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stood on Highland Street a mile and a half from its present
location. He had an eye for antiquities and often admired this
stately old edifice in its original setting. Then, when General
Paine, the owner, decided to build a larger house he told Uncle Charlie
he could have the old one if he would take it away — which Uncle Charlie
promptly proceeded to do.
He moved it first to some family land on the Post Road
adjacent to the old Isaac Fiske house, but he felt that this loca-
tion, sandwiched in between the Fiske and Field houses, was
in-appropriate for such a beautiful structure so he purchased land
for it on Church Street. Moving the building across pastures to
its Post Road location presented no great difficulty, but its
passage through the village on its second move was a different matter.
The house had not gone very far when it became apparent to the movers
that it must be cut in two in order to pass down
the narrow street. Even at half size it took up so much room that
traffic had to be re-routed, causing no end of inconvenience and
annoyance to users of the Post Road. And to make matters
worse, when it had gone about half way, New England was hit
by the biggest blizzard in years. However, the two halves finally
reached their destination and were rejoined.
Soon afterwards another old house was doomed. It stood on
the location of a proposed new library and Uncle Charlie rescued
it and moved it down to Church Street just east of his first transplant.
I always thought of Uncle Charlie as the most kind-hearted of
people, and this trait is borne out by an article that appeared in
an East Boston paper, telling about a woman from up country
who arrived at the Cunard dock in East Boston to board a |
