The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-01-02
4 NAN EATING MONEY.
COSTLY FREAK OF a WILLOW
SOMERSET CRGsUs.

1IeO 4dDAOuS WoaASu ana Dled q
Pauper.
From the Boston Globe.
On the main street in the town of Somer-
,st. nearly opposite the Mount Hope iron
works, stands a house with history.
A few weeks ago it passed under the auc-
toneer's hammer, and this fact has revived
rniniscences of departed days and the
sicient glory of the Bowers family, the
MEMBERS of which, less than a century ago
md within the memory of at least one
living resident of Somerset, dwelt in this
anne mansion in baronial spleudor and in a
manner rare in those days, with vassals
and serfs at their call.n
AS you pass down the dusty street of the
sleepy village which once wed with New
port IN It's arlstocratic pretensions, and
boosted of more centralized wealth and
lordlv mansions than any place between
Newport, the summer capital, and Boston
the commercial capital of New England
you see a large gambrel-roofed house
Standing on a terraced embankment. which
is approached by a broad semi-circular
sweep of red sandstone steps and curling.
Five quaint dormer windows project from
the roof and overhalg the front of
the house, which is boarded with raised
panels; but it Is when you enter through
The broad front portal and close behind
you the massive door that you get any idea
Of what this house once was. You find
yourself in a wide and spacious hall at the
farther eud of which an arch, lavishly
decorated by the cunning hand of the
carver, spans on the one hand a winding
stairway, the railing and balustrade of
which are cut with a serpeatine in the rose
wood aud oak, OF which it is constructed.
aod in the other overhangs the entrance Of
the dining-room of the mansion.
This room was, in its day, the browning
glory of the house and the wonder of this
section of the country. People were wont
to come from afar to see it, and travellers
would pause in their journeys to get q peep
at It's beauties. Wine and wassail, mlrth
and song, held high carnival within its
paneled walls, and all that eristocracy or
wealth could accomplish was done to tempt
the noted men and women of the last cent
ury to accept the hospitalities of the man
who sat at the head of the table in the
proud capacity of host and presiding genius
over festive board the fame Of which had
spread over two continents.
At one end an elegant mantel of rosewood
overhRngs a marble fireplace set in a frame
work of carved wood, extending from floor
deep alcove within an equally deliberately
carved arch. The walls of the room are
waiuscoted their entire hight in panels cut
from the hearts of
SOME OLD FOREST MONARCHs.
many of them being over three feet wide.
This is as the room appears to-day, but it
was much more palatial and much more
handsomely decorated ninety years ago
when the lord of the manor-princely John
BowerS-Sat down to breakfast one morning
n the company Of one of his boon C M
panions and won wager he had laid that
he would eat the most expensive breakfast
his friend ever had sat down to by sand
wiching 500 bills between the cakes and
devouring them.
When, in later days of ruin and financial
distress, a daughter of the then fallen fam
lily came to the mansion of her father to
pass her days amid the shadows of its
vanquished glories, the burden of this
empty and magnificent poverty made it
essential that much of the old carved and
fretted work should be torn out, as there
were no bondsmen as Of yore to keep it
cleaned aud polished, nor any golden shekels
IN the old treasure box to sustain a hired
Tetnue of servants to do the work.
On either side of the hall are the draw
iug-rooms, and these too are or were in
ApSPilB Win 6NOt Hbull1S Cloo uDOub LILO
place, the same marble fireplaces and rose
wood mantels of chaste design, the high
paneled wainscoting and the broad aud
deep window seats-maSsive and ostenta-
tiOus everything, even to the window
weights of pure lead, one OF which, from
curiosity, weighed. 1t turned u pounds,
and in those days must have cost at least
81. Every inch of all this carving was
done by artists who were brought from
England expressly for the work, and were
nearly two years employed on the job.
The chambers overhead, which you reach
by the staircase above mentioned, bear evil
dences of the general character of the
rooms below, while the floor over them re-
minds the visitor Of hotel with its numer-
GUS rooms, all numbered, which opens off
from the long corridor traversing the main
house and wing. Here the servants, twenty
or thirty in number, were quartered.
To-day the carpenters and painters are in
possession, and hammer and saw and paint
brush are celebrating all evidences OF
former conditions, and in few weeks the
Bowers mansion will be bereft of nearly
every
vEsTIGE OF IT'S PRISTINE BEAUTY
and become tenement house. The hum
BILE laborer and his little brood will eat
their frugal meal in the room where John
be1ecked danes dined from service of silver
and gold, with servants in plenty to antic-
lpate every want, and in the spacious
chambers to which the male guests
were often carried after the feast,
or mayhap where ''my ladyn in
silk attire surveyed herself before
the long mirrors inclosed in frames of heavy
gilt, or, upon the massive beds, the sides Of
which were hung with rich valenciennes
lace from the converts of Spain and Bel
GUM, and covered with embroidered tapes
tries, fashioned by the deft fingers of the
women of the royal factories of Louis
XIV, dreamed of conquests already made
or yet to be won; these rooms, pregnant
with such romantic memories, will hence
forth be the abiding place Of those to whom
rugged poverty is a constant though unwel-
come guest.
So much for the house as it stands; now
Tor the people who once occupied it. A
hundred yards beyond it stands another
old-time, though substantial mansion, and
here resides an old lady, Mrs Isaac Pierce,
whose years of life reach back into the last
century, but whose faculties are bright and
her memory phenomenal. In this village she
was born ninety-two years ago, and the days
OF her girlhood were spent in the Immediate
vicinity of the house just described. She re-
members it well in the days of its pride and
the zenith of its fame, and the children of
Its family were her playmates and compan-
ions.
First, bit of history. 1t is now zoe
Years since old Jonathan Bowers settled on
the banks of the river and built the first
trqrl1n Ikn1 s., O., 1