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George Berkeley, World-Famous Philosopher, Moves to the Wilds of RI in 1729

Bishop George Berkeley was a world famous Anglo-Irish philosopher by the time he stepped onto dry land in Newport, R.I., on Jan. 23, 1729.

Berkeley famously asked the question, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” His answer: Yes, because God heard it.

George Berkeley by John Smibert

Not every 18th-century philosopher agreed with Berkeley’s argument that reality isn’t separate from perception. But today philosophy professors rank him up there with his contemporaries, David Hume and John Locke.

So what was he doing in colonial Rhode Island?

He came to America because he intended to open a college in Bermuda. He believed the Protestant religion had lost ground, and America was the likeliest place to make up for what was lost in Europe.

George Berkeley

George Berkeley was born in his family castle in County Kilkenny. By the time he arrived in Rhode Island, he had already established a lasting reputation as a philosopher, taken holy orders in the Church of Ireland and been named Dean of Derry.

George Berkeley and his new wife bought a farmhouse in Middletown, R.I. When he enlarged the home he called Whitehall, he remodeled the door case in Palladian style. By doing so he introduced Palladianism to America.

Trinity Church, on Queen Anne Square in Newport, R.I., founded in 1698. The current building was built in 1726.

Berkeley in America

While Berkeley awaited funds for his college to arrive, his wife gave birth to a son, who survived, and a daughter, who didn’t. They buried Lucia Berkeley in the Trinity Church yard in Newport.

While in America, Berkeley wrote a book, preached at nearby churches and founded the Philosophical Society, which became the Redwood Library. Fittingly, he also wrote the poem, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.

The Redwood Library, courtesy Library of Congress.

The money for his college never arrived, so he departed for England in September 1731. He gave his library and Whitehall to Yale College, stipulating the income from the property support three Yale scholars. Yale named one of its colleges after him.

Yale rented the building as an inn for many years. The portrait painter Gilbert Stuart’s grandfather ran it and Dr. Alexander Hamilton stayed there.

Whitehall today

Whitehall fell into a state of neglect until 1899, when the Colonial Dames of America got a 999-year lease on it. They commissioned Norman Isham to restore two rooms. Today it is the Whitehall Museum House, at 311 Berkeley Ave.

For information about visiting hours in the summer, call 401 846-3116 or email [email protected].

And yes, Berkeley, Calif., was named after Rhode Island’s prominent visitor.

Images: Whitehall By JERRYE & ROY KLOTZ MD – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23611134. Trinity Church By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21777526. This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Christmas Towns for the Holidays

So much of New England looks like a Currier & Ives print over the holidays that it was hard to choose the best of the Christmas towns.

We ended up choosing a town or city that offers history along with the carols, greenery, lights, Santas, skating rinks and horse-drawn sleighs.

So here are six of the best historic Christmas towns, one for each New England state.

Wethersfield, Conn.

A colonial doorman greets guests over the holidays in Wethersfield, Conn.

Wethersfield, one of the three oldest Connecticut towns, has the state’s largest historic district. Some of Wethersfield’s most historically significant houses dress up and offer tours over the Christmas holidays.

The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum goes all out with its annual Three Centuries of Christmas event in its three historic houses. The museum shows the evolution of the Christmas holidays in America with authentic decorations, house tours and candlelight tours led by guides in period dress.

The Silas Deane House presents the 18^th century, when the household celebrated New Year’s Day as the main holiday when the Puritanical dislike of Christmas still lingered.

The Isaac Stevens House celebrates the holidays the way a middle-class household would during the early to mid-1800s, when New England adopted many of today’s Christmas traditions.

Finally, the Joseph Webb House shows a lavish Christmas open house typical of the early 20^th century.

Webb-Deane-Stevens: 211 Main St., Wethersfield, Conn. Click here for more information.

Kennebunkport, Maine

Kennebunkport’s huge Christmas tree in the center of town.

The historic seaside town of Kennebunkport, Maine, has celebrated Christmas in a big way since 1982.

In 2022, Kennnebunkport’s Christmas Prelude stretches from Dec. 1-11 and features craft fairs, rides through the woods aboard a festive historic trolley and boat rides aboard a Maine fishing boat.

On December 9, the second annual Prelude Family Street festival will feature strolling carolers, food vendors and entertainment from Dock Square through Lower Village.

White Columns, a historic Greek Revival home, offers house tours and stunning Victorian Christmas decorations. The 11th annual fireworks display takes place right after the tree lighting on Friday, Dec. 9.

For more information, click here.

Boston, Mass.

Hundreds of thousands of lights throughout Boston proper put a nighttime sparkle in the historic seaport city.

Faneuil Hall puts on a seven-minute light show with 350,000 lights, along with the city’s largest Christmas tree. String lights twinkle throughout the Public Garden and the Boston Common, which also has a lighted Christmas tree and ice skating on the Frog Pond.

Faneuil Hall over the holidays.

City Hall Plaza features a European-style Christmas market with a winding skating path, Santa’s House and a traveling wine and beer exhibit.

The Boston Opera House stages the classic holiday ballet, The Nutcracker, and the Paramount Theatre stages Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity. It’s one of the hottest tickets in Boston, where the play is in its 49th year. The Boston Pops Orchestra plays classic holiday favorites in a cabaret setting at Boston Symphony Hall.

To find out what’s going on in Boston over the holidays, click here.

Portsmouth, N.H.

Portsmouth’s Market Square during the holidays.

Few holiday traditions evoke the past as well as the Strawbery Banke candlelight stroll, now in its fourth decade in Portsmouth, N.H.

Strawbery Banke, an outdoor history museum, comprises dozens of restored Colonial, Georgian and Federal style buildings clustered around a large green. At Christmas, hundreds of candle lanterns light the grounds, evergreens garnish the houses and holiday music fills the air.

Costumed role players recreate past traditions including a 1919 Hanukkah celebration and a Victorian Christmas. The outdoor Puddle Dock skating rink offers skating every day of the week from December through February.

Strawbery Banke anchors Portsmouth’s ‘Vintage Christmas’ celebration. A big part of Portsmouth’s charm lies in its walkability and in its many family-owned shops, restaurants and inns. Fresh green garlands and balsam wreaths decorate nearly every shop and the period homes nearby, while the city illuminates Market Square with a Christmas tree.

The Music Hall Theater in Portsmouth’s downtown, along with the Ogunquit Playhouse, present Elf The Musical.

For those who don’t want to walk, a free Holiday Trolley circulates through the neighborhoods. And when you pass those shops, remember that New Hampshire doesn’t have a sales tax.

For more information, click here.

Newport, R.I.

The Breakers, decorated for the holidays.

Three Newport mansions present over-the-top Christmas tours worthy of the last Gilded Age. The Preservation Society of Newport County decked the halls of The Breakers, The Elms and Marble House with extravagant Yuletide finery through January 1. Thousands of poinsettias, evergreens and flowers decorate the magnificent rooms, while holiday music fills the air and tables glisten with silver and china.

Outside the Breakers, a half-mile-long path glitters with hundreds of thousands of holiday lights at night, including a 50-foot tunnel of light. Friendly gnomes point the way and music fills the winter air.

Santa makes several appearances throughout the holiday season, and on December 9, St. Barnabas Church in Portsmouth presents a Christmas in Song concert.

Newport recaptures past candlelit holidays with thousands of clear bulbs. For the 52nd annual Christmas in Newport, the lights illuminate the harbor, restored colonial buildings and Bellevue Avenue.

The Breakers exterior.

Historic churches and museums hold open houses and high teas, while musicians and thespians stage Christmas concerts and Christmas plays throughout the month.

For more information click here.

Woodstock, Vt.

The Jackson House Inn, decorated for the holidays.

The quintessential Vermont town of Woodstock throws itself into the holidays with lights, greenery, activities and plenty of shopping action.

The Billings Farm & Museum demonstrates the traditions of a late 19th century Vermont Christmas at Wassail Weekends beginning December 9 from 10 am to 4 pm.

The Woodstock YOH Theatre Players present a live radio play, Miracle on 34th St., on Dec. 14, 15 and 16.

The Woodstock Inn offers seasonal culinary treats during the holidays. And on Sunday, December 16, A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols is presented at the St. James Church in Woodstock.

Local stores stay open late so locavores can do their holiday shopping, and the town’s art galleries feature holiday exhibits.

For more information, click here.

The Christmas holiday actually began in ancient Rome — and so did Italian cookies. The New England Historical Society’s new book, 24 Historic Italian Christmas Cookie Recipes, tells you how to make those delicious treats. It also bring you the history of the Italian immigrants who brought them to New England. Available now on Amazon; just click here.

Images: Faneuil Hall by Tony Fischer Photography; Jackson House Inn by Mark Goebels, Creative Commons License; Kennebunkport Tree by Amy Meredith, Creative Commons License. Tree lighting at Faneuil Hall, via Flickr , CC by ND 2.0. This story was updated in 2022.

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Six Stunning Gothic Revival Buildings By Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan didn’t leave much in the way of paper records, but he did change the face of Puritan New England with dozens of striking and much-admired Gothic Revival churches, schools and mansions.

He worked on two of the most important cathedrals in the United States, Washington National and St. John the Divine. His chapels at the Groton and St. Paul’s schools are considered two of the most beautiful Gothic churches in America.

Henry Vaughan around 1907

Henry Vaughan

Born in Cheshire, England, in 1845, he likely trained with British architect George Frederick Bodley, the leading architect working in the Gothic Revival style. Vaughan also worked as Bodley’s head draftsman.

In 1881, 36-year-old Henry Vaughan came to Boston representing Bodley. He would then design the chapel for the Sisters of St. Margaret, associated with the Anglican monastic order, Society of St. John the Evangelist.

Very few Gothic Revival architects had his training and sophistication. Whether he intended to stay in America isn’t clear, but he quickly launched a successful architectural career — though he never sought commissions.

The Episcopal church gave him plenty of work. So did eccentric millionaire Edward Searles.

Henry Vaughan, Throwback

Henry Vaughan’s style of work was as much a throwback as the buildings themselves. When Vaughan was working on the Washington National Cathedral, recalls an employee, everything was done in a very ‘old time way.’ He viewed the telephone as an intrusion, and the head draftsman occasionally typed out a letter with one finger.

Described as shy and withdrawn, Henry Vaughan attended daily Mass. He lived in a boardinghouse on Beacon Hill, had few friends and rarely appeared in public. After dinner, he always returned to the office to feed the mice with leftover rolls. His employees were forbidden from coming in then because they might disturb the creatures.

Though Henry Vaughan’s architectural designs dated to the Middle Ages, they were actually quite new for the region. New England had its roots in Puritanism, but the old hatred of Catholicism and High Anglicanism was fading.

When Henry Vaughan died in 1917, Episcopal Bishop William Lawrence suggested a change had come over the people. “Many of them are turning back to the prayer book, the dignified forms and rich associations of the church of our English ancestors,” he wrote in Vaughan’s obituary.

Here, then, are six Henry Vaughan buildings, one in each state (plus a few bonus mentions). If you know of other Henry Vaughan buildings worth mention, please share them in the comments section.

Christ Church

Christ Church, New Haven

The Gothic Christ Church is a landmark in downtown New Haven. It combines a ‘bells-and-smells’ high Anglo-Catholic tradition with a soup kitchen and a residence for homeless young people.

Henry Vaughan designed Christ Church with a stone tower modeled after Magdalen College in Oxford. He chose the artists to decorate the interior, including Johannes Kirchmayer for the wooden carving and C.E. Kempe to create the stained glass windows. The high altar was inspired by Winchester Cathedral and St. Alban’s in England.

Vaughan’s follower Ralph Adams Cram wrote that Christ Church was ‘worked out on lines that are absolutely right’

“It could not be taken for a country church; yet is pure and scholarly Gothic, both modern in feeling and medieval—the enduring style adapted to new conditions,” wrote Cram.

Christ Church holds Solemn High Mass at 11 a.m. every Sunday. A large crowd comes to Compline, or night prayer, at 9 pm September through May. Christ Church is the headquarters for the North American branch of the Society of Catholic Priests, Episcopal clergy who practice the Anglo-Catholic tradition.

70 Broadway, New Haven, Conn.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

St. Andrew’s Church in Newcastle

Henry Vaughan’s first parish church, St. Andrew’s, is one of at least two notable churches in tiny Newcastle, Maine. The other is New England’s oldest Catholic Church in continuous use, St. Patrick’s, proud owner of a Revere bell.

He sailed to the United States in 1881 on the packet ship American Clipper, owned by Capt. and Mrs. William Glidden of Newcastle. Vaughan probably met them on the voyage.

Glidden and his partner owned clipper ships that sailed between Boston and San Francisco starting in the Gold Rush of 1849. The Gliddens commissioned Vaughan to design St. Andrew’s, and he lived with them while he worked on the church in 1883.

The charming half-timbered stucco church lies on the banks of the Damariscotta River. Its simple exterior is a rare example of rural late English Gothic, the first cottage Gothic Revival church in the United States, according to Vaughan’s biographer William Morgan.

Rich, colored stenciling and carved woodwork decorate the interior. Henry Vaughan had insisted the nave and chancel ceiling be stenciled according to his design. The vestry wouldn’t pay for the work, so Vaughan painted it himself over an entire summer on his back.

In 1908, a fire devastated downtown and the Newcastle National Bank found a temporary home in the St. Andrew’s parish house.

The church has a Henry Vaughan Fund to maintain and preserve the church; you can actually buy a Henry Vaughan gift card.

11 Glidden Street, Newcastle, Maine

Searles High School

Methuen High School, now City Hall

Edward Searles, an interior decorator born in Methuen, Mass., hired Searles for almost as many projects as the Episcopal Church did.

Searles married the fabulously wealthy widow (and much older) Mrs. Mark Hopkins one year before she died. She left him a quarter of the Southern Pacific Railroad and $21 million in property. Searles then indulged his whim for building on a grand, even excessive scale, almost always with the help of Henry Vaughan.

Searles sponsored dozens of projects—schools, churches, castles, organ cases, tombs and remodeling.

Pine Lodge in Methuen

Henry Vaughan expanded Searles’ home in Methuen into a huge estate, including a 74-room house and chapel surrounded by castle walls. Today the estate, Pine Lodge, houses Presentation of Mary Academy, a private Catholic high school.

Though rarely seen in town, and then only in his gold-trimmed Pierce-Arrow, Searles made many gifts to his birthplace. He paid Methuen’s $65,000 debt and gave it thousands of trees, a monumental statue of George Washington, three churches, the railroad station, a battlemented bridge across the Spiket River, the Red Tavern, a boardinghouse called the Hayloft, the John Hancock Masonic Lodge, the Central Grammar School, Searles High School, two family tombs, an organ factory and the Serlo Organ Hall.

Vaughan designed much of it, including the high school. From the outside it looks like a Jacobean prodigy house, a large, showy mansion built by English nobles. It cost $1 million and required imported Italian workmen. It now serves as Methuen Town Hall.

He also built one of his masterpieces in Massachusetts, but not for Edward Searles.

St. John’s Chapel at the Groton School.

Groton School Rector Endicott Peabody wanted a chapel that would be ‘one of the most beautiful ecclesiastical structures in America.’ Vaughan’s biographer William Morgan called St. John’s Chapel, built in 1900, a ‘milestone in Vaughan’s career as well as being one of America’s major neo-Gothic monuments.’

Methuen City Hall, 41 Pleasant St., Methuen, Mass.

Searles Castle

Searles Castle in Windham, N.H.

By 1905, Searles fixated on one final obsession. He wanted a proper castle. Searles then bought 1400 acres of land in Windham, N.H., to put it on.

Searles had discovered family ties to the Harcourts in Oxfordshire, England. They had a 15th-century manor house, Stanton-Harcourt, mostly destroyed. He supposedly sent Vaughan to England to draw plans of the ruined section of the original house. Vaughan then designed Searles Castle in Windham as a one-quarter-size replica of the English castle, complete with battlements and portcullis.

The Tudor Gothic castle was built of granite, fieldstone and dark red sandstone, most of which came from Searles’ quarries in nearby Pelham, N.H. It took nearly a decade to finish the castle and $1.25 million to furnish it. Eight-foot walls protected the castle from intruders.

Despite the castle’s high walls, Searles thought the village school was too close. So he offered to build Windham a new school if the town gave him the old one. The town then agreed, and Henry Vaughan designed ‘the handsomest and finest small school building in the state.’

Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H.

Though Searles Castle is one of the most imposing buildings he designed, the Chapel of St. Peter and Paul at St. Paul’s School is his most important. The chapel influenced a long line of school and college chapels and inspired many young architects.

“Had Vaughan died at, say, age fifty and had not lived to design many of his churches or Washington Cathedral, his place in the Gothic Revival in America would still be secure,” wrote Morgan.

For early photographs of the chapel at St. Paul’s, click here.

Searles Castle, 21 Searles Rd., Windham, N.H.

Mansion House, the Lost Henry Vaughan Residence

White Hall, or Mansion House, on Block Island

Searles commissioned Vaughan to build a dream house on Block Island for him and his new bride. Construction began on White Hall in the summer of 1888 and finished in 1890.

Searles spent over $1 million on the project, or about $24 million today. Vaughan designed the mansion as a ‘twin house,’ with each of the Searles having a separate identical side of the mansion. Rumors flew that the marriage was in trouble.

An octagonal dome topped the mammoth white pine house inspired by early 18^th century Palladian designs. The house, dubbed “Searles’ Folly’ and ‘Mansion House’ by the locals, overlooked a pristine beach. A hurricane blew off the dome during the finished house’s first winter.

Mrs. Searles died in 1891, the year after the mansion was finished. Searles rarely visited White Hall after her death. After he died in 1920, White Hall remained empty. Over the years it changed hands until a fire burned it to the ground in 1963.

Today, Rhode Island can only claim as Vaughan’s work the chancel furniture for St. Stephen’s Church in Providence. It was only Vaughan’s second commission in the United States, and it cost $4,000, as much as the entire St. Andrew’s church in Maine.

White Hall, Mansion Beach, New Shoreham, R.I.

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

St. Peter’s Episcopal Mission in Lyndonville, Vt.

Henry Vaughan designed another small rural church in the northern Vermont town of Lyndonville, St. Peter’s Episcopal Mission. The cornerstone for the simple neo-Gothic building was laid in 1898 on donated land. Today it stands in the midst of a modest residential neighborhood.

51 Elm St., Lyndonville, Vt.

Images: Christ Church (tower) By Delcio GP Filho from Goiânia, Brasil – The First Christ Church of New HavenUploaded by LongLiveRock, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7247526; Christ Church (full view) By Farragutful – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79676982St. Andrew’s By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35548737; St. Paul’s School By FCHarwood – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47027870; St. John’s Chapel By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17866430; Searles Castle By David Kolifrath – Author, CC BY-SA 3.0, By The original uploader was EraserGirl at English Wikipedia(Original text: EraserGirl (talk)) – Own work (Original text: self-made), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3657734https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13339085; Searles High School (Methuen Town Hall)

With thanks to The Almighty Wall: The Architecture of Henry Vaughan by William Morgan. This story last updated in 2023.

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The Many Mansions of Edward Searles

In 1921, coroners had Edward Searles body exhumed months after his death. Their conclusion, after examination, was that he had not been poisoned with arsenic as they had suspected. He died of natural causes. And when they planted him back in his Methuen, Mass., tomb they laid to rest a man who had controlled one of America’s greatest fortunes.

Edward Searles didn’t earn his fortune in the typical sense. He married into it. But in another sense he did earn it, because marrying a wealthy widow was the easy part of getting rich for Edward Searles. Keeping his wealth would prove far more difficult.

Over the years, Edward Searles (known by his middle name Frank) had many occupations. The way they were characterized varied depending on who described him. People who liked him called him interior decorator, architect, financier. His enemies – and he had many – called him a bric-a-brac salesman or a paper-hanger.

Edward Searles

Edward’s first job was as a mill hand in a Methuen cotton mill. Searles’ family had moved to Methuen from Nashua, N.H., so that his father could get a job in the Methuen mill. His father and two of his siblings died when he was just three years old, reducing the family to just Edward, his brother Andy and their mother.

Edward Searles took piano lessons, but received little formal education. At age 12 he began working in the mills. As a young man, he went to Gardner, Maine, and taught music to support the family. When his brother returned from serving in the Civil War and stole Edward’s fiancée, Edward left Methuen for Boston to work for the furniture company Paul & Co.

Furniture

When the furniture company went bust, Edward took his accumulated savings and traveled to Europe to study the palaces. In 1874, at the age of 33, he moved on to New York and went to work at Herter Bros., an upscale interior design firm. Herter Bros. had a reputation as the design firm preferred by the Vanderbilt family.

Edward Searles had an eye for furniture and a polished and pleasant manner that went down well among the company’s wealthy client base. In 1881, at age 40, Searles went to San Francisco. Ill health had weakened him and he needed time away, he would say. Armed with a letter of introduction from Herter Bros., Edward Searles began introducing himself to the California elite.

In April of 1883 he approached the home of Mark Hopkins, a multi-millionaire who had died five years earlier. Searles said he hoped to get a look at Hopkins’ famous castle on Nob Hill. The visit led to a dinner invitation. Soon he was approached by Hopkins’ widow Mary. She asked if he would accompany her on a trip back to Massachusetts. She was travelling east to tend to family affairs in Great Barrington, Mass. Searles agreed to go.

Mansion No. 1

In Great Barrington, he and Mary developed plans to build a mansion. He became her companion for three years, traveling with her to New York, Block Island, Florida and Europe. Their relationship gradually morphed from patron/interior designer to husband/wife in 1887.

Searles Castle Great Barrington

Edward would finish work on Mary’s Great Barrington mansion and build another on Block Island. They had an apartment in New York. All the while, he continued expanding his childhood home in Methuen into an enormous estate, Pine Lodge.

He hired Henry Vaughan, the pre-eminent neo-Gothic architect in the United States, to design Pine Lodge. Vaughan would later design three more Searles’ residences and public buildings he underwrote.

When he needed money, Edward would simply send a request to San Francisco and the funds would be sent.

Pine Lodge

Timothy Hopkins

In San Francisco, Mary’s son Timothy Hopkins managed the Hopkins fortune. Mary and Mark Hopkins never had biological children. But they had taken in Timothy Hopkins (Nolan) when he arrived in California from Maine. Timothy’s father had gone to California to work for Hopkins, and he sent word for his family to come join him. By the time the family arrived, however, Timothy’s father had drowned. So the Hopkins looked after the family. Shortly before he turned 21, Mary had adopted Timothy.

By 1887, Timothy had trained in business and was managing the Hopkins fortune. Timothy did not like Edward, but having the continent between the two men seemed like a big enough buffer. In 1891, however, things changed. That was the year Mary Hopkins died and Timothy learned that his mother had changed her will.

While an earlier will left the Hopkins fortune to both Timothy and Edward, a codicil added to the will declared that Mary purposefully disinherited Timothy, leaving most of her money to Edward. The news that the Hopkins fortune, estimated at $30 million, was heading east rattled California society. And Timothy vowed to overturn the will.

Mark Hopkins and His Millions

The money at issue was earned by Mark Hopkins. Mark Hopkins made millions of dollars from the California Gold Rush. However, he never lifted a pick or shovel to do so. Hopkins went west from New York with the 49ers’ gold craze and sold shovels, picks, clothing and mining equipment to the prospectors eager to get into the hills.

Many thought Hopkins a poor businessman. He offered easy terms for his wares, sometimes taking no money and letting miners work on credit for years. From many of his customers he took payment in the form of shares of their eventual claims, many of which proved valueless.

Mark Hopkins mansion in 1890

While some men searched the California wilderness for gold themselves, Mark Hopkins had a small army of men searching for gold for him. When they struck it rich, he and his New England Mining and Trading Company did too.

Thrifty and level-headed, Hopkins parlayed his gold fortune into a railroad fortune when he joined with three other men – Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Corliss Huntington – in founding the Central Pacific Railroad.

In 1854, Hopkins married Mary Sherwood, his first cousin. She eventually persuaded him to build a lavish mansion on Nob Hill in San Francisco and have the interior designed by New York’s Herter Brothers.

Nasty Lawsuit

Mary’s death and the terms of her will rocked society from coast to coast. She was one of the wealthiest widows in America and her son Timothy had a lot to lose. The ensuing lawsuit was nasty.

Edward said that Mary had changed the will because she learned that her son Timothy had hired private detectives to investigate Edward’s personal life and follow him around.

Timothy countered that his mother hired the detectives. She had grown suspicious of her husband’s affairs.

In a grueling trial, Timothy’s lawyers painted Edward Searles as a gold digger of a different sort than the men who worked for Mark Hopkins. And Edward admitted on the stand that his marriage to Mary had been prompted by romance, but also her money.

Timothy’s lawyers painted Edward Searles as indulging a dotty older woman to get at her fortune. They noted that he encouraged her spiritualist beliefs and attended several séances that she held in her Nob Hill mansion.

Edward’s lawyers countered that Timothy had received an education, considerable money, a Menlo Park mansion, and a high-level job at the Union Pacific Railroad thanks to his relationship with the Hopkinses. His mother Mary felt he didn’t need any more from her estate.

Timothy Hopkins

Secrets

But both sides seemed to dance around some issues. The judge ruled in favor of Edward Searles, but noted in his ruling that the parties were holding back secrets.

“This decision of mine is not at all on the merits of the case,” he wrote. “Why we have had only about of the third of the evidence put in, and the most important witnesses have not been examined.”

Whatever the detectives had found, Timothy was apparently holding it back to use as a bargaining chip as he appealed the judgment. Within a year the fight was settled.

Timothy received money, stocks and land valued at more than $3.2 million. Edward Searles received a promise that Timothy would no longer challenge the will.

The Nob Hill was mansion was split, in a manner of speaking. Timothy received the contents. The building was donated to an art school.

Edward Searles, Recluse

Following the trial, Edward Searles went on an 18-month traveling binge. In Methuen, he continued buying land around his childhood home, creating a mammoth estate. He furnished it opulently. Searles had his genealogy researched in hopes of finding a connection to British royalty. None was found.

He used his money to persuade the town to let him close streets to expand his property, and he fought the construction of a trolley that he felt was too near his home. The local newspaper dubbed him “Millionaire Searles” in reporting on his activities. But it did not deter him from expanding his estate or buying houses, demolishing them and replacing them with parks.

The Edward Searles estate in Methuen, 1890

Most viewed him as a generous, if eccentric, benefactor. He built the town a high school and a music hall. He bought the town newspaper to counteract his critics and staffed it with a friendly editor. And he financed businesses throughout town.

Methuen Memorial Music Hall, formerly Searles Organ Hall

Searles bought an organ factory and began donating organs to local churches, but under the condition that he be allowed to ornately redecorate the church interiors to keep up his decorating skills. Further, he set about commissioning new church buildings as gifts.

He did not limit himself to churches, either. Searles would travel the countryside in nearby New Hampshire. If a farm or rural setting struck his fancy, he would buy it and alter the scenery to his liking. He came to own hundreds of acres of land in southern New Hampshire this way. He would buy a farm, remodel it to resemble an English country house and then rent it or sell it.

A Proper Castle for Edward Searles

By 1905, Edward Searles fixated on one final obsession. He wanted a proper castle. Searles had purchased 1400 acres of land in Windham, N.H. His plans called for a one-quarter size replica of the Stanton-Harcourt Castle in Oxfordshire, England, complete with battlements. His masterpiece, designed by Henry Vaughan and dubbed Searles Castle, was finished in 1915.

Searles Castle

Five years later, at the age of 79, Edward Searles would die in Methuen at his beloved Pine Lodge mansion. And his death touched off one final scandal. In his will, Edward Searles left $250,000 to his nephew Victor Albert Searles. But the will contained a threat. Should Victor challenge any portion of the will, he would be disinherited.

The bulk of Edward Searles’ fortune – some $35 million – was left to his personal secretary, Arthur Walker. The will was drafted and signed just 14 days before Edward Searles died.

Edward Searles’ Second Trial

Victor Searles determined to challenge his uncle’s will. He announced that his uncle’s behavior was so unusual and unorthodox that he would prove his mind was unsound. Aside from his penchant for buying buildings and moving them willy-nilly, Victor Searles promised to unearth a hidden side of his uncle.

Homosexuality was a crime in 1921 throughout America. It was considered a mental illness, and if Victor Searles created a compelling case that his uncle was a homosexual he could use that to challenge the will.

Mud

Victor’s first court filings hinted at the mud he prepared to sling: “Edward F. Searles at the time the will was being executed was . . . in the charge of three New York nurses, none of whom can now be found. His intimate friends were excluded from the Searles home within two days of the making of this instrument on the grounds that he was too ill to see anybody.

“Mr. Searles was a recluse. He was especially shy with women and was what might be called a woman hater. He spoke disrespectfully of women, not wanting them to be around him at all. “

Walker, they charged, had cooked up the will to steal Searles’ money. Searles’ body was exhumed and tested to determine if Walker had poisoned him. And Victor’s lawyers unearthed Angelo Ellison.

Ellison, a young elevator operator, had accepted Edward Searles’ offer to become his companion. Searles had showered clothes and gifts on Ellison and even tried to influence the military to keep the boy out of World War I. He was hiding in the Catskills when Victor’s lawyers found him, giving ammunition for Victor’s lawsuit.

Walker settled the suit and gave Victor $4.5 million rather than drag the matter through the court. He came out of it a millionaire many times over, though he never altered his modest lifestyle.

What Remains Today

Today, Edward Searles’ creations still stand. His mansion in Methuen now belongs to the Presentation of Mary Academy, and his Windham, N.H., Searles Castle is operating as an events facility. His Great Barrington mansion is a private school. The Searles High School in Methuen now houses municipal offices. And at Bowdoin College, Searles Science Building still serves students today.

Images: Searles Castle By David Kolifrath – Author, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13339085. Searles Castle Great Barrington By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23279874. This story about Edward Searles was updated n 2023. If you enjoyed reading about his mansions, you may also want to read about Henry Vaughan here.

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In 1674 the Connecticut Rogerenes Test the Limits of Religious Freedom

The Rogerenes were an unusual group of religious dissenters formed in New London, Conn., in the late 1600s. They took their name from their founder, John Rogers, Jr., who came from a well-to-do New London family.

The story most often told about the Rogerenes involves Gurdon Saltonstall, who would later serve as governor of Connecticut.

Saltonstall, as minister in New London, was the most common target of the Rogerenes. The sect was discourteous and abusive toward the established church, while simultaneously maintaining a sympathetic following in town.

Gurdon Saltonstall

As the story goes, a man and woman came to visit Saltonstall during his dinner. They announced to him they had married in the Rogerene tradition, outside the church and outside the control of civil authorities. Faced with this deliberate flaunting of authority, what did Saltonstall intend to do about it, they demanded to know?

Saltonstall had a simple answer. Using his powers under the state and church, he declared them legally man and wife and went back to eating.

Historians haven’t managed to nail down the details of the story. It’s been told many times and with minor changes in the specifics. But it seems to perfectly capture the relationship between the official New London church and its chief critic, John Rogers and his Rogerenes.

Birth of the Rogerenes

Rogers was born in 1648. As a young man, his family began to flirt with the Baptist faith. By 1674, Rogers had staunchly opposed the Congregational Church, and he launched his own career as a minister. His followers, the Rogerenes, had a collection of beliefs culled from other faiths. Like Quakers, they believed in silent worship and prayer. Like Baptists, they believed in adult baptism by immersion and celebrating communion in the evening.

The Rogerenes also believed in Sunday worship, but didn’t believe in postponing work for the entire day. And they believed they should not have to pay taxes to support the Congregational Church.

Unlike some other dissenting faiths, however, the Rogerenes went out of their way to provoke the church. Rogers’ followers, which included a small group of his family and friends, would march through New London on Sunday, noisily proclaiming that they were working on the Sabbath. They would attend meeting at the church and disrupt the services and argue theology with the minister, Saltonstall.

For their protests, Rogers and his followers were frequently hauled before the courts. They were fined repeatedly and imprisoned. In 1695, Rogers was tried at Hartford for disrupting a Sunday meeting by entering the meeting house with a wheelbarrow. At another time, he placed his hand on his heart and stated: ‘This is the humane body of Christ.”

His sentence was to stand on a gallows with a noose around his neck for 15 minutes and pay a 5 pound fine. Further, he had to post bond of 50 pounds to guarantee his future good behavior.

Jailbird

No sooner had the trial concluded than the meeting house in New London burned to the ground. Further, someone had desecrated a meeting house in nearby Stonington. Rogers; his aunt, Bathsheba Fox; and his father’s servant William Wright were charged with the crimes and convicted. Rogers would spend nearly four years in prison. This was just the beginning of his legal troubles.

Rogers faced punishment for entertaining Quakers in his home and helping a young man escape from prison. He also married his maid when he hadn’t lawfully divorced his first wife. The list of offenses grew, as did Rogers’ time in prison.

After Saltonstall was elevated to governor in 1708, he had Rogers declared insane. As a result, his jailers removed the windows of Rogers’ jail cell — treatment for insanity at the time. But Rogers’ friends rioted and had the boards removed.

When another Rogerene went to prison for failing to keep the Sabbath, her supporters removed the doors from the New London jail. All the while the Rogerenes continued baptizing people and getting condemned by the church for it.

In 1721, the Rogerenes occupied the New London Meeting House in protest over having been taxed to pay for it. Saltonstall, however, stayed away. When Saltonstall returned, the group repeated the protest, resulting in fresh charges against them.

Faith Healing

Along the way, the Rogerenes had begun embracing a belief in faith healing. When he learned of a 1721 outbreak of smallpox in Boston, Rogers went to the city to visit the sick. Upon his return to Connecticut he developed the disease and died.

The Rogerenes did not die with John Rogers, however. The sect persisted. Saltonstall died in 1724, and the Rogerenes gradually became less of a thorn in the side of the Connecticut government. One group of Rogerenes resettled in New Jersey and started a religious community there. Others took up Quakerism.

The faith was active well into the 1800s. Later Rogerenes were less confrontational in relation to other churches, but they stayed true to their rabble-rousing roots. Rogerenes were among the early opponents of slavery and proponents of women’s rights.

Thanks to The Rogerenes; some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of Connecticut by John Rogers Bolles and Anna Bolles Williams. This story last updated in 2023.

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‘Sour Ale in Summer’ – The Puritan Beliefs of Charles Chauncy

In the early 1600s, the Anglican Church came under criticism from all manner of dissenters offering a wide variety of opinions on how the church should change. The Puritan beliefs are probably the best remembered, and the Puritan zeal to change the church appealed mightily to a young minister named Charles Chauncy.

Born in 1592 in England, Charles Chauncy became a vicar in the Anglican Church. But Chauncy was drawn to the Puritans – the group of religious reformers that wanted to work within the church.

Puritan Beliefs

In broad strokes, the Puritan beliefs rejected the Catholic traditions and ceremony incorporated into the Anglican Church. Puritans wanted to return to a purer form of religion that stressed the need for a more pious life. They also wanted a more personal relationship with God that put ministers on the same footing as everyone else.

But the Puritans themselves disagreed over particulars, and Chauncy had some radical ideas for the times.

For example, how often and when should churches offer communion services? Chauncy supported evening communion. How should ministers administer baptism? Chauncy believed the ceremony did not involve merely sprinkling holy water over a person. Rather, he believed in complete immersion in the water – even for infants.

A Catalogue of the Severall Sects and Opinions in England and other Nations: With a briefe Rehearsall of their false and dangerous Tenents. Broadsheet. 1647

Twice Chauncy was taken to task for his outspoken opinions while in England. Once he was even briefly imprisoned. Both times he recanted his positions, but he maintained a simmering anger at being called to heel by church authorities. After his second run-in, a fellow clergyman wrote in a letter:

“Mr. Chauncy… mends like sour ale in summer. He held a fast on Wednesday last, and … he with another preached some six or eight hours. The whole tribe of Gad flocked thither, some three-score from Northampton; the Lord Say, with his lady, honoured them with their presence.”

Scituate

With Chauncy gaining a following for his positions, the church was apparently planning once again to confront him when he decided it was best to leave England for America. He arrived in Plymouth in 1638 and ministered there for two years. Then his brash nature led to his departure – this time to Scituate, Mass. Another church member reported on the news in a letter to England:

“Mr. Chancy and the church [at Plymouth] are to part…. At a day of fast… he openly professed he did as verily believe the truth of his opinions as that there was a God in heaven, and that he was settled in it as the earth was upon the center. … I profess how it is possible to keep peace with a man so adventurous and pertinacious, who will vent what he list and maintain what he vents, it’s beyond all the skill I have to conceive.”

Chauncy’s Persistent Puritan Beliefs

But Chauncy persisted in trying to explain the rightness of his opinions, publishing The Doctrine of the Sacrament, with the Right Use Thereof.

John Winthrop. American Antiquarian Society

In Scituate, Chauncy found a more welcoming community that at least tolerated (for the most part) his theories on baptism. Massachusetts Gov. John Winthrop recorded in his journal in 1642:

Mr. Chauncy of Scituate persevered in his opinion of dipping in baptism and practiced accordingly, first upon two of his own, which being in very cold weather, one of them swooned away.

In at least one instance, Chauncy nearly got pulled into the water during a baptism in the panic over drowning, Winthrop recorded. In another, Chauncy agreed to give a mother a letter that allowed her to have her baby baptized in Boston, using a less traumatic ceremony.

Chauncy also vehemently criticized the half-way doctrine. Many Puritan Congregational Churches allowed the baptism of children of non-baptized members and accepted them into the church. This allowed the church to maintain greater numbers and political influence. But critics argued it allowed non-believers into the church as well.

Charles Chauncy at Harvard

With offers to return to England, Chauncy was on the verge of taking his Puritan beliefs back across the Atlantic when he was presented with an interesting proposition. Harvard College President Henry Dunster had to resign because of his position on yet another of the Puritan beliefs. Dunster came out in favor of Baptism for adults only. Some argued that infants were not capable of being baptized because they, as innocents, could not have had a religious experience that called them to accept the church. Dunster shared the view and was asked to leave Harvard.

Charles Chauncy

The young college then offered the Rev. Chauncy the position of president. The job came with a stipulation, however. Chauncy would have to silence his most controversial views on Puritan beliefs and focus on running the college.

The scholarly and erudite Chauncy was well-suited to his new task. In 1654, now in his 60s, Chauncy the firebrand became Chauncy the academic bureaucrat. He flourished for more than 15 years as president of a growing Harvard College. The chief controversy of his tenure, if you can call it a controversy, was his insistence that the salary of the president should be increased – a pursuit as futile as his other passions.

This story last updated in 2023.

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