153 Main Street, Groton
c1660
In 1663, at the age of 23, Samuel Willard, a graduate of Harvard, came to Groton to assist its ailing minister. When the minister died the following year, the townspeople asked him to remain with them, and it was here that he was ordained. It may be that early church meetings were held in this house, as the town was without a church building until 1666. (MACRIS survey GRO.7, p. 2)
The house was built as a garrison house, to shelter and defend a neighborhood in an attack in a time when Groton was a frontier town. “Like an ordinary house in plan and appearance, garrisons were used in times of peace as one-family dwellings, but were strongly built and capable of protecting a number of families in times of danger.” (Morrison, 77) Willard’s garrison house is entirely lined with brick.
In October of 1671, the Willard family’s 16-year-old servant Elizabeth Knapp fell into what was judged to be demonic possession. At one point she accused a neighbor of bewitching her, but Willard knew the neighbor to be a pious person, and did not pursue the accusation. In a letter to Cotton Mather, he concluded that “…thus much is cleare, shee is an object of pitye, & I desire that all that heare of her would compassionate her forlorne state, Shee is (I question not) a subject of hope, & therefore all meanes ought to bee used for her recoverye…” (Greene, 21) His kindness to Knapp and his calm deliberation prevented an outbreak of witch hysteria like that a generation later in Salem Village, when he was strongly critical of the proceedings.
On March 13, 1676, the town of Groton was burned in a skirmish of King Philip’s War. Only four houses remained standing—all garrisons—including this one. The town was abandoned, and Willard took his family to Charlestown. Soon after, he was called to the pulpit of Boston’s Old South Church, where, in 1706, he baptized Benjamin Franklin. In his last years he was the president of Harvard College, having been chosen to succeed Increase Mather. He died in 1707, and is buried at the Granary in Boston.
The house has been modernized. It retains its original asymmetrical bays, but according to the Massachusetts Historical Commission survey, the roof was likely updated in the 1770’s, the chimney modified, a full-length porch added in the 1800’s, and a picture window and attached garage in the 1900’s. The largest beam is 9” x 17”, with Roman numeral markings on some beams; tongue and groove construction with large wooden pegs; floorboards up to 19” wide; a 7’ x 11’ chimney base, and gunstock corner posts.
Further reading:
Boutwell, Francis Marion. Old Highways and Landmarks of Groton, Massachusetts. Groton, 1884. books.google.com/books?isbn=1110950853
Butler, Caleb. History of the Town of Groton: Including Pepperell and Shirley, from the First Grant of Groton Plantation in 1655. Boston, 1848. archive.org/details/historytowngrot01butlgoog/page/n5
Dollar, George William. “The Life and Works of the Reverend Samuel Willard (1640-1707).” Church History, vol. 31, no. 2, 1962, pp. 232–233. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/3162516.
Green, Samuel Abbott. Groton in the Witchcraft Times. Groton, 1883.
Morrison, Hugh. Early American Architecture: From the First Colonial Settlements to the National Period. Dover, 1987.
Pope, Charles Henry, ed. Willard Genealogy. Boston, 1915.
Van Dyken, Seymour. Samuel Willard, 1640-1707: Preacher of Orthodoxy in an Era of Change. Eerdmans, 1972.
Willard, Samuel. “A Brief Account of a Strange and Unusual Providence of God Befallen to Elizabeth Knapp of Groton” in Remarkable Providences, 1600-1760, ed. John Demos. Northeastern University Press, 1991. p. 422. (or read online here: history.hanover.edu/texts/Willard-Knap.html)
Willard, Samuel. A Compleat Body of Divinity in Two Hundred and Fifty Expository Lectures on the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism. Boston, 1726. archive.org/details/compleatbodyofdi00will/page/n5
Willard, Samuel. “Some Miscellany Observations on our Present Debates Respecting Witchcrafts, in a Dialogue between S. & B.” Philadelphia, 1692. salem.lib.virginia.edu/texts/willard/index.html
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