Oldest wood frame house in America

Each year, Cindie and I take a trip to New England to do family genealogical research. Unlike most years where we do not have specific destinations, this year we had two tours scheduled.

Our first stop was in Wethersfield, Connecticut, which we have visited on several occasions. Wethersfield was founded in 1634 and named Wethersfield in 1637. It is considered Connecticut’s first settlement. We went to the Wethersfield Historical Museum. The museum has local genealogies, biographies, and files for individual families. Cindie reviewed files on several of her ancestors.

Cindie’s Russell, Wolcott, and Graves ancestors are buried in the First Congregational Church Cemetery. The cemetery is directly behind the church and the section where Cindie’s ancestors are buried is a steep, two-story tall hill. On previous visits, we climbed the hill to visit each grave. However, because of the high temperature and sore hips and backs, we just slowly drove through the cemetery.

The next morning we went to the nearby Godfrey Memorial Library in Middletown, Connecticut. The Godfrey is an independent non-profit library which specializes in genealogy, family history and local history. Its greatest contribution to genealogy was the development of the American Genealogical Biographical Index (AGBI). AGBI is an index that connects individuals to sources of information about that person. The library contains an extensive collection of genealogies of families with an emphasis on the New England area.

I was looking for information on my eight ancestors who founded Stamford, Connecticut. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything new. However, while looking for my Cross family, I found a genealogy on the Churchill family. My ninth-great grandfather was Rev. John Churchill, who was the subject of this book. I confirmed that I am related to Norvell Francis Churchill who saved Gen. George Armstrong Custer. Cindie had more luck finding info on her ancestors.

Thursday was scheduled to be used to find information about some of Cindie’s relatives. In the late 1980s or early 1990s, a construction crew reshaped a hillside and then went home for the day. After a rain storm overnight, when the crew returned, there were coffins sticking out of the hillside. The government removed and reburied the coffins and remains in a nearby ancient cemetery. Since first reading this story, Cindie has wanted to know more about this and find the location of the cemetery.

Our starting point on this search was Groton. Unfortunately, we put Massachusetts into the GPS instead of Connecticut, so we wasted about an hour before getting to the Groton Library. There was information on the incident but nothing on the cemetery location. We went up the road to Preston but there wasn’t information on the cemetery’s location. Further north we got to Griswold and found information on the incident and the location of the cemetery at the Griswold Library. The cemetery was located a considerable ways off the road in a field/wooded area. It was also difficult to find being on back roads. We decided not to attempt to visit the graves.

Friday we went to Dedham, Massachusetts, which is just south of Boston, to tour the Jonathan Fairbanks house. The Fairbanks House is the oldest wood-framed house in the country. It was built circa 1637. Jonathan Fairbanks is Cindie’s 9th great grandfather.

While waiting for the tour to begin, we struck up a conversation with a couple from Chicago. The woman asked if Cindie was related to Jonathan. Cindie acknowledged that Jonathan was her 9th great grandfather. The woman’s response was “Mine, too!”. Later on in their discussions, the woman and Cindie realized that they were also both related to William Brewster.

Just before the tour started, she asked me
if I had any early Massachusetts settlers. I told her my earliest immigrant ancestor was Simon Hoyt who came in 1629. Her response was, “Mine, too!”.

The house originally was two-stories and had six rooms but has had multiple additions over the centuries. The first addition was a lean-to which was used to process the farm’s milk. The milk was separated into curds and whey, churned into butter and made into rounds of cheese. Butter and cheese were traded to obtain items which could not be made on the farm. In the early 1700s, they added a root cellar and two small workers rooms. Just after the Revolutionary War, the family added another house to the building. Colonial Loyalist (those that supported Britain during the war) were forced to move to Canada, so there were a number of vacant houses through the area. They either bought the home from the former residents or moved a vacant building.

The house remained in the family for eight generations. The last family member, due to poor health, left the home in 1904 and passed in 1908. Relatives then bought the farm and created a foundation to preserve the building.

Saturday morning we went to the Sturgis Library in Barnstable. Last year we attempted to visit this library but it was Sunday and the library was closed. The library was built onto Rev. John Lothrop’s meeting house from the mid-1600s. Lothrop was one of the founders of Barnstable and Cindie’s 10th great grandfather. At the library, Cindie researched her 11th great grandfather, Stephen Hopkins. She also found some information about potential other ancestors but was not sure of their connection to her. Later that afternoon, we were to go to a presentation about Hopkins. Next week’s article will discuss the Hopkins presentation.

Saturday night, Cindie determined that the potential ancestors she found in the Sturgis Library were actually her ancestors.

Sunday we went to Plymouth to the Plimoth Patuxet Museum (often referred to as Plymouth Plantation). It consists of replica buildings of some of the original Plymouth settlement along with a replica of a Native American village.

The museum provides a “golf cart” service to move visitors from place to place. We first stopped at the “Indian” village. It consisted of a small bark hut, which was much smaller than the real huts. It had a small garden. The children would occasionally sit on a perch to watch the garden and keep predators away. The most impressive item was the “dug-out” canoe. It was made from a tree trunk more than 30 feet long and about three feet in diameter.

We next went to the village and walked through all of the houses and listened to the workers explain what they were doing. After completing the tour, we were to go to the “North Gate” and meet the golf cart driver. As we walked back toward where we thought the gate was, a staff member, Ron, who was not in costume, asked us how we were doing. We said good and asked for direction to the North Gate, which he gave us. Cindie then asked about the houses. When she was last here, the houses had the names of the Pilgrims who built and resided in them. Those names had been removed because they were causing confusion. Ron, who during the summer walks around the village pretending to be Stephen Hopkins, then showed us Hopkin’s home. We spent almost an hour talking about the house and Hopkins. He explained, in detail, how the museum determined what should be included in each home. As we left and headed to the North Gate, he pointed out William Brewster’s house which was across the street from Hopkins.

Monday we went back to the Sturgis Library where Cindie found information on about four to six additional ancestors. That afternoon we went to Mystic, Connecticut to the George Denison house. It was built in 1717 by the grandson of Cindie’s 9th great grandfather, George Denison, who came to Mystic in 1642. The original George Denison is also an ancestor of the Houghs and Bishops. The woman who showed us around was also George’s descendant and Cindie’s distant cousin.

Tuesday we were to go to the Stamford Connecticut Museum but it was closed till Thursday, so we came home.

Copies of the Almont Historical Society’s various books can be purchased by contacting Jim Wade at 810-796-3355 or jrwade49@ gmail.com or stopping by the museum on Saturdays from 1-4 p.m.