Name/Title
Erastus Richardson House | 45 Washington Street, Eastport, Maine | I7-0B2-10 | District #115Entry/Object ID
115Description
This one and a half Cape Cod style house was built in 1822 for Dr. Richardson. It has a five bay front facing Washington Street with a center doorway with fanlight and side lights. It has a later three window dormer addition on the south side of the roof. Later the house was owned by E.S. Buxton. E.S. Buxton and his brother Charles were noted for their stables and carriages. E.S. Buxton was known for his "Cleopatra" barge wagon that would take up to forty passengers to dances, special events or just for a pleasant outing around the town. The old carriage barn and many yard ornaments are now gone. Both E.S. and Charles were members of the "Eureka" Engine Company and fought many a fire with the old hand-hauled and hand-pumped water engine.
From Eastport Walking Tour Brochure, 2010:
67) The Buxton House 45 Washington Street. E.S. Buxton and his brother Charles were noted for their stables and carriages. E.S. Buxton was known for his "Cleopatra" barge wagon that would take up to forty passengers to dances, special events or just for a pleasant outing around the town. The old carriage barn and many yard ornaments are now gone. Both E.S. and Charles were members of the "Eureka" Engine Company and fought many a fire with the old hand-hauled and hand-pumped water engine.
From trulia real estate website (2013): http://www.trulia.com/property/3006641725-45-Washington-St-Eastport-ME-04631#photo-1
Refers to house as Charles Buxton House built in 1826.
From fineartistmade.com:
DIVING INTO HISTORY (PART 1)
October 9, 2022
Last fall we were called in to tackle a project in Eastport that involved the total restoration of the front door surround in a very old Federal era cape prominently located on Washington Street. The homes current owner wished the work done as a gift to the residents of the island city.
As this was just the kind of project we love, we were eager to take it on. Work would be done through the winter in our shop (door, sidelights, semi-elliptical fan window), with the rest the following summer. However, our first order of business was a dive into the home’s history.
Known by locals as the Buxton house, a plaque on the front of the building next to its impressive door attested to that fact, adding a construction date of 1826. Papers and photos from the homeowners’ files passed down from previous residents informed us further. We learned that at one time the property was owned by Charles Moxey Buxton, mayor of Eastport, from 1901-1902. We would later discover that Charles had actually spent a portion of his childhood in the old home, inheriting the property as well as the family business, a hack, livery and boarding stable on Dana Street.
Charles was born in 1852 in Yarmouth, Maine, a town where generations of his family lived before him. Four siblings, Jerimiah, George, Frances and Edward, preceded him. His grandfather, Jerimiah Buxton, ran a tavern in Yarmouth providing respite to stagecoach passengers. The Georgian period building still stands today. His father Edward Gray Buxton joined in the family business, running a store, blacksmith shop and cooperage nearby as well has a tavern stand that catered to cattle drovers and peddlers. Edward and his wife Lydia would relocate the family (minus the two oldest brothers) from Yarmouth to Eastport in 1857, where Edward senior would take a position as a hotel keeper.
It was ten years later, in 1867, the family would take possession of the Washington Street home. Charles was 15 years old at the time. By 1870 Edward senior was working as a stable keeper along with his two youngest sons. In 1879 he purchased the stables at 9 Dana Street for 600 dollars.
In 1876 Charles married Catherine Stimpson Childs, in Boston. Formerly of Charleston, Catherine was the daughter of a prominent local merchant. While living in Boston, Charles was engaged in the retail furniture business. Two children were born in there; Horace and Edward.
Charles and family would return to Eastport about the time of his fathers passing in 1881. They would have three more children; Carrie, Florence and Helen while residing in the old family home. When he passed away in 1933 an item appeared in the Eastport Sentinel:
BUXTON RESIDENCE FOR SALE –
We are able to offer the Charles M. Buxton residence on Washington and High Streets for sale. This is one of the fine old homes of Eastport, located on one of the best corners in town. The house is charmingly old-fashioned, with broad mantles, white wainscoting, and an original and very typical fireplace (walled in) in the kitchen, and many other features of the long ago. There are no less than six rooms and a hall downstairs, and seven upstairs, including the bathroom. In fact, the house is arranged for two tenants and can be used that way, or it would be excellent for a large household or for taking roomers. Both front rooms on Washington Street, have open fireplaces, and both are very pleasant. That on the west has a fine built-in secretary. The front hall is spacious and attractive. The front of the house is protected by a granite curbing and iron fence. The front door is one of the finest colonial designs in Eastport. At the rear are two four-room tenements, opening on high street and a sizable barn that would make a good garage, opening on Sullivan Street. This is a very desirable property, and is on the market only because of the need to settle the estate of the late owner.
Apparently, there were no immediate takers until the property was purchased by the editor of the Sentinel himself, Rosco C. Emery, in 1935. Rosco born in 1886 to Canadian immigrants. From 1907-1909 he served as the Lubec school principal and was the editor of the Sentinel from 1914- 1945. In 1919 he married Vera Leonard and had two children Walter and Joyce all of whom lived in the old home. Not unlike Charles Buxton, Roscoe also served as a mayor of Eastport from 1928- 31 and 1935-36.
in 1946, Vera L Emery sold the property to Milroy Warren. The following item appeared in the Sentinel:
BUXTON HOUSE BEING RESTORED-
The former Buxton house on Washington Street, recently purchased by Milroy Warren of Lubec, is being rapidly restored as one of the finest examples of Colonial homes in this section. The fireplaces including that in the kitchen, are being renewed in their original design, and the rooms along with remarkably distinctive hall, are being redecorated in keeping with the style of long ago. In the process of removing the old wall paper in one of the front rooms, pine wainscoting was discovered, measuring in one section 26 inches in width and 12 feet in length, cut from a single board. The building is being painted white, emphasizing at the front door the wrought iron design which makes it one of the most beautiful home entrances in Eastern Maine.
DIVING INTO HISTORY (PART 2)
October 16, 2022
On the first of October, 1867, George Nelson Richardson, a Unitarian minister living in Worchester Mass, sold a federal era cape on the corner of Washington and High Streets in Eastport to Lydia C. Buxton, wife of Edward G. Buxton. George was the son of Erastus and Mary Richardson, builder and first residents of the home that came to be known as the “Buxton House.”
Erastus Richardson was born in Franklin, Mass., in 1794, to Amasa and Lydia Richardson. He had two older brothers Eliab and Eli and a younger sister, Eleanor. His father was a veteran of the Revolutionary War, first serving when he was 16 years old.
His parents were described in an 1876 book, The Richardson Memorial by John Adams Vinton, as: “consistent devoted Christians – intimate with their pastor, Congregational minister, Nathaniel Emmons, who often visited their home.” Emmons who was moderate in his beliefs, was considered in his time as one of the most influential theologians in New England. His sermons were published after his death, in six volumes, in Boston, in 1842.
Somewhere along the way Erastus decided to become a doctor. After a local apprenticeship in Franklin, he enrolled in the new medical program at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Establish in 1811, this program was one of the first (actually the 3rd) in the nation to offer an academic medical education. There he attended the lectures of the distinguished professors Solomon Drowne (pharmacology and botany) and William Ingalls (anatomy and surgery). The program last 16 years, granting 87 diplomas, Erastus received his in 1818, the same year the British would finally relinquished control of Eastport; a town they had occupied since British Commodore Sir Thomas Hardy "conquered" Fort Sullivan, in 1814. At the age of 24, Erastus came to the island city, and set up practice.
On May 31, 1820 an item appeared in the Columbian Centinel in Boston: "Dr. Erastus Richardson of Eastport, m. Mary Johnson, daughter of Job Johnson Esq., in Robbinston."
Mary was born on her parent’s farm in 1797. She had three older siblings; Job, Rebecca and Samuel. About 1789, her parents, Job and Mary, came to Robbinston, along Job’s parents John Johnson and Sarah (Swift) and his brothers, Hezekiah, John and Edmund. They were part of a contingent gathered at the behest of Edward Hutchinson Robbins, the towns proprietor and a future Lieut. Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was his responsibility to bring settlers to the town.
Her fourth great-grandfather, Capt. John Johnson, was notable as one of the first settlers of the town of Roxbury. In the summer of 1630, he came to America with his wife Margery and five children aboard one of the small ships of John Winthrop’s 15 ship fleet as part of the "Great Migration." Winthrop was the founding father and first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who’s vision for the Puritan colony he expressed; “we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us”. Later in his life, John was awarded one thousand acres of land for his great service to the colony. Winthrop wrote of him, “a very industrious and faithful man in his place.”
Her grandfather, John Johnson along with Captain Ebenezer Tisdale’s Co, marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Her great-grandfather on her mothers side, Job Swift, served alongside John at the age of 64 and distinguished himself the night before as the “Paul Revere” of Sharon. At the dedication of a bronze plaque in his honor in 1919 the following story was told:
On the evening of the 18th Job Swift attends a meeting of the Provincial Congress at Dedham. At this meeting the secret plan of the British for a raid the next day on Concord and Lexington was disclosed. Each member knew his part. Job Swift, on horseback in silence and with speed, bearing the burden of great responsibilities in his breast, hastened to his home in Sharon. Here he aroused his grownup sons, and the rest of the night was passed in giving the alarm at the homes of men and boys able to bear. Picture, partly in imagination, the situation in Sharon early the following morning April nineteenth, 1775 - one hundred and forty-four years ago. Behold, standing in partial concealment, at the edge of the forest near the rough road leading from Easton and Foxboro: Job Swift in the 64th year of his age, grim and determined of aspect; his grown sons, Joshua, Job, Jr., and Jirah, aged 31, 29 and 27, tall and erect, with their long-barreled muskets at their sides, waiting to fall in with Capt. Tisdale and his company as they should come marching down the road for Concord and Lexington.
DIVING INTO HISTORY (PART 3)
October 25, 2022
In June of 1821 Dr. Erastus Richardson was appointed Surgeon of the 3rd regiment of the infantry, 23rd Brigade, 3rd division of the Militia of the State of Maine. Two months later, in August, Mary bore their first child, a boy. Named for his father’s, father and mother’s family they would call him, Amasa Johnson. Sadly, just 5 days later, as was all too often the case in those days, misfortune would visit the fledgling family. Childbirth was always a perilous and risky time. Young Amasa died, no doubt causing great heartache to Erastus and Mary.
They would forge ahead and in late September 1822, Erastus purchased land on the corner of Washington and High Streets, in the shadow of Fort Sullivan Hill. He paid local merchant, Benjamin Smith $215. 82 for the parcel. The property had once been part of a much larger tract of land first purchased in 1774, by one of Eastport’s original settlers, Caleb Boynton, of Newburyport, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is likely work was begun on a new federal style, post and beam cape shortly thereafter.
After the Revolutionary War there was a period of good feeling. One way this was expressed was in the architecture of the new republic. The heavily ornate Georgian style that emanated from England and was named for the king the patriots so vehemently opposed, was modified, while maintaining its classical roots, to a more delicate restrained symmetry. Elements found in archeological discoveries of the time in Herculaneum and Pompeii were introduced.
Urns (signifying death and resurrection), acanthus leaves (eternal life) and lion’s heads (courage and protection); these motifs and more would find their way to the house on Washington Street; specifically the grand front door.
The fan window above with its black lead tracery form an arch of fourteen hearts divided by a roman urn. Thirteen gilded stars surely symbolize the newly formed 13 united and free states of America. One has to wonder if the urns, two more of which can be found in the sidelights, and the string of hearts have any connection to their lost first born. Could they be a heart-filled tribute to their deceased son? A single additional star caps the upper urn, a symbol of resurrection
On March the 17, 1823, while work on the federal was likely still going on, a second child, Mary Lydia was born. A year and three months later, on Independence Day, Mary Lydia would pass away striking another blow to the young couple. Succumbing to any one of a plethora of diseases, nearly half of the children born in this era would not make it to their fifth birthday.
There in a house on Shackford Street in Eastport, that sports a front doorway that is surprisingly similar to our Washington Street project, with its lead tracery and classical ornament on sidelights and semi-elliptical fan window. It is significant that the acanthus medallions, that punctuate throughout, are an exact match to those on Erastus’s old home. They were without a doubt cast from the same mold. An item from the Eastport Sentinel, 1882, suggests a construction date of 1824.
Looking at the home today with its austere white façade; only the multi-colored glass in the federal door surround hint at the flamboyant color palate that once adorned the building; a reflection of the personality of the home’s first occupant.
This was, at its earliest incarnation, the residence of another distinguished Eastport doctor and contemporary of Erastus, Micajah Hawkes. A graduate of Brown University, Hawkes came to Eastport in 1817. In June of 1824, just a month before his daughter’s passing, Erastus was called to the stand to testified in the esteemed doctor's malpractice trial; a case both celebrated and historic in the annals of medicine.
In the town of Lubec, in September of 1821, Charles Lowell was thrown by his spirited horse as it reared and fell back upon him, dislocating his left hip. His physician, John Faxon, unable to perform a necessary correction called in the more experienced Hawkes from Eastport for assistance. Hawkes, believing he had successfully relocated the hip left things in Faxon’s hands. The following week, he returned and ascertained that Lowell was indeed on the mend.
When Micajah visited Lowell a month later, he found that the hip was again seriously out of joint; a condition he suspected to have been caused by the patient not properly following his doctor’s orders. Hawkes said he would return shortly but did not claiming he was, “detained by important cases.” When he did return two weeks later it was with Dr. Shelomith Stow Whipple, a friend who had recently arrived from Boston with the intention of settling in Lubec. Both men determined that nothing could be done.
Lowell “erupted in anger and swore vengeance on the physicians who had ruined him.” He traveled to Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital to seek the opinion of chief surgeon, John Collins Warren, one of the most prominent surgeons of the day. Warren diagnosed “a dislocation of the femur downward and backward into the ischiatic notch” and determined that that there was no remedy save a dangerous, life-threatening surgery. After consulting with several other doctors including Willian Ingalls, Erastus’s old professor and “natural” bone-setter, Robert Hewes, Lowell left Boston vowing to sue his doctors in Maine.
The lawsuit, Lowell vs. Faxon and Hawkes, involved three trials over several years. In June 1822 a jury submitted a verdict in favor of Lowell. Micajah and Faxon’s appeal in September resulted in a hung jury. The final trial, in 1824, was the most involved, with many physicians testifying including Erastus Richardson and the celebrated surgeon, John Warren. Erastus was brought in as a fact witness to impeach Micajah’s claim that he was “detained by important cases” In addition to medical opinions about the case, his testimony amounted to the simple assertion that he or others could have covered for Micajah, if he had any need to get away; confessing that he was not friendly to Dr. Hawks.
The case ended when Lowell, bankrupted by the litigation, was convince to withdraw; with the court concluding that because there was no medical consensus on the proper treatment, both doctors had been “professional and competent.”
At Lowell’s request, an autopsy was performed upon his death in 1858. Jonathan Warren, the famous surgeon’s son, with the family’s consent, brought the hip back to Boston. It remains there today, preserved in the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard University.
DIVING INTO HISTORY (PART 4)
November 11, 2022
On the 17 of March 1825, Mary Richardson would bear another daughter, Mary Lydia. This birth was followed in late November of 1827 by a son, George Nelson. Two years later, as a member of the Committee of the First Congregational Society (the Unitarian Church), Erastus would find himself embroiled in a controversy that had been festering in Eastport for all of ten years.
In 1811, a group of individuals formed an association to purchased land, and contracted with Moses Hovey of Machias to build a Congregational church; "equal to the Tuscan order of architecture, sixty feet long, forty-six feet wide, and twenty-eight feet high, with a cupola dome and short spire, an arched ceiling, galleries, and a handsome sounding-board over the pulpit.”
Hovey had nearly finished preparing the post and beam frame in Machias when the War of 1812 broke out. In the Fall of 1818, around the time of the British withdrawal, ground was finally broken on Shackford Street for the new edifice. The following agreement appears to have been the source of consternation.
Moose Island, June 4th, 1818. We the subscribers form ourselves into a company for the purpose of purchasing a lot and building a Meeting House for the use of a Congregational minister. We further agree to take and pay for the number of shares affixed to our names estimated at one hundred dollars each share - and provided the cost exceeds or falls short of such estimate we are to pay in proportion to our shares. Bonds or notes are to be given by each subscriber for the amount of his subscription to such person or persons as may be appointed for that purpose. Any profit that may arise on the sale of pews is to be appropriated for the use of the congregation, as a majority of the subscribers may direct. We further agree that the building is for a Congregational Minister, such as a majority of the subscribers may agree to hire or settle for a limited time or for life, without reference to any party or particular denomination of Congregationalists. And we further agree to be bound by the decision of the majority of the subscribers in all matters pertaining to the premises.
There were forty-two who signed the document.
Once the church was completed, a majority of the subscribers voted to send to Cambridge for a Unitarian minister. Some in the minority, having had the expectation of an orthodox minister from the Andover Theological Seminary, withdrew in dismay; choosing to worship with the Baptists.
This occurred against a larger backdrop, the long simmering tensions between the conservative, orthodox, Calvinist wing of the Congregational church the liberal or progressive wing. A reaction to an over emphasis on rational thinking spawned by the Age of Enlightenment and the Great Awakening, the liberals sought a return to emotion, the awe and wonder, so to speak. They rejected many of the church teachings that they felt were not biblical in origin, most prominently the doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, they saw the deity as a singular unified entity, causing their critics to call them derisively, “Unitarians.” In the 16th and 17th centuries some of these ‘rebels’ were forced to recant, or even hung, for their heresy.
Eventually the two groups learned to coexist, that is, until the beginning of the 19th century. In New England things began to unravel and, in many places, the liberal Unitarians were forced out of the Congregational church. Andover Seminary was formed in 1807 when the orthodox Calvinists broke from the Liberals at Harvard. Known as the Unitarian Controversy, these forces were certainly in play in the little city of Eastport, in 1829.
On the 11 of January, 1828, the orphaned members of the First Congregational, with a new influx of parishioners, organized under the name of “the First Evangelical Congregational Church and Society of Eastport with Wakefield Gale, a graduate of Andover Seminary, in the pulpit. Gale had already been preaching in local churches for a number of years. A new house of worship was needed and raised on Middle Street, under the direction of Daniel Low, architect and builder. On February 29, 1829, the church was dedicated, with the Rev. Gale preaching the sermon; the pertinent portion is printed below.
This church was formed Feb 8, 1819, by Rev. Mr. Blood, of Buxport, agreeably to usage, and in conformity to the instructions given him by the Massachusetts Missionary Society. He formed and publicly declared it to be a church of Christ of the congregational order. It consisted of five persons - three males and two females. During the following season, efforts were made by the church and others, to erect a house of public worship. There efforts were successful. A house, in due time, was erected. But the church, with others, were disappointed. They wished for evangelical preaching. Instead of this - instead of a man of their choice, a Unitarian clergyman was obtained. By his efforts a church of that denomination was formed. As to the character of the transactions in those days we say nothing, willing that the grand revealing day should disclose the right and wrong of them. All could not be right. There was wrong somewhere. This church holding to the faith as they apprehended it was it was originally delivered to the saints, and disapproving of the measures, which had been taken relative to the new house, withdrew itself and worshiped with the Calvinistic Baptists in this town.
The accusations that Gale repeated had been swirling around town for years. Erastus Richardson had only just arrived in Eastport, when the seeds of controversy were planted. He was himself something of a liberal rebel, coming from a family whose pastor and close friend, Nathaniel Emmons, an ardent Calvinist, was the founder and first president of the Massachusetts Missionary Society and influential in the founding of Andover Seminary.
Erastus, as a member of the Committee of the First Congregational Society, along with Edward Ilsley and George Hobbs, distressed by accusations made but not supported, drafted a letter to Reverend Gale;
Eastport Feb. 24, 1829
Rev’d Sir,
In an address at the dedication of the house lately erected for the society under your charge, while detailing the rise and progress of your church, you alluded to the building of the south meeting house, in a manner which left upon the respectable strangers then present, an impression very injurious and dishonorable to members of the First Congregational Society in this town.
The undersigned, a committee, in behalf of said society have respectfully to request that you will furnish them with a copy of so much of your address upon that occasion, as embraced the remarks to which we refer.
We are, Sir, with due respect, Your most obed’t
Edward Ilsley, George Hobbs and Erastus Richardson.
Wakefield complied, but after many exchanges, an exasperated committee, finding no relief, threw up their hands and decided to publish their correspondences. Benjamin Folsom, the publisher of the Eastport Sentinel, was employed. They summed up their position in the preamble;
The substance of the accusation against us, as uttered from the pulpit and repeated from the press, is as follows: - That the South Meeting House in this town was projected and built by the church formed by Mr. Blood, assisted by such others as had been induced to join them - that the house was intended for this church - that the unitarian or first congregational society, had exerted themselves successfully to set aside the claims of this church - and that they now worship their God in a temple obtained by fraud and injustice…The only question at the moment is - are these charges true? Let the public be the judge.
You can read these letters online and decide for yourself.
DIVING INTO HISTORY (PART 5)
December 3, 2022
In January of 1830, the Richardson family saw the birth of a daughter, Francis E. (Fanny), followed 2 years later, by another, Eleanor Miller. Sadly, and inexplicably just a year after that, Eleanor as well as her 36-year-old mother, Mary, both passed away. Erastus would remain a widower until 1845, when he married 44-year-old, Mary (Polly) Shumway, “a maid,” from his old home town of Franklin.
In 1831, Erastus, along with, Jesse Gleason, George Hobbs, Daniel Kilby, Samuel Stevens, Jonathan D. Weston, Jerry Burgin and Joseph Gunnison, formed a corporation for the construction of the Carlow Island Bridge. The same year marked his first foray into politics when he was elected selectman for the town. He would serve in this role in 1831 and 32 and again from 1848 to 53. He was appointed town treasurer in 1848.
In February of 1844, Erastus agreed to meet with Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, mentalist, mesmerist, healer and founder of New Thought Spiritual Movement. Quimby was on a speaking and demonstration tour through coastal Maine. The controversial figure asserted that illness was often the result of misguided or distorted thinking. Consequently he believed that the afflicted had the power to cure themselves simply by changing the way they think - by coming to grips with the truth. He experimented with various techniques including magnetism and hypnosis to achieve his ends. Still studied today, he is often referred to as the first psychoanalyst. Lucius C. Burkmar, Quimby’s assistant, recorded the events in his journal.
Wednesday 12th.
The experiments last night were very good. Last night we took a man out of the audience (a perfect stranger to him) and effected a cure on his arm. The man had not been able to raise it up for two years, and in a few minutes, he was able to raise his arm up to his head and moved it round free from pain. This forenoon we started to go to Eastport. It snows and blows, rains and hails as if all the elements were in war with each other. After a cold ride we reached Eastport at twelve o'clock, wet through to the skin. We put up at Brooks Hotel, a very, very nice house. We exhibit in Trescot Hall this evening, wind and weather permitting. Mr. Quimby is acquainted with a Mr. Witheral* who will use his influence to aid us.
Thursday 13th.
Our experiments were very satisfactory indeed, although there was not so many in as we would have wished. However, we shall try our luck again tonight. Mr. Quimby had a letter of introduction from Dr. Atkinson to Dr. Richardson, so therefore he presented his letter and Dr. Richardson took him to see a patient of his. The case was that of a woman who had fell down and injured the elbow joint so that she couldn't move it without excruciating pain. He magnetized her and made her move her arm about just as he pleased without any pain. This afternoon he went and see a child that was very sensitive. He could paralyze his tongue and prevent him from walking, stop him when and where he pleased. The boy was about 10 years old.
Friday 14th.
Last night was the fullest house we have ever had. The Hall was crowded, the experiments were very good. Mr. Quimby took that same boy in the audience and stopped him from talking. I was taken to Havanna by a sea captain and described the harbour right and the surrounding scenery. We took 22 dollars last night. Today we go to Lubec by water, 'tis three miles across. We have to go in an open boat. We reached Lubec about eleven. 'Tis a dirty looking place as I ever see, filled up with Irish principally. 'Tis situated by the side of a hill. We stop at Mr. Boyle's, an old Irishman, a fine old gentleman though. We have the schoolhouse to exhibit in, and I hope our experiments will be satisfactory.
Saturday 15th.
Alas, all my expectations vanish in smoke. Our experiments were interrup... [truncated due to length]
