The History of Our House (part1)

When we bought our house nearly 2 years ago, Eric and I decided that an important part of our restoration process would be determining the original owners of our house, learning about who they were and then learning at the very least who, if only their name, the subsequent owners of the house were. Well, it turns out that there is a lot of research involved and many different steps in obtaining the information we seek, so it is only now that we are getting around to learning our house's history.

This morning I took a trip to the local county registry of deeds and researched all the deeds for our house back to what I believe is the first record - this being the owner of the land on which our house would later be built. And so, the story of our house begins:

On September 22, 1860 Hiram D. and Lucy F. Wentworth of New Bedford MA, sold 1/5 of their property in Amesbury for $333.45 to a William Proudman, who at the same time purchased land touching one side of the property line at "Sandy Hollow Road." The land was situated in an area known as "Amesbury Mills." Only 3 years later on May 17, 1863 William Proudman sold both the property on which our house is located and the additional land he purchased, to an Enoch Stevens.

Enoch Stevens, though probably not responsible for the construction of our house, turns out to be important enough to have some information given about him in 2 of the deeds I came across. I learned that he was a Shoe Manufacturer and seemed to have an interest in the town's development because I learned in the deed where his land is sold, (by auction after his death) that he "laid out" at least 2 of the roads in the surrounding area of our property - which roads they are are yet to be determined.

Now, at this point I cannot be sure if Enoch Stevens is responsible for the building of our house, or whether it is a later owner of the property who built it, because in the deed the statement: "a certain piece or parcel of land containing...four small dwelling houses standing thereon" appears for the first time. Its tough to determine if one of those four houses is ours, or if they are one of the others in our neighborhood or if those houses no longer exist at all. Because the property size is so large and some of the roads have either been renamed or no longer exist(like Sandy Hollow Road, mentioned above), knowing exactly where those houses were would require more research and not something that can be resolved from reading the deeds alone.

The owner who purchased the property and houses( in what was then known as Mill Village) on July 31st, 1869 by auction of Enoch Stevens estate was James W. Briggs. He is a very significant figure in Amesbury history, being one of the manager's of "The Brigg Carriage Co." While googling I came across an interesting bit of information about him and his brother:

"They built their own plant on the margin of Clark's Pond, consisting of one large four story wooden building, and three additional brick factories added in later years. So successful was the firm that they cleared a large section of land near their works and erected thirty five dwellings for the accommodation of the mechanics employed by them. The two brothers have each passed "over the river." James, the elder, died in 1891. Richard, the active business partner, died in the full tide of prosperity in 1894, loved and honored in the trade and in the community. The business established by them remains a lasting monument of their skill and financial ability, and is continued by the sons of J. W. Briggs."(source)

Our house was later deeded to Edward R. Briggs who we believe to be James Briggs' son. It appears in the records I came across, that Alvira A. Briggs, presumably the wife to James Briggs, is deeded his estate on April 27th 1903. On this same day she breaks up the large piece of property she has just been deeded amongst what can only be presumed to be James' remaining family: Richard Briggs, William Briggs, Edward R. Briggs, George Briggs, Clementine Briggs and Arthur Briggs. Edward gets "one hundred and thirty five and one half rods more or less together with four small dwelling houses standing therein." The reoccurrence of the phrase "four small dwelling houses" makes me wonder if our house may be one of those dwellings James Briggs bought from Enoch Stevens, but there still is no way to be sure. We currently own 21 and a half rods, not even a quarter of what Edward Briggs is Deeded and we own one of the larger plots on our street, so it is a toss up as to whether our house is one of these four or if it is one built by Edward Briggs after aquiring the land.

Edward Briggs is another important figure in the history of Amesbury. The Briggs Carriage Co. evolved into a street car business which in the early 1900's was willed to the Southern Car Co. at High Point, North Carolina. It is stated in the property deed that Edward R. Briggs, is from High Point, North Carolina and presumabley connected to both the Briggs and Southern Car Co.

At this point, our house's history is then riddled with a number of strange deeds all around the same time. The property is first deeded to Richard Briggs by Edward on November 18th, 1907. It is in this deed that, for the first time, the description of property sounds like where our home is located. It mentions not only the street that we live on, but the nearby cross street. Then only 10 days later, Richard deeds the very same property to Kate Briggs, the wife of Edward Briggs. Then on September 26th, 1913, Kate deeds some of the property back too Edward who then, on the very same day deeds this property, 51 rods worth, to Ellen Briggs, perhaps a daughter.

Then only two years later on January 2nd 1915, the property which I have now learned contained both my neighbor's house and my own, went into forclosure and was bought by Robert C. Clark for $430 by public auction. Robert then sold my neighbor's house to Richard Briggs, thus creating the property boundries of today.

I have all the deeds for the house to present day, but have not been able to research and read the deeds entirely at this point. There seems to be some interesting information there, but its hard to decifer as a layman and will need some direction to understand some of the ins and outs of it all.

I plan to do many posts on future findings with regards to more recent owners of the house and the ones I have already discussed. I want to know: when exactly was our house built? Could our house be one of the "small dwelling houses" mentioned in a deed as far back as 1869? I will be visiting the local library and the assessor's office. I want to find old sketches of the house or old pictures so we can finally know what this house looked like when originally built and what elements were later additions. I think it will be a long time before I can have many of these answers, but at this point I feel satisfied knowing what I now know.