Abutting homes and landmarks used to describe their locations have since been lost, and sometimes the once busy roads they stood upon are now simply well-worn trails through local woods. For most of us, the homes of our colonial ancestors were demolished long ago. In theory, locating the Lincoln house – or, rather, where it once stood – should be fairly straight forward, right?ĭetermining where your colonial ancestor lived can be a challenging and frustrating endeavor. As late as 1895, this house stood on the road leading from Rutland to Barre Plains, near the home of his father-in-law, Lieutenant Ebenezer Foster. At least part of this building was probably used as the stables mentioned earlier and just below it was a brick channel (4) doubtless for the drainage/sluicing down of the stable yard.According to John Emory Morris’ Stephen Lincoln of Oakham, Massachusetts, His Ancestors and Descendants (1895), Stephen Lincoln first built a home in Oakham, Worcester County, Massachusetts, in 1784. During the course of the excavations the remnants of a cobbled floor on a slate bed (2 & 3) were discovered in the northwestern end of the garden which coincided with the southern end of an outbuilding shown on the 1782 map. shows his plan of the garden and excavations. During the excavations a number of historical artefacts and building remains were discovered. Nevertheless, the same exercise was carried out for all the buildings in all of Shoreham’s old streets and was found to match surprisingly well.ĭuring April to July 1998 the owner of 19 Church Street, Professor Barry Hilson, started work in his garden to build a garage and conservatory. The 1782 map was drawn in freehand so does not fit precisely on to the modern day map. The courtyard extended from number 15 to 19 and beyond it the western end stretched across the rear of these properties then returned again to the Church Street frontage on land now covered by number 21 and continued into number 23 (the remaining buildings 9, 11 and 25 still stand) – an outbuilding stood behind the main building bordering on Middle Street. There was a courtyard fronting on to Church Street and this comparison between the two maps suggests that the southern half (the old Custom House) covered the land on which number 13 now stands. This illustration shows the old buildings from the 1782 Survey map in red overlaid on to a modern map. A more complete description and history of this building is already included in ‘New Shoreham Houses, Owners and Residents 1782 to 1920’ in Shoreham and Worthing libraries under the section relating to Church Street and all that is necessary here to more appreciate the findings of the excavation is to provide an idea of how the earlier building’s footprint compares with the 1850’s houses. Anciently known as ‘Chantry House (before the later house of the same name in East Street) the southern half was used as the Customs House until the 1830’s.ĭuring the latter half of the 18 th and early 19 th centuries the northern half and outbuildings were used variously as tenements, malthouse, stables, coach house, granary and a cistern or pump room. Hooper had previously acquired and demolished the earlier building on the site that was believed to be 16 th century. The entire block of houses numbered 13 to 23 in this area of Church Street were built in the1850’s by G.H.Hooper, a Shoreham property developer and descendant of the ancient Poole family of the town.
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