Morning journal and courier., 1889-06-01

second story where an ample smoke house for family use was constructed. In most chimneys of that day each fireplace had it's own separate hue, and many brick partitions being built as were necessary for this pur- pose. Where were the brick obtained?- probably at the old yard at Cedar Hill once owned by Governor Eaton, with bare pos- the importation of this material was not un- common. The exterior was finished with oak clapboards and either oak or chestnut shingles. Later, the latter was used exclu- sively, but 1t Is not 80 certain about it early in 1700. At some period it was painted red.
 The arrangement of the plan provided for two rooms in front, one on either side of a length of the house in the rear. and known as the kitchen. The chimney was not plant ed in the exact center of the building, but nearer the front. This was arbitrary for two reasons: The "Hnten roof" did not carry the ridge board in the center of the building, and as the chimney, by custom, emerged on this line, and the laws of gravitatton were not tempered with by deaecting it as in the present day, it necessarily occupied the place it did; and, secondly, all the room possible was needed for the kitchen in the rear. Neither Madame Wetmore HOT Stiles could have carried on their domestic concerns in the eight by ten closets of modern build. In this old kitchen was an immense fireplace and brick oven. The outside door was likewise broad and high. At either end of this fan- fly apartment was smaller one, the bed- room on the Ssunny end, and the pantry opposite, or the "buttery" in stricter par lance. An outside door opened near the front corner of the s'south room." Only q few feet away was the well, in service to- day and such bower of ferns as to provoke the admiration of every drawer of water therefrom.
 The second story was divided in much the same manner as the first. The interior wood work was mainly of whitewood. The ques- ton is asked where was or which room did the Rev. Isaac Stiles use as his sfstudy." This cannot be answered, but at the demoli- tion of the old house sealed letter written by the worthy divine to his son Ezra while a tutor at Yale college, 1t is thought, was found fallen through g crack in the floor in the north front room, where it had lain un- disturbed for more than Q century.
 This document was carried by the finder, Hervey Stiles. still sealed, to the authorities of Yale college for examination. It contained chiefly allueions to family matters and was left temporarily at that institution. On es- saying some time later to regain the prizsd paper MT. Stiles was told it could not be found. The family have never been able to recover it since. Query: Whom did it be- long tot
 This circumstance hints at this north chamber, the room from whence he could survey his church and it's grounds, as the one in which he carried on his literary stu dies.
 The only ornamental work apparently was the stair rail and balusters leading up from the front hall; these were of oak and hand somely wrought. There is also wooden panel in the possession of George W. Stiles (ffth generation from Rev. Isaac) on which is painted landscape, or 'ssea piece" rather, containing the figure of lighthouse and other matter. This panel adorned the man. telpiece in the north front room. Tradition assigns it's painting to later period than the building of the house and makes it contem- porary with the ornamentation of the 'ssounding board," in the second meeting house somewhere about TAO. The attic was unfinished as were also the rear chambers. The window frames were of the usual size, but the sashes wore framed to fit the small lights of glass then in use. These lights were imported, some of them being of fear- full and wonderful make. They were ribbed, knotty, unequal in thickness, splashed with bubbles and full of lenses, capable of reveal ing the most astonishing optical gymnastics; at one view careening the earth in spite of all laws midway into the heavens; at another spinning the perspective of the highway out into in6nity 8s if the further end of the road ended in the clouds and at the Celestial City; at a third view flat tenlng, d1stortlnG dwarhng every thing within range; at a fourth revealing such startling nebulae of chaos as to render any other exegesis either of the creation or the final destruction of the earth entirely un- necessary. Or if by chance a moving figure came within the focus of some of these glass; es, no object lesson on earth was so well cal culated to illustrate Christians remarkable conflict with Apollyon as was the manifold gyrations of light which attended such per- sons progress. They walked, they ran, they crawled, leaped, somersaulted, lowered to the sky, covered the horizon, fioated in the air, grovelled in the dust, and if the condi- tions were just right, wound up in one grand whirling combination of legs, arms, heads, hands, bodies, feet, revolving with lightning like rapidity in the heavens and-suddenly finishing.
 Such, in brief, was the first ministerial domicile built in the parish on the site now owned by Henry D. Todd, by the Rev. James Wetmore about 1720, sold to the soci- ety by him at his dismissal 1722, transferred to Rev. Isaac Stiles 1724, inherited by Ash bel Stiles at his fathers death 176O, and last ly occupied by Hervsy Stiles, of the fourth generation from the worthy divine, until its demolition about 1850.
 SHELDON B. THORPE.