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Six Historic Barns

Thousands of New England’s historic barns have survived severe weather, westward migration, suburban sprawl and competition from corporate agribusiness.

Often connected to other farm buildings and the farmhouse, they usually had many uses. Historic barns sheltered dairy cows, teams of oxen, horses, hay and crops.

Some historic barns, on the other hand, were built specifically for one purpose, like Connecticut tobacco or Vermont dairy cows.

But typical New England farm families grew a variety of crops and livestock, making and selling anything to support the farm. A New England farmer might sell maple syrup, timber, clothing, hard cider and barrels. He might run a tavern, or rent out his rooms or his beehives.

Big House, Little House…

Northern New England’s historic barns often connect to the house and to other buildings, Thomas L. Hubka described such connected farm buildings as ‘Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn.’

Though you might assume New Englanders connected their houses to outbuildings because of the weather, you would be only partly right.

According to Hubka, the agricultural reform movement beginning in the early 19^th century inspired New England farmers to make their farms more efficient.

So they connected their houses with such outbuildings as barns, ells, chicken coops, sugar houses, woodsheds, workshops and carriage sheds.

Farming as a way of life has waned in New England, but the public appetite for locally grown, unadulterated food is sparking a revival on a smaller scale.

If you have any favorite historic barns in New England, please share them in the comments section.

Windsor Tobacco Barn

Two of Windsor’s historic barns that sheltered shade tobacco. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Tobacco loved the sandy soil of Windsor, Conn., and in 1640 farmers began planting tobacco seeds from Virginia. As cigar smoking grew popular in the early 19th century, Connecticut farmers began to specialize in cigar binders using Broadleaf and Havana Seed. Eventually, they grew a light, tasty tobacco under tents of hand-woven cloth (hence ‘shade tobacco’) to use as wrappers.

By the middle of the 19th century, Connecticut emerged as a leading producer of tobacco. The tobacco Valley ran from Springfield to Hartford.

Tobacco farmers relied on seasonal labor from college campuses in the South, including Morehead College, which sent a young Martin Luther King, Jr., to Simsbury. They also used local child labor. World War II and the passage of child labor laws forced farmers to rely on immigrant workers from Puerto Rico and Jamaica.

Health concerns and competition from mass-produced cigar wrappers caused Connecticut’s tobacco acreage to dwindle.

Windsor produced more shade tobacco than anywhere else in the state. So in 1988, the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Historical Society formed in Windsor to preserve artifacts from the era. The historical society’s Luddy/Taylor Connecticut Valley Tobacco Museum is located in Northwest Park in Windsor.

135 Lang Road, Windsor, Connecticut

Sabbathday Lake Barns

The Shakers built these classic examples of New England historic barns. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

Ann Lee founded the Shaker sect, formally known as the The United Society of Believers, in Manchester, England, in 1847. Lee broke away from the Quakers, and her followers were known as the ‘Shaking Quakers’ because of their ecstatic dancing during Sunday meeting.

After Ann Lee – known as ‘Mother Ann’ – went to prison for her beliefs, she came to America with eight followers in 1774.

The Shakers expanded to 19 utopian communities throughout the Northeast and Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia and Florida. They preached a doctrine of celibacy, self-sufficiency, pacifism, communal living and equality between the sexes.

In 1794, the Shakers formed Sabbathday Lake near New Gloucester and Poland, Maine,

By the 1840s, the Sabbathday Lake Shakers had carved a large enterprise out of the Maine forests. They owned 1,900 acres and 26 large buildings, including barns, a meetinghouse, a blacksmith shop and a large dwelling house.

The Sabbathay Lake Shakers built their barns in the New England style, the most common found in the region. Larger than typical barns in other parts of the country, they have doors at the ends and basements. The Shakers built the Sabbathday Lake barns into the side of a hill, which allowed them to access the upper floor from the ground.

The Shakers peaked in the 1840s, with 6,000 members throughout the United States. Their belief in celibacy would doom them to slow, near extinction.

But for many years during the 19^th century, the simple, self-sufficient Shakers of Sabbathday Lake, Maine, sold their products to the luxury-loving guests and the owners of the Poland Spring Hotel.

707 Shaker Road, New Gloucester, Maine

Old Tavern Farm

Like many historic barns in New England, the Old Tavern barn connects to the other farm buildings.

Like many historic barns in Northern New England, the barn at the Old Tavern Farm in Greenfield, Mass., connects to buildings with other uses.

The Old Tavern Farm served many purposes over the centuries, reverting today to its original use as a bed and breakfast.

The farm’s early owners supplemented their farm income by running a tavern – or perhaps it was the other way around. They served neighbors and travelers along the Old Post Road

The tavern also served as a meeting place, a courtroom and a newsroom, noted the registration form for the National Register of Historic Places. The property doubled as a military training field, sports arena, stockyard and fairgrounds.

Samuel Hinsdale inherited the farm from his father, Mehuman Hinsdale, once taken captive by Indians in the 1704 raid on Deerfield. Hinsdale began building on the land in 1740, and by 1747 he operated a tavern.The main house was built around 1820, but the wing was built in 1794 on Hinsdale’s foundation.

Others ran the tavern from 1836 until 1860, when the temperance movement shut it down. The Smith family ran the 160-acre farm from the latter part of the 19th century until 1997.

817 Colrain Road, Greenfield, Massachusetts

Bennett Farm

That cupola on the Bennett Farm’s barn was once a steeple.

Ocean Born Mary’s son Thomas Wallace once owned the land in Henniker that became the Bennett Farm. The son of the legendary New Hampshire woman then sold it to Joseph Lewis in 1777. Its subsequent owners ran it as a tavern until 1848. From that point on, its owners ran it as a typical Northern New England farm.

The barn was built in 1834 as a religious meeting house. Around 1860, the Bennett Farm’s barn burned down, so the farm’s owner moved the meeting house to the farm and converted it to a barn. The top of the steeple blew off during the Hurricane of 1938, leaving a cupola. .

Mark Bennett bought the farm in 1902, and his son Stephen took over when his father died in 1925 and ran it into the 1960s. Stephen’s son now runs the farm.

“Bennett Farm as it survives today conveys the character and scale of a late 19th-early 20th century diversified family farm,” notes The National Register of Historic Places registration form.

11 Bennett Rd., Henniker, New Hampshire

Mount Hope Farm

See Mount Hope’s historic barn at the Saturday farmer’s market held at Mount Hope.

The Mount Hope Farm in Bristol, R.I., includes a mansion built in 1745 and expanded in 1840 and 1895, and two historic barns built in 1860. But it also owes its significance to its storied owners and connected events.

Once the traditional seat of the Wampanoag Indians, Benjamin Church killed King Philip nearby. The colonists then confiscated the land, and the wealthy merchant and slave owner Isaac Royall, Jr., built the farmhouse in 1745. But Royall’s Loyalist sympathies forced him to move to Halifax at the outbreak of the American Revolution.

The State of Rhode Island then confiscated the land again. Proceeds from the sale of Mount Hope went to pay Continental Army officers and soldiers.

William Bradford, great, great grandson of the Pilgrim governor, bought the house in 1783, and George Washington visited him for a week there. Bradford later won election to the U.S. Senate. The farm is also known as the Governor Bradford House, though he only served as deputy governor.

In the early 1950’s, the then-owner, Rudolf F. Haffenreffer, III, deeded Mount Hope and approximately 250 acres of the original farm to Brown University.

“Today, this handsome estate with its historic mansion and beautiful gardens, is an island of tranquility in an increasingly urban landscape,” noted the National Register of Historic Places registration form.

250 Metacom Ave., Bristol, Rhode Island

Shelburne Farms Horseshoe Barn

The Horseshoe Barn at Shelburne Museum.

Cornelius Vanderbilt’s granddaughter, Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb, created a classic Gilded Age gentleman farm in Shelburne, Vt.

Eliza and her husband, Dr. William Seward Webb, bought up small farms to create their 3,800-acre estate in 1886. They hired Frederick Law Olmsted to design the winding drives, scenic vistas, parklands, gardens and a golf course.

Among Shelburne Farms’ historic barns is the horseshoe barn, not one of the original buildings designed by architect Robert Henderson Robertson. It was built later as the next generation of Vanderbilts struggled to keep up the farm.

The Webbs’ daughter-in-law, Electra Havemeyer Webb, turned Shelburne Farms into a museum. She wanted a proper setting for the carriage collection, so she searched and found a rare horseshoe-shaped dairy born in Georgia, Vt.

Because the owner refused to sell it, Electra had her staff find, move and assemble hand-hewn beams from 12 historic barns and stone from two gristmills. They finished the 238-foot-long barn in 1949.

In 1957, the museum built the annex to house 150 more vehicles added to the collection.

In 1972, the Webb descendants incorporated Shelburne Farms as a nonprofit educational organization. It has 400 acres of sustainably managed woods and a grass-fed herd of Brown Swiss cows. It’s also one of the principal concert sites for the Vermont Mozart Festival. Shelburne Farms also features an inn and restaurant, open seasonally, on the shores of Lake Champlain, tours, walking trails, a children’s farmyard and a farm store that sells, among other things, cheddar cheese.

Shelburne Farms, 1611 Harbor Road, Shelburne, Vermont

Images: Bennett Farm By User:Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19490337; Old Tavern Farm By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24500134.

Mount Hope Barn by By Kenneth C. Zirkel – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28160904.

This story about historic barns was updated in 2023.

5 comments 4.9K views

Six Indian Trails That Turned Into Scenic Highways and Byways

The Indian trails that crisscrossed New England go back to prehistoric times.

Native Americans migrated from summer to winter homes along the paths, often worn bare by centuries of travel. They used the trails for hunting, trading and making war.

When the English colonists arrived, they owed a debt of gratitude for the Indian trails, wrote Chester B. Price in his book, Historic Indian Trails of New Hampshire.

“[T]hanks to the Indians, the early New Englanders inherited a vast network of trails which not only covered the New England states, but extended as far west as the Rocky Mountains,” Price wrote.

The Mohawk Trail and Kennebec Trail were two of the most famous Indian trails in New England. During the American Revolution, they were used for military maneuvers. Benedict Arnold followed both, the Kennebec Trail to his regret and the Mohawk Trail to his satisfaction – he captured Fort Ticonderoga at the end of it.

We identified six scenic driving routes that follow old Indian trails, at least one in each state. Some have been researched more thoroughly than others. If you know of scenic old Indian trails that can be driven today, please share them in the comments section.

The Old Connecticut Path

The Oliver Ellsworth House lies near one of Connecticut’s Indian trails.

The Old Connecticut Path was one of the most important Indian trails, stretching from Massachusetts Bay to the Connecticut River. In the early 1630s Nipmuck Indians loaded their surplus corn onto birch-bark backpacks and walked from the Connecticut River to Massachusetts Bay. There they traded their corn for copper and iron goods and woolen cloth.

John Oldham, whose death started the Pequot War, followed the Old Connecticut Path to explore the continent’s interior in 1633.

In 1636, the Rev. Thomas Hooker spent two weeks on the Old Connecticut Path with his followers to Hartford.

The Rev. John Wareham also led his congregation along the Old Connecticut Path to Windsor, Conn. John Adams followed that route from Tolland to Windsor in 1771. “Today I rode through paradise,” Adams wrote.

There is no consensus the exact location of the Old Connecticut Path from beginning to end, though genealogical researchers are working on it.

They concluded Adams took a part of the path that goes from the Tolland Green Historic District through the towns of Ellington, East Windsor and South Windsor. Then he went on to the Palisado Green in Windsor.

Generally, the Old Connecticut Path went through Massachusetts heading west along the Charles River in Cambridge, curved south in Wayland through Framingham, to Webster and to Lake Chaubunagungamaug. In Connecticut it continued to Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor.

Today you can download apps that guide driving tours along parts of the Old Connecticut Path in Northeast Connecticut. You can follow John Adams’ route, or you can take other routes that go from Webster, Mass., to Tolland or Woodstock in Connecticut. Another Connecticut route goes from Woodstock to the Willimantic River. (Click here for more information about driving tours.)

Waldoboro Mast Trail (Route 220)

Downtown Waldoboro, which hasn’t changed much since this postcard was published, lies at the end of one of Maine’s old Indian trails.

Maine’s Indians used a vast network of canoe trails to get around, and to reach them they used a series of Indian trails from the interior to the coast. Carrying places, or portages, gave Maine tribes mobility throughout the region. It also let them trade extensively with each other and later with Europeans.

Indian paths from inland Maine to the coast also gave the Native Americans access to fur, birch bark and moose hide. One such path is known as the Waldoboro Mast Trail, which now follows Route 220 from Montville to Waldoboro. It was the most direct route from Lake St. George to the shellfish beds of the seacoast.

Wawenoc Indian families migrated along the path from the seasonal hunting camp to the seasonal fishing camp. They hunted for moose and beaver in the winter and brought their fur as trade goods to the coast using snowshoes, sledges and toboggans.

English settlers found the trail a convenient route to carry masts and spars for hundreds of the King’s ships built in Waldoboro.

Today Route 220 winds through rural Maine from Montville, which has several historic properties and the Frye Mountain Wildlife Management Area. It passes through the scenic towns of Liberty, home of Lake George and the Davistown Museum, and Washington. Travelers know Waldoboro for its commercial clutter on Route 1, which includes the popular eatery Moody’s Diner. The town itself has five nature preserves, a traditional downtown and eight sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

For a map of Route 220, click here.

Mohawk Trail

The Mohawk Trail.

The Mohawk Trail, one of the most famous Indian trails, today is one of the most beautiful drives in Massachusetts. Originally a trade route, it connected the Atlantic Indian tribes with the Iroquois tribes in Upstate New York and Canada.

The trail became a warpath when Mohawk war parties traveled it to destroy Pocumtuck settlements. Metacomet, or King Philip, took the Mohawk trail in 1676 to try to enlist the Mohawks in his cause (he failed). Benedict Arnold then took the Mohawk Trail on his way to capture Fort Ticonderoga.

In 1914, the Massachusetts General Court declared the 63-mile Mohawk Trail a scenic tourist route – the first in the United States.

Today Routes 2 and 2A follow the Mohawk Trail in Massachusetts from Athol to Williamstown. Boosters claim 100 scenic and culture attractions, including the Hail to the Sunrise statue, the Bridge of Flowers, a natural bridge, glacial potholes, pre-revolutionary homes in Old Deerfield, old growth forests and views of the Berkshire and Taconic Mountains.

Highway markers designate the trail. Click here for Mohawk Trail driving tours.

Winnicoek Trail

A seaside estate at Little Boar’s Head along one of New Hampshire’s many old Indian trails.

The Winnicoek Trail ran along the coast from the Merrimack River in Massachusetts through Winnicoek, now Hampton, and along the seashore to the Piscataqua River at Strawbery Banke, now Portsmouth.

The Pennacook and Abenaki Indians migrated along the path in the summer to what is now Odiorne Point. It’s a wooded park along the shoreline with sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean and the Town of New Castle.

When the English colonists arrived in 1635, they used the Winnicoek Trail as a bridle path. Today it’s scenic Route 1A, also known as Ocean Boulevard, running along New Hampshire’s 18-mile shoreline.

Ocean Boulevard passes the wide, sandy beaches in Salisbury, Mass., and Hampton, N.H., then climbs a rocky promontory. Seaside estates begin at the Little Boar’s Head historic district and continue through Rye. Take a detour along Route 1B to wind through the quaint town of New Castle and past the grand old Wentworth-By-The-Sea Hotel. Route 1A finally ends in Portsmouth, a historic seaside city with many fine restaurants and Federal style homes.

Click here for a map of Route 1A.

Pequot Path

Route 1A turns into Ocean Road and the Narragansett Pier.

For hundreds of years, Narragansett and Pequot Indians traveled along the Pequot Path. It ran about 69 miles near the mainland shore from Providence to New London, Conn.

In 1636, Roger Williams took the Pequot path through Apponaug (Warwick) on his journey from Providence to the trading post at Cocumscussoc (near Wickford). “It is admirable to see what paths their naked hardened feet have made in the wilderness in the most stony and rockie places,” he wrote. Williams probably saw a dozen Narragansett villages along 20 miles of the path.

English settlers began using the Pequot Path until it evolved into the lower part of the Boston Post Road. Today, parts of scenic Route 1A (not to be confused with US Route 1A) follow the old Pequot path along the South Coast.

Scenic Route 1A follows the shore from Wickford to Narragansett, past the John H. Chafee Nature Preserve, a good spot to get out and walk to Narragansett Bay. Or, take a detour to the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace. The road passes large, exclusive homes, with views of the bay and the historic Casey Farm. FInally it feeds into Ocean Road past Town Beach to Narragansett Pier.

Click here to see how the Lower Post Road follows existing roads in Rhode Island.

Route 22A

Vergennes, a city that grew up along one of Vermont’s Indian trails.

Route 22A through the Lake Champlain Valley in Vermont was once part of a network of well-worn Indian trails linking villages and other overland trail networks. The western Abenakis of Vermont also used waterways such as the Connecticut River and Lakes Champlain and Memphremagog.

The St. Francis Indians came down from Canada along the trail by Lake Champlain to find warmer fishing grounds. The trail finally stretched to the Bronx, N.Y., where it became known as ‘the road to Bedford and Vermont.’ Today Vermont Route 22A is a continuation of New York Route 22A and a scenic drive in foliage season.

Route 22A goes from Ferrisburgh to historic Vergennes, Vermont’s oldest city. It then runs through Addison, Bridport, Shoreham, Orwell and Fair Haven on the New York border. Along the way lie the Chimney Point State Historic Site, dairy farms, rolling hills, white church steeples, and country inns.

Images: Old County Jail and Museum, Tolland, Conn. By Photograph by Greg O’Beirne – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1391441; Hail to the Sunrise, By This mediaToddC4176 (talk)Original workJoseph Pollia, 1893-1954. – self-made, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36285807; Bridge of Flowers By FFM784 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61250392; https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57432594; Little Boar’s Head By Teemu08 at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1798424; Narragansett Pier By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57432594.

This story about New England Indian trails was updated in 2023.

5 comments 7.2K views

Four Rice Boys Captured by Indians in 1704; Three Rice Boys Decide To Stay

On a hot August day in 1704, the Rice boys were working with their fathers to spread flax in a field in what is now Westborough, Mass. Suddenly a party of about 10 Indians rushed down from the wooded hill nearby and seized five of the Rice boys.

The Indians bashed 5-year-old Nahor Rice’s brains out on a rock. They carried off four others, aged 7 to 10, while everyone else escaped to the garrison house of Thomas Rice.

Queen Anne’s War had broken out, one of the French and Indian wars fought over domination of North America. During the war, French and Indians raided frontier towns in New England. Six months before Indians captured the Rice boys, the raid on Deerfield, Mass., left 47 dead and 112 captured. The Indians marched the captives through the snow to Canada.

The Rice boys mirrored the fate of the Deerfield captives. Some were ransomed, or redeemed, through the efforts of their families and Dutch traders. Others, like 7-year-old Eunice Williams, assimilated with the Indians and refused to return to their homes.

Caughnawaga Indians at Camp, oil painting by Cornelius Krieghoff

The Thomas Rice Boys

Asher Rice, 10, and his brother Adonijah, 8, were sons of Thomas Rice.

Silas, 9, and Timothy, 7, were the sons of Edmund Rice, a second cousin of Thomas Rice.

The Indians took the Rice boys to Kahnawake territory, a mission in Canada where the Jesuits had converted the Iroquois to Catholicism.

The Rice family tried desperately to redeem their boys. They enlisted the help of a Col. Lydius, a Dutch merchant in Albany.

Thomas sold his home to pay for his sons’ ransom. Asher, the oldest, had the hardest time assimilating with the Indians. Four years after his capture, Asher returned home, ‘so broken by the shock he had received at the time of his seizure that he never fully recovered from it.’

Plaque near Westborough High School, marking spot near the Rice boys’ capture.

He developed eccentricities. Wrote Westborough historian Herman Packard De Forest,

“He spent a great deal of effort in making a gristmill on a new plan, so that the upper stone should be fixed, while the lower one revolved. This, he insisted, was the only natural way, for in the human mouth, which was evidently the original corn-mill, it was the lower jaw that did the work.”

Asher Rice retained some of the habits he picked up during his four years in captivity, but he dreaded the return of the Indians. Throughout his life he built stockades, long after the danger had passed. His father built him a house in 1720, and he married and had a son.

His brother Adonijah was never redeemed, but he did leave the Indians at some point. Adonijah was given the Indian name Asaundugooton. He married a French woman, then a Dutch woman, and owned a farm near Montreal.

The Edmund Rice Boys

Iroqouis Indians in 1914.

Silas and Timothy grew up with the Indians and completely forgot how to speak English. Their father tried to redeem the boys, traveling to Canada in 1707. He met with no success. The boys preferred to stay with their Indian families.

Edmund Rice died in 1726, the same year he wrote a will that said, “if Almighty Power should work that deliverance for my two sons Silas and Timothy out of their captivity, which we indeed of ourselves can have little prospect of, and bring them home, they shall receive five pounds each.”

Timothy was adopted by a Kahnawake chief who had been converted to Catholicism.

Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, a Westborough minister, recorded Timothy’s history in 1769.

“Timothy had much recommended himself to the Indians by his own superior talents; his penetration, courage, strength & warlike spirit; for which he was much celebrated,” wrote Parkman.

His name was Oughtzorongoughton.

Return Home

The youngest of the Rice boys, Timothy, became a Kahnawake clan chief and married an Indian woman, Catherine Osennenhawe. They had at least one son, named Pierre.

Eventually, in 1740, Timothy returned to his home in Westborough with an interpreter, a Mr. Tarbell, another colonist captured by Indians from Groton, Mass.

Gov. Jonathan Belcher

“They arrived here Sept. 15th. They view’d the house where Mr. Rice dwelt, & the Place from whence the children above spoke of, were captivated; of both which he retained a clear Remembrance; as he did likewise of Several elderly persons who were then living,” wrote DeForest.

Massachusetts Gov. Jonathan Belcher sent for Tarbell and Rice, and they visited him in Boston.

Later when the American Revolution broke out, Timothy was said to be influential in keeping the Indians from joining the English during the American Revolution. He died at the age of 80 in 1777.

Silas Rice married an Indian girl named Marie Tsiakohawi; he took the name Jacques Tannahorens. They had five children. A granddaughter married the grandson of Eunice Williams.

According to one source, in 1900 Silas had at least 1,350 descendants, a large portion of all the Iroquois in Canada and the United States.

This story about the Rice boys was updated in 2023. The image of the historic marker: By Innapoy – I took this photo, CC BY 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28895668

6 comments 7.9K views

Yankee Troubadour Jonathan Plummer – The First Massachusetts Poet Laureate

There has never been an official Massachusetts poet laureate, but there certainly was an unofficial one. Jonathan Plummer of Newburyport, while not anyone’s idea of a master poet, nevertheless managed a partial living off his tales and verses.

Though he wore many hats – peddler, preacher, odd-jobs man – he ultimately chose poet laureate to the people as his crowning achievement.

Jonathan Plummer

Born in 1761, oldest of eight children, his biographers described him as, ”mentally weak and easily imposed upon.” His parents schooled him at home. They sent their other children to school, however – a slight that troubled him until the end.

He was not a handsome man. One biographer described him: HIs feet were long and clumsy, his legs were thick, his chest broad and strong, his face was long, with a prominent nose, wide mouth, and thick lips. His voice was deep-toned and solemn, and of great compass. He is remembered by thousands who retain a recollection of his air and manner as well as the tones of his stentorian voice.

Plummer’s own description of himself was hardly any kinder. He was, he noted, “Persecuted, despised, hated, slandered and defamed with one gloomy, real distressing and uncommon infirmity in the bargain, viz. an offensive breath, occasioned by a catarrh of the nose.”

As a teenager, Plummer began selling halibut in Market Square in Newburyport. He was unmercifully taunted and became the butt of jokes, invited to non-existent parties.

Illustration of Jonathan Plummer

Privateer, Peddler, Poet

According to his autobiography, in 1776, just 15, Plummer enlisted in the Continental militia. But he saw no battlefield action, serving at a garrison in Dorchester, Mass. He reenlisted in 1777, but again saw no action before his discharge.

Plummer also made an abortive attempt at becoming a privateer, an experience that nearly ended his life. He said he signed on in 1777 with a ship, The Hero, but deserted before it sailed. He soon learned that the Hero was lost at sea.

Next he became a common peddler, selling spectacles, scissors, thimbles, combs, needles, pins and verses. Basket and books in hand, he worked the marketplace in Newburyport as well as travelling door-to-door,

Still, Plummer did possess talents. He had a remarkable memory and could recite poetry when asked, his loud voice booming through the marketplace.

He obtained, and quickly lost, teaching jobs. A fan of religious revivals, Plummer took to searching for a congregation to minister to. He identified himself as “lay bishop extraordinaire.” But he could find no congregation that agreed with him.

All the while, Plummer continued his house-to-house peddling. Along with the necessities of life, he began to offer broadsides and books he wrote and printed himself.

He initially turned to poetry as a way to woo women. He titled his first effort To Florella of Deerfield. But he failed to win Flora’s or any woman’s heart.

He soon found that storytelling captured a broader audience.

Boating accidents, smallpox outbeaks, hurricanes, fires, and murders all were fodder for his one-man publishing empire.

Fair Ladies

A sampling of his verse from a poem about a girl he feared died in a smallpox outbreak:

“She’s gone! her matchless soul has fled!
Her body’s number’d with the dead!
Relentless death has with his dart
Pierc’d lovely Katy to the heart!

Plummer’s caustic side also found an outlet in his publishing. In 1793 he produced Plumer’s Declaration of War with the Fair Ladies of the Five Northern States. He swore off young women, turning his attention to a succession of spinsters, courting in turn nine “vigorous and antiquated virgins.” But he found no takers.

They thought a ballad feller too mean to associate with, and often insulted me on account of my offensive breath, cruelly despisin me because I was unwell.

Whittier Remembers

John Greenleaf Whittier

Among Plummer’s customers was the poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who recalled him in his book, Yankee Gypsies.

“Twice a year, usually in the spring and autumn, we were honored with a call from Jonathan Plummer, maker of verses, pedler and poet, physician and parson,—a Yankee troubadour,” wrote Whittier.

“[F]irst and last minstrel of the valley of the Merrimac, encircled, to my wondering young eyes, with the very nimbus of immortality,” Whittier recalled.

Whittier remembered how Plummer brought with him pins, needles, tape and cotton-thread for his mother. He brought jack-knives, razors and soap for his father. And he brought verses of his own composing, “coarsely printed and illustrated with rude wood-cuts” for the younger members of the family.

“No love-sick youth could drown himself, no deserted maiden bewail the moon, no rogue mount the gallows, without fitting memorial in Plummer’s verses,” he wrote. “Earthquakes, fires, fevers, and shipwrecks he regarded as personal favors from Providence, furnishing the raw material of song and ballad.”

Whittier recalled Plummer’s welcome appearance in his family’s country seclusion. “We listened with infinite satisfaction to his reading of his own verses, or to his ready improvisation upon some domestic incident or topic suggested by his auditors,” he wrote.

At first Plummer stumbled when he started a new subject, but then his rhymes flowed freely. “His productions answered, as nearly as I can remember, to Shakespeare’s description of a proper ballad,—”doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant theme sung lamentably.

“He was scrupulously conscientious, devout, inclined to theological disquisitions, and withal mighty in Scripture. He was thoroughly independent; flattered nobody, cared for nobody, trusted nobody. When invited to sit down at our dinner-table he invariably took the precaution to place his basket of valuables between his legs for safe keeping. “Never mind they basket, Jonathan,” said my father; “we shan’t steal thy verses.” “I ‘m not sure of that,” returned the suspicious guest. “It is written, ‘Trust ye not in any brother.'”

Lord Timothy Dexter

Lord Timothy Dexter with his hairless dog

In the mid-1790s, Plummer finally found a patron. Newburyport’s quixotic Lord Timothy Dexter took him on as a sort of protégé. Dexter provided Plummer with a small stipend. In return Plummer recounted Dexter’s exploits in flattering poetry.

In 1806, Dexter died and left no money for Plummer, though it did nothing to dampen Plummer’s praise for his former patron. He then published two accounts of Dexter’s life.

Bitterness eventually consumed Plummer, however. He lived with several of his cousins. He took to self-harming and mutilated himself. Plummer eventually died, apparently of self-starvation, in 1819.

The newspaper announced the death of “Mr. Jonathan Plummer, aged 58, Massachusetts poet laureate to their majesties the sovereign people.”

Bequests of Jonathan Plummer

Plummer left a considerable estate of more than $1,500. He left several wills that revealed his bitterness.

One will directed: “Should my father or any of either my brothers have hypocrisy to follow me in mourning, or to walk between my coffin and the other people who happen to attend my funeral, I desire my executor to endeavor to prevent their so dong.”

In his final will, Plummer directed his estate to publish 600 copies of his memoirs. The remainder of his money was to be given to the Methodist church in Greenland, N.H. His money, instead, went to his surviving brothers and sisters as the court judged him not of sound mind when he drew up his will.

Thanks to: The Life of Lord Timothy Dexter by Samuel L. Knapp; History of Newburyport, Mass., by John Currier and The Memoirs of Jonathan Plummer, Jr. 1761-1819 by Roger Wolcott Higgins and Jonathan Plummer, Jr. This story updated in 2022.

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