Tag: Maine

So just how old is our house?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Real estate transactions did use the lot at the corner of Water and Third streets as a referent for other lots. We’ve already seen examples of John senior’s mention of “land owned by me” and the like. Later, we encounter “the homestead of my late father John Shackford” and “the old homestead of my father the late John Shackford.”

Yes, homestead.

This detail on our stairway resembles others from the 1830s and 1840s in town.

After considering the 1806 Samuel Wheeler house at 9 Washington Street and the Federal-style 1805 Hayden (the oldest two-story dwelling in town), the circa 1807 Lewis Frederick Delesdernier on Franklin Street, the 1810 Jonathan Weston, 1820 Daniel Kilby, and 1821-1822 Stetson-Starboard houses on Boynton Street as well as an 1812 Cape on Washington Street, the 1816-1818 Dr. Micajah C. Hawkes on Shackford Street, 1819 Jonathan Venzim-E.E. Shead on Middle Street, and 1821 William Bucknam and Captain Joseph Livermore houses on Key Street, I’m confident that ours predates them and may indeed be older than 1803, as the routing of Water Street route proposed.

I’m willing to venture 1780s. Feel free to argue otherwise.

The mortices and peg holes in this rafter from our house reflect timber framing techniques.

As for time? An Eastport Sentinel article on the Wheeler house, March 29, 1882, mentioned that under the ownership of Bion Bradbury, the home “was changed by the substitution of a pitch roof,” among other modernizations. I hadn’t really considered the pitch of our roof until this but now realize it is lower (or was, before our own modernizations) than many of the later structures in town. The Federal-style houses, of course, are an exception.

Living the dream

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here I am at the keyboard while overlooking Lubec Channel from a rented cabin at West Quoddy Station, a former U.S. Coast Guard lifesaving post. We needed to vacate our home for two days during its renovation, and we settled on this, still in sight of Eastport on the water to the north and yet a world away.

As for Shackford Head

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

While the 100-acre Shackford holdings along Water Street underwent subdivision and real estate development, the 100 acres at Shackford Head remained intact. So far, I’ve been unable to locate the original title that would have been bestowed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Captain John Shackford senior, but the documents for the adjacent Coney or Cony Farm repeatedly refer to the land held by John Shackford, during his life, or later, “land formerly of John Shackford.”

In 1837, when Joseph Coney leased his 40-acre farm to his son, Samuel May Coney (1812-1895), the rent was recorded as one cent a year.

Samuel soon came into full possession. By the time of his death, he had added the Shackford property, too, as was noted in the sale from the estate (attorney John H. McFaul) to Charles O. Furbush in 1896. That transaction included an 1895 Plan of Shackford Head by surveyor H.R. Taylor.

All of this would become part of the controversial attempt of Pittston Company’s attempt to build a massive oil terminal and refinery on the site in the 1970s.

I can see why Shackford heirs living in Eastport would have held onto the rugged land. A house could go through 40 cords of firewood in a year, and with seven homes or more at times, having a large wooded reserve would have been useful. Depending on the proximity of a sawmill, the wooded land could have also supplied the Shackford shipyard or even the wood in our house.

So much past under one roof

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I never suspected our humble cottage would hold so many stories and twists. A sea captain’s home should have a widow’s watch, right?

Ours, as you’ve noticed, doesn’t.

Still, a single house like ours can be a miniature version of the whole island’s history.

There are still so many unanswered questions to work around in this puzzle, along with points that will require clarification and correction. Consider this, like the house itself, a work in progress.

Besides, we’re living out the next chapter, including the renovations and restructuring that’s occurring as I write this.

Meet patriot Lewis Frederick Delesdernier

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In researching the history of our house, I learned about many of its earlier neighbors as well. Of note to the south was one with a rather exotic surname. Turns out he was a rather influential figure in the establishment of Eastport.

Here are a few points about him.

  1. He was born as Louis Frederic DeLesdernier in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1752 to Gideon de les Dernier and Judith Marie Madelon Martine. As for that French surname? The precise location at that time could have been under either French or English rule – the conflicts are quite tangled. He was, however, a generation removed from Geneva, Switzerland, by then. French-speaking, all the same, however anyone wound up spelling it.
  2. His uncle Moses was the first Protestant to farm among the French Acadians.
  3. When the American Revolution broke out, Lewis enlisted in an effort to bring the American Revolution to Canada. The attack on British Fort Cumberland in Nova Scotia was defeated and then, in retreat, Lewis ultimately wound up in Machias, Maine, where he was charged with maintaining good relations with the local Passamaquoddy to assure that they didn’t defect to the British. During this time, in 1779 he married Sarah Brown, the daughter of a fellow garrison member. For a Frenchman, attacking the English makes sense.
  4. After the war, he resettled on an island in the waters either in today’s Lubec or Eastport, Maine, one called variously Fredrichs or De Les Dernier island. There he was appointed as the first customs collector for the district, possibly encompassing both today’s Lubec and Eastport, and, in 1789, when the first post office was established, was named postmaster. Could that island have been what emerged as Moose Island, today’s Eastport?
  5. In Eastport, he was not only the first postmaster but also the first collector of customs. Case closed?
  6. The first owner of our house did have a ship named after him. In those days, naming a ship after someone often obligated them to buy a share in it. Did this present a conflict of interest for the custom’s collector?
  7. After Delesdernier’s first wife’s death in 1814, he married the widow Sophia Fellows Clark in 1817. Trying to determine the number of children remains elusive, but I’m finding no descendants in the region today.
  8. When he died in December 1838 at his son’s home in today’s Baileyville, Maine, a warm friend, Alfred A. Gallatin, the fourth U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1801-1814) under President Thomas Madison, said, “He is to me of all Americans I have seen, the most zealous and full of enthusiasm for the Liberty of his country.”
  9. An 1803 arrival in Eastport of Harvard graduate Jonathan D. (the initial for you can guess what) Weston was auspicious. Shortly before his death, provided details on much of the early settlement of Eastport in a history published in 1834 and later woven into William Henry Kilby’s 1888 volume. He also hosted famed ornithological artist John J. Audubon at his 1810 home at the corner of Boyden and Middle streets. I’m not finding any direct relationship, but will venture that the middle name was in honor of Lewis, perhaps even hinting at the reason for Jonathan’s moving to Eastport.
  10. Lewis’ circa 1807 house was eventually moved from down on the water to higher ground. The only remaining evidence of its original location is in the naming of Customs Street, far from the later custom’s offices. Today, the Delesdernier home on the south end of the island is proudly owned by symphony conductor and cellist Dan Alcott, who anticipates moving into it year-round. We can’t wait!