facing the south, has apparently been widened, at some remote
intermediate date since its original erection, by a slight extension
on the western end, beyond the porch. It has been otherwise, perhaps,
somewhat altered in the course of time by repairs; but its general
aspect, as exhibited in the frontispiece of this volume, and its
original strongly compacted and imperishable frame, remain. No saw was
used in shaping its timbers; they were all hewn, by the broad-axe, of
the most durable oak: they are massive, and rendered by time as hard
to penetrate almost as iron. The walls and stairway of the cellar, the
entrance to which is seen by the side of the porch, constructed of
such stones as could be gathered on the surface of a new country, bear
the marks of great antiquity. A long, low kitchen, with a stud of
scarcely six feet, extended originally the whole length of the
lean-to, on the north side of the house. The rooms of the main house
were of considerably higher stud. The old roadway, the outlines of
which still remain, approached the house from the east, came up to its
north-east corner, wound round its front, and continued from its
north-west corner, on a track still visible, over a brook and through
the apple-orchard planted by Bishop, to the point where the
burial-ground of the village now is; and so on towards the lands then
occupied by Richard Hutchinson, also to the lands afterwards owned by
Nathaniel Ingersol, towards Beaver Dam, and the first settlements in
that direction and to the westward. In general it may be said, that
the structural proportions and internal arrangements of the house,
taken in its relations to the vestiges and indications on the face of
the grounds, show that it is coeval with the first occupancy of the
farm. But we do not depend, in this case, upon conjectural
considerations, or on mere tradition, which, on such a point, is not
always reliable. It happens to be demonstrated, that this is the
veritable house built and occupied by Townsend Bishop, in 1636, by a