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In: History - American·History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)·History - Religious
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #21645.
The work is a collection of concise, illustrated sketches that aim to supply a readable compendium of the stories attached to New England’s surviving historic houses. In her introductory note, Mary Caroline Crawford acknowledges the scholarly foundation laid by Samuel Adams Drake and explains that, unlike Drake’s exhaustive data‑driven volumes, this book is intended for “searchers after the romantic in New England’s history,” offering narrative accounts that appeal to a broader readership. The opening essay, “The Heir of Swift’s Vanessa,” sets the tone by intertwining architectural description with the personal dramas of figures such as Bishop Berkeley, Jonathan Swift, and the tragic Vanessa, linking the physical structures to the lives that shaped them. The table of contents reveals a series of episodic tales, ranging from “Molly Stark’s Gentleman‑Son” to “The Old Manse and Some of Its Mosses”, each anchored in a specific historic dwelling, promising a blend of biography, local lore, and cultural context.
Crawford writes in a genteel, late‑Victorian style, marked by elaborate sentence structures, frequent literary allusions, and a reverent tone toward both the architecture and its protagonists. The prose is dense yet accessible, reflecting the scholarly yet popular intent of the early‑1900s. Readers who enjoy richly detailed historical narratives, the romance of early American life, and the intertwining of architecture with personal drama will find this volume rewarding. It especially suits those with an interest in New England heritage, literary history, and the genteel storytelling of the period.
The opening · free to read
These little sketches have been written to supply what seemed to the author a real need,--a volume which should give clearly, compactly, and with a fair degree of readableness, the stories connected with the surviving old houses of New England. That delightful writer, Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, has in his many works on the historic mansions of colonial times, provided all necessary data for the serious student, and to him the deep indebtedness of this work is fully and frankly acknowledged. Yet there was no volume which gave entire the tales of chief interest to the majority of readers. It is, therefore, to such searchers after the romantic in New England's history that the present book is offered.
It but remains to mention with gratitude the many kind friends far and near who have helped in the preparation of the material, and especially to thank Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of the works of Hawthorne, Whittier, Longfellow, and Higginson, by permission of and special arrangement with whom the selections of the authors named, are used; the Macmillan Co., for permission to use the extracts from Lindsay Swift's "Brook Farm"; G. P. Putnam's Sons for their kindness in allowing quotations from their work, "Historic Towns of New England"; Small, Maynard & Co., for the use of the anecdote credited to their Beacon Biography of Samuel F. B. Morse; Little, Brown & Co., for their marked courtesy in the extension of quotation privileges, and Mr. Samuel T. Pickard, Whittier's literary executor, for the new Whittier material here given.
M. C. C.
Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1902.
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