Local Fun: Visited the Hamilton House, South, Berwick

In August we were joined by our friends Dave and Laurie who drove up from Massachusetts to spend a day with us exploring local history. Today's blog we'll explore the Hamilton House in South Berwick, Maine, This Georgian mansion became a National Landmark, and you'll learn all about it (and Uranium glass) in today's blog!

(Photo: L to R: Tom, Rob, Dave, Laurie at the Hamilton House) 

ABOUT THE HAMILTON HOUSE - The Jonathan Hamilton House, also known as the Hamilton House, is a historic house at 40 Vaughan's Lane in South Berwick, Maine. Built between 1787 and 1788 by a merchant from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, this National Historic Landmark is a little-altered and high quality late Georgian country house. It is located at 40 Vaughans Ln, South Berwick, ME 03908

(Photo: Looking at the Salmon Falls River that acts as the border between Maine and New Hampshire. This is the view from the Hamilton House. Credit: R.G.)

ON A RIVER BANK - The house sits in a picturesque setting overlooking the Salmon Falls River. At the back of the house was a dock, which was constructed for ships that were built for trade with England and throughout the U.S. East Coast. When the War of 1812 happened, though, trade with England ceased (of course, because it was a war with England), so the trade business/shipping went bankrupt!!

(Photo: Front of the Hamilton House. Credit: R.G.) 

ABOUT THE HOUSE - The Hamilton House is set on 50 acres (20 ha) of land overlooking the Salmon Falls River, the border between South Berwick and Rollinsford, New Hampshire. It is a 2

+1⁄2-story wood-frame building, with a hip roof, clapboard siding, four brick chimneys symmetrically placed in its outside walls, and gabled dormers on all four elevations

(Photo: One of the upstairs bedrooms. Credit: R.G.) 

ABOUT WHERE IT WAS BUILT - Hamilton House is located on the homeland of the Wabanaki. After European colonists took ownership of the area known as South Berwick, Maine, the site was purchased by merchant Jonathan Hamilton for his shipping business in the eighteenth century, farmed by the Goodwin family in the nineteenth century, and restored as the summer retreat of Emily Tyson and her stepdaughter Elise (in a wealthy railroad magnate family) at the turn of the twentieth.

(Photo: Laurie and Dave in one of the downstairs rooms. Credit: R.G.) 

WHO WAS JONATHAN HAMILTON? -  In 1783 land for the house was purchased by Jonathan Hamilton, a merchant who had profited during the American Revolutionary War by privateering. Known as Pipe Stave Landing, the property was advantageous for landing goods from his merchant ships. 

 Hamilton died in 1802, and the property was sold out of the family in 1815. For much of the 19th century it was owned by the Goodwin family, who operated a farm on the property, and let the grand house decline in condition. 

(Photo: Second floor hallway with the restored wallpaper. Credit: R.G.) 

THEN THE TYSONS BOUGHT IT - In 1898,  Emily Tyson, and Tyson's stepdaughter Elise, purchased and restored the house in the then-fashionable Colonial Revival. The Tysons made only modest alterations to the house, and restored some of its fabric, including the wallpaper in the central hall. 

THE HOUSE INTERIOR - The interior of the house follows a center-hall plan, with a wide central hall decorated with wallpaper that is a reproduction (made in 1900) of older wallpaper found in the house. The two parlor chambers and dining room have mahogany window seats, paneled chimney surrounds, and folding inside window shutters. The dining room and south parlor have wallpaper painted in 1900 by George Porter Fernald

(Photo: If you look closely at this mural, you can see large leaf clusters in the top right corner that was part of the old mural. Credit: R.G.) 

INTERESTING INSIDE STORY OF A MURAL  -  The house features two whimsical murals commissioned by the women as well as antique furnishings and handcrafted decorative arts they collected. One of the murals was originally of plants, but the last family (a mother and daughter in law) who lived there had a local artist paint over it, and incorporate some of the vegetation from the original mural into the new mural. The new mural depicts all kinds of scenes from the region, including buildings and the shoreline. 

(Photos: Other rooms in the house. There was some history about the owl print hanging in one of the rooms over a fireplace, but I can't recall the story!) 

(Photo: The Visitor's Center that sits to the side of the house. Credit: R.G.) 

VISITOR'S CENTER - The visitor's center was built after 1898, as a cottage and was not part of the original farm. It was built by the Tyson family (you'll read about them shortly). south of the house.  On one side of the cottage/visitor's center is a garden the Tyson family put in, too. 

INSIDE THE VISITOR'S CENTER - The fireplace has two iron figurines that were apparently part of a stove at one time  (see photo)  

(Photo: The garden in front of the Visitor's Center. Credit: R.G.) 

THE GARDEN -  The elaborate perennial garden, with its charming garden cottage, provides visitors with a place to stroll and picnic overlooking the river.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HOUSE AFTER THE TYSONS? -  After the death of Elise Tyson Vaughan in 1949, the house was bequeathed to the Society for Preservation of New England Antiquities, now Historic New England.

WHAT IS A URANIUM GLASS LAMP? -In one of the rooms was a lamp made from "Uranium glass." We had never heard of it before. Apparently, Uranium glass contains a small percentage of uranium, usually less than 2%, which makes it slightly radioactive.  Uranium glass, also known as Vaseline glass, is generally considered safe to be around, but it's not recommended for use with food or drinks.  

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK -The house was declared a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970

Part 2: Visited Old Fields Burying Ground - Some Local Famous People

 In Part 2 of our visit to the Old Fields Burying Ground in South Berwick, Maine, you'll meet some of the famous local people who were interred there. One weekend last month, our friend Jeff (and our dogs and his dog) accompanied us.  On a side note, although it's Halloween season, it's important to know that cemeteries aren't usually haunted (unless someone loved hanging out in one when they were alive, and chose to stay there). Thanks to the Old Berwick Org website, I'm able to give you some history.   

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ONE OF THE FAMOUS INTERRED THERE -  Hon. Benjamin Greene, (1764-1837). A Harvard graduate of 1784, he came here as preceptor (headmaster) of Berwick Academy, then settled in the community. While Maine was still part of Massachusetts, he served as representative to General Court in Boston from 1809 to 1811 and 1813 to 1817, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas from 1811 to 1822, and Speaker of House in 1824.

Greene is remembered in Maine for helping to draft our constitution in 1819, just before Maine became a state. Greene also served as the fifth U.S. Marshal for the District of Maine. He was appointed by President James Monroe in 1824, was reappointed in 1828 and held his position until 1830.

(Photo: While waiting in the truck, Cody was doing his best impersonation of a ghost.)   

(Photo: This display shows some of the headstones of South Berwick and Berwick's most famous people buried in the Old Fields Burying Ground.) 

(Photo: Myrtle was wondering when her dad, Jeff and uncles were going to stop looking at "rocks" and come back to the truck)

ABOUT

 GENERAL JOSEPH HAYES - 1835-1912) – 

A Civil War brevet major general, one of only about 500 who served the Union as general officers. Born in the Hayes House on Academy Street, he attended Berwick Academy and Harvard, then worked as an engineer building railroads out West.

Entering the war at 25, he fought with distinction in the major eastern campaigns, including Gettysburg and the Wilderness, where he suffered a head wound. 

   Captured at Petersburg, he was held in Richmond’s notorious Libby prison

and other military institutions for seven months. 

 (Photo: A tombstone with an inscribed "angel" at the top for a woman named Mary Hill who passed in 1785.) 

As Brevet Major General, Commanding, Advance Brigade, Army of the Potomac, he served through the Appomattox Courthouse surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865. His portrait today hangs in Harvard’s Memorial Hall.   

Part 1: Visited Old Fields Burying Ground in South Berwick, Maine

Tom and I enjoy exploring old cemeteries because you never know what kind of history you'll find. One weekend last month, our friend Jeff (and our dogs and his dog) accompanied us when we explored the Old Fields Burying Ground in historic South Berwick, Maine.  Today's blog will take you there and give you some history Thanks to the Old Berwick Org website 

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ABOUT THE OLD FIELDS BURYING GROUND (also known as the Vine Street Cemetery), it was established in the 1600s.

(Photo: Rob and Jeff exploring) 

Overlooking Leigh's Mill Pond, Old Fields Burying Ground on Vine Street, South Berwick, Maine, is one of the oldest cemeteries in the United States, dating from the 1600s. 

It was the main burial place of the town's first European settlers -- families such as those of Thomas Spencer (c. 1596-1681) and Humphrey Chadbourne (1615-1667) and his father, William Chadbourne (1562-1682). The Chadbourne Family Association placed a marker recognizing William Chadbourne's arrival in 1634. 

(Photo: Tyler (L) and Dash (R) kept looking out of the windows of the truck to see when their dads were going to return from exploring) 

After the community's 1652 submission to Massachusetts Bay Colony, it was ordered that a meeting house be built, and around 1660 the settlers did so nearby, on the intersection of today's Brattle Street and Old South Road, at what was then the town center.

(Photo: The older part of the cemetery had some crypts above ground and were very weathered after hundreds of years. It made for a good Halloween-like setting.)

Hundreds of citizens are buried in Old Fields Burying Ground, many in graves no longer visible or where only fragments of headstones remain. The earliest markers may have been plain fieldstones.

Among some 339 identified surviving graves in the cemetery are an unknown number of former soldiers' graves from the 1700s to the 1900s. Of the identified veterans, seven are of the American Revolution, six of the Civil War, two of World War I, several others identified with the colonial militia, including two who fought at the Siege of Louisburg in 1745, and others who served as members of the Massachusetts and Maine Militias in the early United States.

WHO WAS Jonathan Hamilton?  (1745-1802) – South Berwick’s illustrious shipbuilder and merchant started as a trader in salt fish in the 1760s. Soon he owned forests in Lebanon, mill rights on the Great Works River and a shipyard and store at Pipe Stave Landing. 

During the 1780s and 1790s his properties were responsible for over half the ship tonnage on the Salmon Falls River  (Which is the BORDER between New Hampshire and Maine)  as well as masts, spars, planks, and shingles. His ships carried these cargoes and likely also some enslaved people. 

Customs records show 104 arrivals of Hamilton vessels in the port of Portsmouth, over half from the West Indies. His stores and warehouses at the Landing and in Portsmouth were stocked with tea, sugar, coffee, molasses, rum, timber and shipbuilding tools. 

In 1785, he started building the finest house in the area, later known as the Hamilton House owned by Historic New England.   (THAT HOUSE WILL BE THE TOPIC OF A FUTURE BLOG)