Signed Sealed & Delivd in presence of John Hayward scr Eliezer Moody Servt
Owned in Court p Bateman 27 April 1680 p Is Addington Cler Vera Copia Attestd Is Addington Cler
--_Suffolk County Judicial Court Files, No. 1916._
NOTE. This contract provides for the frame of a house and not for a complete building. But it is of unusual interest for it supplies proof of the existence in Boston of a house having two gables on each side of the roof, _i.e._, six gables on a rectangular building twenty-seven by thirty feet in size.
Robert Taft, of Braintree, an ancestor of ex-President Taft, delivered the frame, but before he had completed the work Bateman entered into possession and set his carpenters at work to finish the building. Taft brought suit to recover payment for the frame and the Court gave a verdict in his favor, from which Bateman appealed. From the testimony it appears that on the ground floor there were two rooms, one of which was eleven by twenty-four feet, and a space nine by eight feet had been left in which to build the chimney. The "articles of agreement" required that Taft provide for fourteen windows but he put up "six more than my Couanant was." Bateman, on the other hand, claimed that the frame was "the weakest slenderest and most dozed timber that hath been Seen ... most of the timber Wany & on many of the Sumers the Bark left on to make it square and wch Indeed was the Occasion of all this Trouble."
This house was built for a "shop keeper" and probably the long front room on the ground floor was to be used for a shop. It was located at what is now the southeasterly corner of North and Blackstone streets, the canal to the mill pond being on the northerly end of the house and the harbor behind it.
CONTRACT TO BUILD THE FIRST KING'S CHAPEL, BOSTON JULY 21, 1688
Memorandum it is agreed by and between John Holebrook of Weymouth in the county of Suffolk, housewright, Stephen French of the same place, housewright--and Jacob Nash of the same place housewright of the one part and Anthony Hayward Esq of the other part as followeth (that is to say) Imprimis the said John Holebrooke, Stephen French & Jacob Nash doe Covenant pmise and agree to and with the said Anthony Heywood his heires Admrs and Assins and Also in the consideracion herein after mencioned that they the said John Holebrooke Stephen French and Jacob Nash or some or one of them shall & will by or before the last day of November now next ensueing Erect sett up and build on such spott of Ground as the sd Anthony Heywood shall for that end assigne of good sound timber well & workmanlike wrought one frame of building of the Dimensions following (that is to say) in length fifty four feet in breadth thirty six feet studd twenty feet with five windows in the front five windows in the rear and two windows at each end of such dimensions as are sett downe in a platt of the same made by Mr. P. Wells Surveyor and the same frame shall clapboard fill with brick & seale with lime and hair & white washing and the roofe thereof with board & shingles make tight & stanch and shall & will on the west end of the sd frame Erect, build & sett up One Belfry of ten feet square twenty feet above ye roofe of the sd frame and of sufficient strength for a bell of five hundred weight and the said entire frame shall finish & complete with Masons and smiths worke and sufficiently glaze all the sd windows with good square glasse & iron casemts and the same building see completed and finished as above is Covenanted & locked with sufficient locks to the doors thereof shall deliver with the keys thereof in to the sd Anthony Haywood In Consideracion whereof the said Anthony Haywood doth cove't pmise & agree to pay or Cause to be paid unto the said John Holebrooke Stephen French Jacob Nash the sume of two hundred & Sixty pounds (that is to say) One hundred & thirty pounds thereof in Goods & merchandize at the price for which same shall be then sold for money Sixty five pounds in money & sixty five pounds in goods perform'd as the said frame shall be raised and remaining Sixty five pounds in money & sixty five pounds in Goods when the sd building shall be finished as above is Covenanted. In witness whereof all the sd partyes have hereunto to sett their hands and seales and Consent that the same shall remaine in the hands ye sd Anthony Haywood this one & twentieth day of June Anno Dme 1688.