro”.
We also spent time in the tax assessors office trying to find what property would have been owned by Daniel’s parents at the time of his birth. We found a house in town that was built by a Jonah Warren, and it was located on Warren Street. We knocked on the door, and received a gracious tour of the house (c1720) by the homeowner. However, the research done by the previous owners of that home led them to the belief that this was the last Warren home still standing in Westborough. We hope this is a bit of oral history that turns out to be false, and we can still locate Daniel’s boyhood home.
Now that it’s getting dark by 6-6:30, we’re spending a fair bit of time in the evenings reading by one of the hearths… mostly books by Eric Sloane. Eric lived in the early part of the twentieth century (he passed away in 1985 at the age of 80), and he was known as a painter and weather geek. He bought an old farmstead with the intention of salvaging weathered barn wood to make frames for his paintings (he created over 15,000 paintings in his lifetime), but after finding a diary from a young boy from 1805, he began voraciously researching early American life, the tools, how they lived, how they created the things they used…. then he wrote many books about his findings. We read these books over and over again, slowly savoring them. I guess it brings us a bit closer to Daniel and Abigail, and we imagine them using the tools that Eric describes to build this house. Sometimes we imagine the sounds of Daniel planing the planks he used to put up the walls and paneling around the hearth. Or Abigail rocking in her chair nearby, stitching up a repair to some clothes, soothing a fussy infant, or just reading the Bible. If you have any interest in early American life, woodworking, or history, we highly recommend that you check out one of his books.
While I have always been interested in history, living here has certainly fanned the flames of that passion. We are literally surrounded by Early American history. Unfortunately, for every person with a passion for preserving it, there are just as many who don’t share that appreciation. There are antique houses that are lovingly kept, some that are wrapped in tarps, just barely keeping the rain out, and some that have been left to just return to the earth. We want to preserve the historical integrity of ours, and continue to tell the Warrens’ story of hand-crafted workmanship and beautiful functionality. We dream of someday driving up to our home and seeing the “finished” product of our labor of love. Within the next month or so, we should (hopefully) have the barn foundation rebuilt, its floors leveled, and a major drainage system installed which will alleviate the water issues that destroyed it all in the first place. We still have a lot of projects on the list. It will take a few years, but that’s what we signed up for, and we have set no timetable, other than the rest of our lives.
People have asked what it’s really (REALLY) like to live in such an old home. Well…. toss out any inclinations of OCD- it’ll drive you nuts. Nothing is plumb, or true, or straight. When hanging a picture, you can have it true to the ceiling, to the walls, to a nearby doorjamb, or just to your eye, but not any two of those. The interior walls are typically paneling, which is basically a way of saying a slice of tree. Since nothing was wasted, they would not have cut off the taper to make a board with parallel sides, they would just alternate the boards wide end up, then wide end down, and so on. If the wall were long enough, and the wider ends varied enough that the boards get wonky after a while, they would cut one in half and start over. Doors were cut, or added onto, as the house would settle and shift. Hinges possibly moved, or shims added. Jambs were altered to allow the doorknob to re-engage the jamb, holding the door closed. There are squeaky, uneven floorboards, with gaps, so while there are thin boards under the actual floorboards (called “dusters”) to try to seal the room from the floor below, the gaps that naturally occur with solid-wood plank floors allow dust to be trapped, and released when the gaps re-open.
There are mice, spiders, flies, and other various insect life. We have a cat- Toby, who at the ripe age of 17, blind in one eye, and being a city cat his entire life, has let his instinct kick in and is handling the mouse population should they dare enter the house. Tennessee, while a vicious rodent-killing-machine outside, typically looks at a mouse inside with curiosity, like he’s trying to figure out why we would have let them inside, because, that’s how HE gets in the house. We’ve found our standards of what we deem a clean living environment, are forever altered. This is not to say we live in a dirty home, it’s just a different clean; it may not stay clean as long as we’re used to. You have to let some things go, or you will drive yourself batty.
Back to the farm, we’re working on a bunch of little projects to clean up the landscape, and to get ready for winter. We had our excavator guy come by with his skid steer to pop out the boulders that we couldn’t handle by hand in the front walkway. While he had the machine off the trailer, we had him dump in a few cubic yards of stone dust base. We’ll spread it out and compact it, then wait until after the front stoop gets pulled away next month to replace the piece of granite sill under the front door, then we can do a final level and lay down the tumbled concrete cobbles. Note that there was one nugget in the walkway that was too large for the machine to remove, so we’ll just work the walkway around it. You have to have a little flexibility around here.
We also spent a little time clearing some underbrush and old maple tap lines below the hill behind the barn. Eventually, we want to create a trail or clearing around the perimeter of the property in which we can walk the pup. This gives you an idea of the rocks around here…
We’re still enjoying the many trails nearby, and hiking in relatively bug-free weather. The colors are starting to pop, even though it’s been cloudy more often than not, lately. With the amount of physical labor that we’re putting in (FarmFit!), we’re finding we’re both getting back in shape. We feel good, we sleep well, and we eat like teenagers. Ice cream has become a regular part of our diet (Ava Marie’s in Peterborough is one of our faves!). We do get sore on big days, but for the most part, we feel great.
More words than pictures for this post, but we promise that there is lots more to come. That’s it for now, it’s time to get busy. We try to post once a week or so, so check back often, or click the subscribe button. Thanks again for following along, and as always, leave us a comment if you have any questions.
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