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Monday, March 7, 2011

An 1804 House - and some family connections!

My cousins are rennovating an 1804 house in Manchester by the Sea, Massachusetts. My cousin grew up in Manchester, and she has always dreamed of moving back to her hometown. Now she has a house in Manchester, and a large project ahead of her. The house had been attributed to Samuel McIntire* (see below) at the time of sale, so it will be carefully restored to preserve his architectural details and style. Please read the following blog about the 1804 House Project, by the design team restoring the house, at this link http://blog.wilsonkelseydesign.com/design-architecture/kitchens/our-1804-federal-home-an-interior-design-update/?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d754aa3027e57da%2C0



Althought this is a Wilkinson cousin (the paternal side of my family), Manchester is also the hometown of my Allen lineage (my Mom is an Allen). The house was built in 1804 as a wedding gift from Israel Forster to his wife Hannah Lee. They were married on 8 August 1802 in Manchester. Their daughter, Hannah Lee Forster (1805- 1911) married Benjamin Leach Allen (1803-1865). The first Allen in Manchester was William Allen (1602 - 1678) who was probably from Dorsetshire, England. He came to the New World in 1623 with the Dorchester Company to fish for salt cod, but he decided to stay and join Conant's settlement at Salem, and was granted land at Jeffrey's Creek, which became Manchester, Massachusetts.

My cousin's husband is a relative of Samuel McIntire, one of the earliest architects in the United States, and the best designer of Federal style homes in New England. He was hired by some of Salem's earliest millionaires, like Elias Hasket Derby. Some of his surviving homes are the Peirce-Nichols, the Peabody-Silsbee, and the Gardner-White-Pingree homes- all in Salem. Both my cousin's husband and Samuel McIntire are descendants of Phillip McIntire, born 6 August 1630 in Glencoe, Argyle, Scotland, and died in December 1719 in Reading, Massachusetts. Phillip was a Scots prisoner of War, placed on board the ship Unity and sold into servitude in 1650. You can read more about Scots prisoners here and here.Generation 1. Phillip McIntire married Mary Nichols
Generation 2. John McIntire (1679 - 1747) m. Elizabeth Daniels
Generation 3. John McIntire (1702 - 1768) m. Mehitable Whittemore
Generation 4. Joseph McIntire (1727 - 20 Jul 1776) m. Sarah Ruck
Generation 5. Samuel McIntire (1757 - 1811) m. Elizabeth Field

My cousin's link:
Generation 1. Phillip McIntire m. Mary Nichols
Generation 2. David McIntire m. Martha Graves
Generation 3. David McIntire, Jr. m. Eunice Hayward
Generation 4. Eunice McIntire m. Isaac Parker
Generation 5. Isaac Parker, Jr. m. Nancy Dowse
Generation 6. Isaac Parker, III m. Julia Hodgman
Generation 7. Fred H. Parker m. Alice Fanny Holden
Generation 8. Clyde Holden Parker m. Lucy Abbie Sanborn (his grandparents)

*UPDATE: according to my cousin "...we discovered that the house is not attributed to McIntire. Dean Lahikainen, curator at PEM, toured the house. The mantel, cornice, frieze and moldings are McIntire's though. The former owner advertised the house to be designed and built by McIntire but alas, he was wrong."

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Copyright 2011, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for dropping by my FH blog ..re Bullock .... My GG grandfather was a John Bullock who married an Honor Yelland ...they both were from Cornwall where the name is quite common. Although I have found someones tree that helps me take Yelland back to the 1600's and Devon, Bullock is a dead end ...at the moment.

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  2. Beautiful house. It will be fun to watch the progression of the work. How many will be living in the house? (It is huge.)

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  3. Hi, Barbara! The house isn't very big at all, it is one of the smallest attributed to McIntire. Now it has four bedrooms. One will be converted into a mother-in-law apartment for my aunt. It has absolutely no land around it, so the renovations have to be carefully planned. They can't just throw on an addition in the back.

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  4. This is why I love working on old houses. The projects often take on lives of their own, expanding far beyond the written 'scope of work'.
    The Forster/Leach House is in the loving care of the right people. BTW, I just posted another update on the project on our Wilson Kelsey Design blog....

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  5. Heather, I'm giving you the One Beautiful Blog Award. I'm getting my post about it ready now but it probably won't be posted till tomorrow evening. Come to my blog at http://nancysfamilyhistoryblog.blogspot.com to learn about it and get the image.

    Can you imagine being given a house like this for a wedding present?!!! I can't! Amazing. Interesting post.

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  6. Interesting information on this page. I'm also descended from Phillip McIntire down through both David McItire's and then to Elias McIntire and finally his daughter Bethiah McIntire who married my 3rd Great grandfather, Daniel Dewey.
    Jim Osborne, Lawndale, CA

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  7. i am a descendant of israel forster. i always wanted to knock on the door and step inside this home but i haven't dared to. i have a renewed interest in the forster family as i am also a descendant of samuel forster who fought in the revolutionary war. http://www.doylenewyork.com/content/more.asp?id=317 my sister, mother and i sat down with the auctioneer house as we had papers to prove that this revolutionary flag was in our family for 200 years.

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  8. i am a descendant of israel forster. i always wanted to knock on the door and step inside this home but i haven't dared to. i have a renewed interest in the forster family as i am also a descendant of samuel forster who fought in the revolutionary war. http://www.doylenewyork.com/content/more.asp?id=317 my sister, mother and i sat down with the auctioneer house as we had papers to prove that this revolutionary flag was in our family for 200 years.

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  9. i read with interest about this home. i am a descendant of israel forster. i may have the deed from his time period in my possession. i wish to step inside this beautiful home some day. there is some historical significance about the urns on top of the fence but i can’t remember what it was. i have had a renewed interest in the forster family as the forster flag is going up for auction. http://www.doylenewyork.com/content/more.asp?id=317 just this past week we sat down with the auction house in boston to show him documents that this flag was owned by our family for 200 years, passed down son to son, etc. i live 20 min from manchester. - See more at: http://blog.wilsonkelseydesign.com/2011/01/1804-federal-home-our-new-project/#sthash.F1b2ACd7.dpuf

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