Ebenezer Hunt (1783 - 1823)

Born 17 Jul 1783 in Weymouth, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth (Nash) Hunt — married 21 Oct 1802 (to 14 Nov 1811) in Weymouth, Massachusetts

Husband of Eunice (Nash) Hunt — married 2 Nov 1812 in Weymouth, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States

Descendants

Died 27 Jan 1823 at age 39 in Weymouth, Norfolk, Massachusetts, United States

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Biography

Ebenezer was born in 1783 and passed away in 1823.

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Opposite Mr. Tilden's lived Mr. Josiah Thayer, of whom I can recollect but little, excepting his apple trees that hung over the school-yard fence so temptingly. His son, the late Chapin Thayer, in after years was a large shoe manufacturer.

The old shoe manufactory was next above the school yard, occupied for a number of years by my father, Major Hunt, and later by Elias Richards ; close by was the Coolidge family, Mr. William Coolidge, opposite the manufactory of Russell & Buckman, a Boston firm, Josiah Richards managing the business. In the house now occupied by Mr. John E. Hunt was Luke Bicknell, a house mason; he had three boys, my schoolmates, Luke, David, and Wallace.

Above lived widow Eben Hunt and her three sons, Nathaniel, Charles, and Richard; all were good musicians and composed the orchestra of the old church before the organ came.

THE 1830s

Starting at Washington Square we will now go up Front street. We first come to the little old-fashioned cottage where the sisters of Captain Warren Weston lived. Beyond this house the land on the right-hand side of the street was unoccupied until we arrive at the house of the late Mr. Ebenezer Richards (now occupied by his son, George Richards). In my boyhood this land on the north side of the street belonged to the Tufts family and was covered with fine apple trees.

On the opposite side of the street was Dr. Noah Fifield, who came to Weymouth in 1806. At that time Dr. Cotton Tufts was alive, and the old village physician had most of the practice. Dr. Fifield became discouraged at first, and told his troubles to his friend Mr. Ebenezer Hunt, Jr., who induced his father, Deacon Ebenezer Hunt, Sr., to loan Dr. Fifield the money he needed, stating that as Dr. Tufts was aged he would not live long, and then the practice would come to Dr. Fifield.

The price of a visit from a physician in those days was fifty cents, including the medicine; but the old doctor was a good collector of his fees and died worth some seventy-five thousand dollars.

To the writer who was, in the " thirties," a small boy, Dr. Noah Fifield was a very interesting man. I had then begun to experiment with chemicals. He could tell me about them, and in connection with the Rev. Jonas Perkins loaned me an old Encylcopedia containing rules for making fireworks.

A STRANGE OCCURRENCE

One beautiful day in June, happening to go through the Hunt Burying Ground (Ashwood Cemetery), I stopped as is my wont before the tomb of Deacon Ebenezer Hunt, my grandfather. As I stood there thinking of the past, the tomb door opened and out walked the old gentleman, and shading his eyes from the darkness of the tomb in a soliloquizing way he said, " This is Paradise."

Dressed in the garb of seventy-four years ago, he looked so quaint, — the high collar to his coat, his long vest and buckled shoes. At once I recognized him as my grandfather, from what I had been told of him. He saw me and looked inquiringly.

I told him I was the son of his youngest son Elias, his Benjamin, and that I was the last of my generation. I told him this was not Paradise, but that it was perhaps as near as we would get to Paradise. I told him this was the same old world and the same old sun he had seen seventy-four years before.

When a boy five years old I stood tiptoe on the cellar door and looked into the window of the old house at his funeral. I remember the hymn sung, called "The dying Christian." " Lend, lend your wings, I mount, I fly:" this I never forgot.

As we stood there, the old deacon said he would like to take a walk around the village. Going out of the old burying ground we turned to the left. At the first house with its old brick basement the deacon stopped, saying, " Here lives my nephew, Frederick Cushing. I will run in and see him." I told him his nephew had been dead many years. Looking up the street he saw the house of his son Elias, and at once showed a desire to see him. I said, " No, you cannot see him ; he died, an old man, some years ago." The old deacon sighed and said, " Is it so ? how I would like to see him." Looking across the way he saw his old home just as he left it, and said, " There is the house I built; there I brought my wife Susanna Bowditch, who bore all my children; there she died, and in time I brought to my home my second wife, Tirza Bates."

He saw the place just as he left it, — the great barn, its mows filled with hay, the stalls with oxen and cows, the old bay mare. He saw it all, and then we walked up Front street. Passing the house on the left the deacon said, " I would like to go in and see the Cowings, for they were of my second wife's family." I replied, " No, they are not there, they are dead."

The old man said not a word but walked on up the hill to the Nashes, all of whom he knew and was eager to see, — Timothy, Zichri, Joseph and all. I told him they were all gone.

"Well," said he, "we will go to Gravel hill, and I shall surely find Thomas, Jacob and Nathaniel Richards, my old friends." We went there but found only the old houses they had once lived in; all were dead. The deacon said, " How sad; how I would liked to have met them." Brightening up he said, " Well, we will go across the plain to Back street; I am sure 1 shall find my old friend Brackley Col son." We found the old house but Mr. Colson too was dead.

The old gentleman, the deacon, owned many acres on the Whitman place where Mr. Colson died. He saw the old place just as it was seventy-two years before. There had been no change only in ownership.

We turned our way down the street, passing on the left the house where Eben Kingman lived. The deacon wished to see him, but I said, " He too is dead." Down the street we went to Albert Hunt's by John P. Nash's, deacon of the old Union Church, and so it was, place after place there was no one to greet him, no one to take his hand, all was so quiet and so sad.

No one noticed my companion, my aged sire, as we walked around together, for he seemed invisible and saw nothing but the world as it was seventy-four years ago. Thus we walked by the railroad tracks and he saw nothing of the things that had come since he died, and it came across me that it seemed quite uncanny to be strolling about the village with the ghost of my grandfather, but it was so.

From Back street we went our way down Front street, the old deacon telling as he went quaint stories of those who had lived in the houses we passed, I learning much from him of the olden times.

As we went along he told of his eldest son Ebenezer, a man of note in his time, who died before the deacon. Down we went, past the Bicknells, the Coolidges and the Tildens — all these the old deacon wanted to stop to see, as he knew them all.

Coming to the house where his second son, William, lived and died, the old gentleman told me of the joyous time when my father, his son Elias, brought his bride from Cambridge along with a gay company. The deacon said to me he did not quite like it, so gay was this company and so unlike the staid folks of the neighborhood, and he the deacon of the church.

Continuing, we went down the street to Dr. Fifield's. I think the deacon loved Dr. Fifield, as I know he loaned him the money that enabled the doctor to stay in Weymouth when he thought of leaving the village. When we got to the Square the deacon wanted to run in to see Mr. James Whittemore, Cotton Tufts, Asa Webb, Micah Richmond, Caleb Hunt, and others of his old acquaintances. But I told him they were all dead years ago. This was indeed sad for the old gentleman, but still we went on to the old Union Church.

Here he stopped and gazed wistfully. He had seen the old church when it stood in Hollis street, Boston, as Charles Buifinch designed it, with its two towers. The deacon and Colonel Minot Thayer were the prime movers in bringing the church to our village. The deacon told me much of the church, so interesting.

Going on, we came to the riverside and looking across to the home of Colonel Minot Thayer, he said, " How I would like to see the colonel." I replied, " He is not there, he too is dead." With a sad air the old deacon said, " Well, we will go up the street by the way of the turnpike, we may meet Captain Weston whom I knew so well, and perhaps Mr. Elijah Pierce, Mr. Thomas Reed, and others.

So we went, but found none; all were dead, and finally we wandered back to the old burying ground and as we stood by the Hunt tomb the deacon said, "The earth is beautiful, but how lonely; all of those I knew, all of those I loved, are gone."

Saying this he entered the tomb, the door closed upon him, he vanished from my sight, and entered into the peace that passeth understanding.

Sources

1. ↑ "Weymouth Ways and Weymouth People - Reminiscences", by Edmund Soper Hunt, 1907.

Acknowledgment

WikiTree profile Hunt-1516 created through the import of oldweymouth families072011.GED on Jul 5, 2011 by Alyson X.

WikiTree profile Hunt-1518 created through the import of oldweymouth families072011.GED on Jul 5, 2011 by Alyson X