Genealogical notes of Barnstable families - citizen hylbom blog

210 GENEALOGICAL NOTES OF BAKNSTABLE FAMILIES.
houses of the first settlers. The Goodspeed house, built in 1639,
was framed and built in the same style,—so was Mr. Lothrop's
house and the Nathaniel Bacon house, built in' 1642. The Geo.
Allen house in Sandwich, built in 1646, and another in the same
neighborhood, said to be older were constructed in the same style.
The William Allen house, which has been particularly described in
a preceding article, exhibits in its construction evidences that it was
built a little later, and so did the John Bursley house at West Barn-
stable. The style of building in 1680 was a modification of the old,
yet in some of the details essentially different.
The person who takes an interest in antiquities, and notes the
mode of building, at different periods, cannot be easily deceived in
regard to the age of a house. He that counts, the annual layers in
the grain of the oak, reads a record of its age which there cannot
possibly be a clerical error. The style of building is not so particular
a record, but it is almost equally as good evidence. The Lothrop
house has now stood 220 years, and every antiquarian will rejoice
that it is to be preserved another century.
Mr. Lothrop died on the year that the Colony Court ordered
that each man's possessions should be bounded and recorded in the
town's books, (1653.) The earliest records, made in pursuance of
the Court Order, were in 1654, the year following his decease. In
his will he names "the house I first lived in, in Barnstable, with the
ground belonging thereunto, and the marsh joyning to the lower end
thereof, which butts and bounds upon the creek northward." Also,
"the house where I now dwell, and the ground belonging thereto,
with the marsh land that lyeth on the east beside Rendevous Creek,
and also my grant in the Commonfield." He also orders that his
"great lott, and his great marsh, shall be sold to some particular
person."
Excepting his second houselot, and his "great marsh," the
situation and boundaries oi the lots he names in his will are well
known.
1. The houselot, originally assigned to him, and on which he
built "the house he first lived in, in Barnstable," is now owned by
Messrs. Waterman & Eben. H. Eldridge, and Mr. Lothrop's house
stood on the spot now occupied by their hotel. The Eldredges own
the whole of Mr. Lothrop's lot, and part of the adjoining lots on the
east. It was in 1654 bounded south by the present County road,
west by the highway to Rendevous Creek Landing, north by said
creek, and east partly by the meadow of Capt. John Dickinson, and
partly by George Lewes'. It contained about twelve acres, nine of
upland and three of salt meadow. The ancient boundaries remain
to this day, excepting on the east, the Dickinson and some other
meadow now being included in the Eldridge lot. The general
course of Rendevous Creek is from north to south, but at the foot of
Mr. Lothrop's lot it makes a sharp turn to the east. Why it was