History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

The Bourne Garrison House 9
ence has been made, that "The Bridgewater troops remained
at Bourne 's garrison until re-enforced, when the inmates were
conveyed down Mount Hope Bay to Rhode Island and the
house was abandoned/'
The attack on Swansea was made the 20th of June and
history informs us that by the 23d of the month "half the town
was burned." May it not be that the first house was wood,
was burned by the Indians after being abandoned, and when
Samuel Gardner came here he found no house standing and
built a log one as tradition has it?
(Here is an open field for conjecture and every one will
form his own opinion.)
A word in regard to the stone house. No one knows when
it was erected, but it probably stood eighty, ninety, possibly
a hundred years. It must have been a peculiar structure,
judging from some of the statements we have heard respecting
it. Mr. Leonard G. Sherman, an old resident of the town, son
of Sanders Sherman, told me that it had nine outside double
doors. I replied that in that case I should not think there
would be much of the outside left. He said he did not know
anything about that, but it had nine double doors and no
mistake, for when he was a boy he worked for Capt. Henry
Gardner topping onions. After supper Mrs. Gardner used to
tell him stories about old times on the Neck, used to tell him
particularly about the old house, that it had nine outside double
doors, that it was the custom to draw back logs in with the
horse going out the opposite door. Deacon Mason Gardner,
who lived in the house in which we are to-night many years,
often told of seeing, when a boy, the back logs drawn in by
horses and rolled into the fire. This house, which was often
called the old stone fort, must have been a study in architecture
and I think if photographs of it were obtainable every
family in this section of the town would desire one.
The mistakes of history are often amusing. Let me here
give an illustration: My pastor preached a sermon several
sabbaths ago in which he referred to King Philip's War, stating
that at the breaking out of the war ten persons while attending
public worship at the Swansea Village church were killed by
the Indians. After service I reminded him of his mistake,
saying that there was no church in Swansea Village at the time
of the out-break—and never was till a hundred and fifty years
after the war—and that no settler was killed at or in any
church in town at the time. He said he thought he was correct
according to history. He went to his house, took down
"Ridpath's History of the United States, "—a popular history
and extensively used at least in the Middle and Western