THE OLD MANNING HOMESTEAD
BILLERICA, MASSACHUSETTS
Built 1696
You can take a ride through any old town and see marvelous examples of early architecture, especially in New England. As you drive or walk by, you can wonder who lived there. It is not very often, however, that any house you see will be one in which one of your ancestors lived. I certainly have never seen such a house and I’ve toured plenty of historical homes for their history or for their beauty.
The Manning family is laterally related to me. It was a Manning daughter that married into the Robinson family. Then a Robinson daughter married into my Hopkins family. And eventually my Hopkins grandmother married into the River family. Nevertheless, the Mannings were a part of my ancestry and there is a Manning homestead still standing in New England.
This old homstead lies in the north part of Billerica, Massachusetts, about 2-1/4 miles from the Center village, on the south side of the road to Chelmsford and 1/4 of a mile from the boundary line between the two towns, still standing in the year 1900 when the Manning Family history was written, and still standing today, and mentioned on the Billerica web site.
The old manse is now over three hundred years old. The builder was Samuel Manning of the third generation. He died in 1711 and was the ancestor of all living members of the Manning family. It was for 175 years the continuous home of a branch of the family, and though outsiders had at times been tenants during the late 1800s, it has never passed from the control of the family.
The compiler of the Manning Family history studied all old county and town records and interviewed aged persons still living in 1900 who had individual memory of the house and so has been preserved a good deal of information about this Old Manning Homestead.
The land was acquired by Samuel Manning from the town in its early years. His land transactions are mentioned elsewhere, but here, stated briefly, he acquired one acre and 56 poles on “8, 8 mo. 1672” (or October 8, 1672), “on the west side of Concord river,” presumably near the present old house, and the next year an additional 24 acres which, undoubtedly, was the practical beginning of his farm, the area of which was increased by later acquisitions to over 225 acres.
The new house was of good size as it needed to be in that day of large families, and it was considered a fine house. From the builder, it passed to his son, William Manning of the fourth generation, brother to our SARAH MANNING. Erected in a time of Indian outbreaks and massacres, it was for a time one of the officially appointed “garrison houses,” to which an allotted number of families could hasten in time of imminent danger, there to unite and defend themselves from the attack of the enemy. It is uncertain whether this garrison was ever actually attacked, but, as massacres by Indians did not cease in Massachusetts until 1724, we may be sure there were times when the building was filled with frightened fugitives and armed men watching for the coming of the red foe. Tradition tells of loop-holes in the walls, surrounded with brick to stop hostile bullets, but this the writer always doubted, and the restoration of the house confirmed the doubt.
It is well known that at one time the north sides of houses, otherwise wooden, were wholly or partly built of brick to lessen the effect of winter winds, and such was the case at the Manning House. The loop-holes seem never to have been there. This does not prove that there was no fighting there. The trees and hollows may more than once have sheltered life-seeking Indians, and shots undoubtedly were exchanged.
The proprietor of the farm became a tavern-keeper, and the house was long known as the Manning Tavern. Tradition at one time stated that the tavern was started because it was on the line of the stage-route from Boston to New Hampshire by way of Billerica, however, stages first passed through Billerica about 1795 while the tavern was certainly started at least 1755 or earlier. Middlesex County records state that William Manning was licensed as an inn-holder in 1752. The first dated entries in the tavern account books are in 1753. No mention is found of public travel; they are simply those between the landlord and his fellow townsmen.
These were the days when nearly every man indulged in drink stronger than water, including the ministers. The old tavern books have occasional mention of such articles as flour, sugar, hay, etc., but nearly all entries are of liquids, such as “rhum,” “cyder,” “todda,” “flip,” “cheary drame,” and so on. Sales of quantities greater than a single drink were uncommon, showing that the beverages were consumed on the premises.
Some of the prices shown in the account books reveal the cost of common items bought for the premises: a pound of sugar 4 shillings; 1-1/2 dozen pigeons 3s; a pair of shoes £2 7s; a day’s work at mowing 10s; 6 eggs 1s 3d; a quart of rum 6s; ½ pint brandy 4s; a gallon of cider 6s; and a mug of flip 2s.
Between 1770 and 1771 there is a gradual change of writing in the accounts, showing the period when the landlord retired from active work in favor of his son, William Manning (201), within the time of whose management the stages certainly made trips along the road, stopping at the tavern. It is unknown when the place ceased to be a public house.
A few yards from the west end of the house, at the foot of the largest elm tree, may be seen a small, shallow excavation. It is the cellar of the “saltpeter house.” This was a building about 15 feet square where, in the Revolution,, saltpeter was made for use as one of the component parts of gunpowder to be used by the patriot troops. It is supposed that its manufacture was conducted by members of the Manning family. “The ‘peter house” became in later times the family wash-house, or laundry, and the great kettles, formerly used in the making of saltpeter, were devoted to the boiling of the clothes in washing. Some time after 1880 these kettles were broken up and sold for old iron. The gentleman who sold them said that one of them was five or six feet in diameter at the top, and the iron nearly five inches thick in places. Nothing remains of the saltpeter house but the cellar and a memory.
After the death of William Manning (201) in 1814, the house and farm descended to his children, eleven in number who lived. Only three married, leaving eight to pass more or less of their lives at the old home in single life. They passed away one by one, until the sole survivor was Miss Lucinda Manning. Affairs did not go well with no protector near. Tramps, gipsies and other molesters subjected her to severe annoyances. The gipsies defiantly camped upon her grounds, her cows were driven away and milked, etc. A niece lived with her for a time, but she finally decided that she must leave the old home.
By her own direction and at her own expense a house was erected for her near her relatives in Chelmsford village, a few miles distant. When it was completed she left the old home, from which her furniture and other effects had already been removed. When the team came for her, on the day of the change, “she was standing by the dying embers in the old fireplace of an empty room.” It was the home where life had begun and ended for many of her nearest kin, and it was to be home no longer. Memory must have been busy then. As she passed out of the house she exclaimed: “I shall never come here again!” And, though she lived more than 15 years thereafter, and was but a few miles away, she never did return.
Miss Lucinda is remembered as “a tall, dignified woman in spotless cap and snowy lace parted on her neck with precision, and remarkable for activity, earnestness, cordiality and hospitality.” It is said that she and her sisters remained single choice. She died August 10, 1880. By will she gave the house and 80 acres of land to trustees who were to lease it and devote the proceeds to “public worship and religious instruction in that part of the town of Billerica which is known as School District Number 4, said instruction to be by teachers of the Baptist, Methodist or orthodox denominations.” In the first part of the final decade of the 19th century the income went to the Baptist church of North Billerica.
By this time, the old manse was greatly in need of repairs, and these were not made. Tenants who were prepared to pay well for a place in good repair could find nothing there to invite them. The lack of work to check the effects of time and weather was seen; the great age of the house fell upon it with full force, and it was in a deplorable condition. Above the first floor all beams remained uninjured and, indeed, were of almost iron-like solidity. Below, beams were giving way, floors were warping, clapboards were literally crumbling into dust, and desolation and decay reigned.
The surroundings of the house are pleasant. It is a region of moderate hills, but immediately to the east and south is what the founders of Billerica called a plain. This, on the side of the road where the house stands, is a field of some six acres, level and smooth, and extending to a stretch of woods. Close to the house are ten or twelve elm trees the largest of which in 1896, was 12’2” in circumferance at a point four feet from the ground, and there were others similarly large; their height being estimated at 60-70 feet. Some 200 feet to the southwest are the barns and sheds of the place.
The house faces away from the road – this in accord with an old practice which gave “southern exposure” to the front of a house, no matter where the road was. The main part is 41’ long and 19’5” wide, but an annex, or “lean-to,” increases the width to a total of 30’7”. The roof descends sharply so that the height of the lean-to at the eaves is but 5’9”. It is this lean-to which was probably where the tavern was, and its entrance was closest to the road.
Construction-wise, the house presents several novelties to our way of doing things. The window casing are made of four pieces of heavy timber which are mortised together and fastened to the outer face of the walls by great, hand-made spikes, the heads of which are nearly one inch in diameter. The chimney is of the old-fashioned sort with a fireplace at three of its sides on the ground floor. It is about 9’9” by 8’5” “square” on the ground floor, and about 4’8” where it exits the roof.
The cellar stairs are of solid logs, hewn square, and are as firm to the tread as if of granite. Through the center of the house from east to west extends a great beam as a part of the foundation of the second floor. Owing to its great size, and after the fashion of that period, it extends below the ceilings of the ground-floor rooms. This beam is 13” wide at its larger end. The stairs leading to the chambers are of the winding order. Ther are no clothes closets. Originally the whole upper floor was devoted to two rooms, separated by the chimney and the small upper hall. The attic of the main house shows no sign of occupancy, but there we may be sure were stored ancient things during the 19th century.
When it was not a tavern, the lean-to was the kitchen. The east room on the lower floor was the living room; there, too, after the fashion of early days, the parents probably slept. In more “modern days” Miss Lucinda Manning was fond of sitting by the east window. The west room was the “spare” room; there, no doubt, the “company,” or visitors slept. The upper rooms would be divided between the sons and daughters. Possibly some of the children, when the family was unusually large, slept in the attic and heard the music of the rain on the roof.
Miss Lucinda Manning herself was the authority for the date of the erection of the house. She was born there in 1790 and was one of the youngest of a large family, her eldest sister was born there in 1769 as was her father in 1747. This reaches well back to the youth of the house. Moreover, all of her ancestors who resided there lived long lives which overlapped each other widely. It was said several years before the 1900 printing of the Manning Family history, that Miss Lucinda had long before marked the date “1696” on the wall. In repairing the house in 1899 this date, presumably the one made by her, came to light over the door in the east chamber, whereupon it was made permanent by being carved into the wood.
Around 1900 it seemed imminent that the old house would be torn down as useless to anyone. Mr. Warren H. Manning of Brookline, Massachusetts, began practical efforts to save the house. He tried to garner interest among Manning descendants in the area, but when all efforts among Manning descendants in the vicinity failed to bring a quorum as to how to effect the renewal of the house, he actually took a lease of the Old Homestead on May 31, 1899 and began making the repairs needed. He added new sills, floors, clapboards, window casings and windows, pieced down the beams, rebuilt the cellar wall, graded about the house and barn, excavated the old saltpeter-house cellar, rebuilt portions of the chimney of the house, renewed portions of the roof, added a new chimney to the shed at the NW corner of the house, scraped off the modern paint and paper in the interior of the house proper, replastered the ceiling, etc.
His intention was to do nothing that would give the old house a modern look, and, secondly, to restore to its original appearance, as far as possible, everything where former modern changes had removed original conditions. This done, he made the Old Homestead his summer home. Additional repairs in 1901 were the relaying and painting of floors, the re-hanging of doors and the putting on of wooden latches and the making of new doors for the south and east entrances. Drain-pipes were also laid from the house to a point on the opposite side of the road; the wall of the barn cellar was rebuilt; the frame of the barn drawn together and made fast; posts pieced out and foundations put under them, and the barn generally reconstructed).
Finally in 1900 the Manning Association was successful in its formation and a long-cherished plan of Warren H. Manning became possible and carried into effect. Objects of interest, of antiquity, and all relating to the family in general, were donated to form a collection of what was old and curious. Furniture, household articles, documents, etc., some of which are: frying pan used in the old house when it was a tavern; clothing, books, trunks, furniture, china, desk, etc. Lucinda Manning’s sampler, and sample of carpet once used in the old house. Two leather-bound chests; pewter measure once used in the Manning tavern; four samplers; seven books; walnut chair, a table. The original grant of a part of Samuel Manning’s farm, in 1674. Wool spinning-wheel, loom-basket, carpet-bag, blue plate, pewter tea-pot, old kitchen and farming utensils, sun-dial. Crane, chair, wood-box. Four-post bedstead, pewter flagon. A bed-key. Reed-bottomed chair; mortar and pestle; flint-lock gun barrel cannon. Mahogany four-post bedstead; china sugarbowl; tapestry 175 years old (in 1900); boot-jack used in the Joseph Manning tavern; and oak side-bars of rope bedstead.
In 1900 the place was still not owned by the Manning Family Association. It was held by her trustees, subject to the will of Miss Lucinda Manning. Warren H. Manning still held the lease but he could not be expected to carry the burden alone. The Manning family should possess the place, and the only way to do this was to acquire it by outright purchase. At the reunion of June 17, 1901, a few subscriptions were taken, but these were generally of small amounts and were accepted merely to complete the formal organization of the Association. The capital stock was $3,000 and no one member could hold an undue number of shares. The idea was to make the Old Homestead the property, not of a few individuals, but of the whole family. All should have ownership in it. Shares were non-assessable.
In 1901 the house was 205 years old. Rare, indeed, are buildings of such great age. The work done by Warren H. Manning cannot be too highly commended. Failing to form the Association as soon as was necessary, and with daily danger that the house would be torn down by the trustees of the will, he went about the work alone. As before stated, he personally took the lease of the place and repaired the house. It was not his, it was not the Association’s, but was the property of the lessors. He did not explain how he dared to venture this outlay, but we can understand his desire to save the early home of the family, and he probably had faith that, when it was put in first-class condition, the family would gladly unite to acquire it by purchase.
The manse is there. It was acquired by the Manning Family Association. Hundreds of the family have seen it. It has been a historical mainstay in Billerica since 1696. As an inn, during the Revolutionary War, troops traveling to fight for freedom would often stop for food and lodging. A fire several years ago destroyed a small portion of the structure but the majority of the building still remains. Today the Manning Manse is a family restaurant and dining is still available in the rooms used many years ago.
Come and see the old house.
The History of the Manning Family, by William H. Manning. Available on film #928251 item 7, at the SLC Family History Library.
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