22 Old-Time New England EbenezerClifford, Architect and Inventor

JAMESL. GARVIN

N October 29, 1746’ a child was underwent extensive restoration during born in the small town of Ken- installation in the museum, its basic 0 sington, , who elements presumably were not altered. was to become celebrated for his diverse The ceiling is without precedent in the talents even in an age and a locale noted seacoast region of New Hampshire. Its for unschooled inventiveness. Ebenezer most striking aspect is the peculiar triple Clifford, Esq., joiner, cabinetmaker, arrangement of the stiles and rails that architect, justice of the peace, legislator, hold the large panels. submarine explorer, and mill operator, is In 1781 a house similar to the Shaw still remembered in his native area as an House was built by “Squire” Lovering of “extraordinary genius.” Beginning life as Kensington, again with finish work at- the offspring of a family of rural carpen- tributed, without proof, to Ebenezer ters, Clifford earned the respect of men in Clifford.3 This structure was moved to many professions.In the field of architec- Judd’s Bridge Farm in New Milford, ture, he left the impress of his fertile mind Connecticut in 1948.4 on a number of buildings, some of which At the same time that Ebenezer Clifford were fashioned by his own hand and to- was working as a joiner in Kensington, he day are key structures in New was also engaged in cabinetmaking. Ac- Hampshire’s architectural history. cording to Sawyer’s History of Kensington, Clifford’s earliest work as a joiner, to the Clifford was noted as a clockcase maker extent that it can be traced, is of special (the movements were made by another interest for its originality. Around 1774 or man).5 This reference is confirmed by a earlier,* Moses Shaw, Jr. of Kensington bill of 1788, in which Clifford charged constructed a new home on Stumpfield Samuel Marston of Hampton for the Road in that town. The house, destroyed following: in the 192Os,was apparently a two-story, july 1788for a ClockCase central chimney structure of the type that Cherrytree @ 541 is common in New England. What made glassand hingesfor do. @ 3-4-lo6 this house extraordinary, and perhaps One tall clock with a case supposedly unique, was the interior finish, tradi- made by Clifford was illustrated in An- tionally attributed to Ebenezer Clifford. tiques magazine in July, 1948 and is now One of the second-floor chambers of the privately owned in Kensington. Shaw House was panelled on all four Clifford made other furniture in these walls, unusual at this date. Far more early years as well. In November 1781 he distinctive, however, was another cham- charged Jonathan Greely III of Kingston ber, which was panelled not only on all for several types of furniture: four walls, but on the low ceiling as well. This exceptional room was purchased by To a Mahogany Stand Table f: 2-14-O To 6 Delf I?] Chairs painted 5-8 -0 the Metropolitan Museum of New York, To an 18 inch Mahogany and is today displayed in the American Teaboard o-9 -0 Wing. Although this chamber reportedly To one 12inch Do. O-6 -0’

23 24 Old-Time New England

Clifford’s purchase of some 1600 board became a resident of Exeter.12 feet of cherry, 900 feet of maple, and 900 Exeter in 1793 was a town with a feet of birch joist from a farmer in Candia, population of only about 1700, but in this New Hampshire in 1788 and 1789 implies small population was a disproportionate a fairly extensive use of these cabinet- amount of talent and enterprise. In 1783 maker’s woods.8 John Phillips of Andover, As early as 1777, when he was thirty- had established the famed Phillips Exeter one years old and had recently returned Academy. Exeter was the home of Ben- from military service in Medford, Mas- jamin Clark Gilman, silversmith, mathe- sachusetts, Clifford and his apprentice matical instrument maker, clockmaker, apparently built a staircase for Stephen engraver, and aqueduct engineer.13 Since Batchelder, a farmer of Deerfield, New 1785, Bradbury Johnson, who was soon to Hampshire: become associated with Clifford in the To 7 Days work of myself design of several striking buildings, had at 41 as money [was1 worked as a joiner and lived at the corner in 1774 1 -8-O of Court (now Front) and Spring Streets. To 14 Do. of my servt. at 316 as Do. 2 -9-o The town could boast its own poet, To turning 31 balusters (a 1 Thomas Odiorne-“an American pre- as Do. l-11-09 decessor of Wordsworth.“t4 Exeter had Thus, Clifford gained diverse experience had a gunpowder mill since 1777 and a as joiner, cabinetmaker, and turner early duck (sailcloth) manufactory since 1790. in his career. A description of the village in 1795, By about 1790 Clifford seems to have written by the learned Dr. Samuel Ten- felt that his talents and interests de- ney, states that the dams over the falls manded a wider field. He naturally turned near Clifford’s newly bought house “af- to the adjacent town of Exeter. In 1788 forded seats for four double geared corn- Brigadier General Peter Gilman, former mills, four sawmills, two oil-mills and one Speaker of the New Hampshire House of fulling mill,” some of which then be- Representatives, had died in Exeter with- longed to Clifford.1s out male issue. His house, a wooden But Clifford was engaged in activities garrison dating from about 1700, then other than the operation of his mills. He passedto the heirs of his daughter Abigail had come to regard himself as a man of (Fig. 1) .I0 The house boastedan extensive some learning and had begun to acquire a front wing, probably added by Peter select library. Moreover, he had found Gilman in 1772 or 1773 when he was a like-minded companions in Exeter. In councillor of the province.” Well-pan- 1797 Samuel Tenney, Oliver Peabody, elled, well-lighted, and spacious,this wing Benjamin Abbot, Gideon Lamson and could easily have served its reputed occa- Ebenezer Clifford petitioned the state sional use as the governor’s council cham- legislature for incorporation as “Proprie- ber. A second desirable feature of the tors of the Social Library in Exeter,” Gilman House was “the Saw and having “expended considerable sums in Gristmills and privileges belonging there- the purchase of Books for their use in to” lying directly across the road and Company.“r6 The nature of Clifford’s included with the “Mansion.” In April of personal library is suggested by a book 1793 Clifford purchased the old garrison now in the Phillips Exeter Academy from Abigail Gilman Odlin’s heirs and Library: James Paine’s Plans, Elevations, Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor 25 and Sections, of Noblemen and Gentlemens will be necessary to compleat the Court Houses.. . (London, 1765). This folio vol- House.” This committee reported that ume is part one of a two-volume series, “from the representation of the Honl. the second half of which appeared in Committee for building said House & 1783. The book bears an unusually large Ebenezer Clijyord Esqr. [italics added] bookplate identifying its owner as Three hundred pound more will be neces- Ebenezer Clifford of Kensington-clear sary to compleat said building.. .“19 The proof that Clifford’s mind had developed fact that Clifford was consulted suggests an inquiring bent before his removal to that he may have been employed either to Exeter. build or design the courthouse. Unfor- Helen Park, in her article “A List of tunately, the County Treasurer’s records Architectural Books Available in America for 1791 give no account for the construc- before the Revolution,” does not list tion of the building. James Paine’s first volume as having been Not much is known about the Exeter known in America before the war.17 Courthouse. The only pictorial represen- Having no details of mantelpieces, doors, tation of the building seems to be the and windows, construction features or the miniature drawing on Phinehas Merrill’s five orders, Paine’s book contains little of 1802 map of Exeter. Beyond this, there is direct use to American builders. Most of a brief description written by the ubiq- the houses depicted were far too large for uitous William Bentley in 1801: emulation in America-so much so that it The Court is a small but neat Building is surprising to find the volume in a of two Stories not far from the mill seats & Bridge. It suffers from a narrow practical New Englander’s library at any pediment which does not afford a proper time. Unless Clifford’s ownership of the piazza, which might well fill the front.20 book was a mere accident, its presence in Undoubtedly, Bentley’s standard of com- his library suggests a more extensive parison was Samuel Mclntire’s Salem collection of architectural books, probably Courthouse, which had been illustrated in beginning with the serviceable builder’s the Massachusetts Magazine in March, guides common in America both before 1790 and was thereby perhaps known in and after the Revolution.t* Exeter as a prototype for this sort of build- Clifford’s reputation as a “student of ing.21 architecture” was probably due less to his Whether or not Clifford provided the private library than to his services as a plans for the 1791 courthouse, there is designer of buildings. There was not a documentary proof that he served as a major public or semi-public structure draftsman at least as early as 1794. In built in Exeter during the late eighteenth February of that year, soon after Clifford’s century with which Clifford was not arrival in Exeter, a contract was signed for associated in some way. In 1791, even the erection of a new building for the before he moved to Exeter, Clifford seems Phillips Exeter Academy: to have been engaged as a consultant, I hereby agree with John Taylor builder, or possibly a designer for the new Gilman Nathaniel Gilman Benjamin Rockingham County Courthouse that was Abbot & Oliver Peabody a Committee built in Exeter. This building cost more for Building an Academy in Exeter to deliver to them a Frame for the same 76 than had originally been anticipated, and feet long, 36 feet Wide, & 27 feet Post to in August 1792 a special committee was [be] made according to a plan of the appointed “to report what further sum same drawn by Ebenezer Clifford Esqr. 26 Old-Time New England

FIG. 2. 1794 PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY BUILDING. Photograph from the collections of the Phillips Exeter Academy.

& to raise the same in such place in sd a Cupola on the Top of said Academy Exeter as they shall direct by the first according to a plan presented to said day of May next-they paying me Committee-and to find all the timber & therefor One hundred & twenty pounds every other material the Glass & Nails Lawful Money-Witness my hand Lime & Lead excepted, to make the February 6th 1794--Stephen FoggZ2 sashes & set the Glass & do every thing for all which they are to pay me the sum Here, then, is evidence that Clifford had of Sixty five pounds Lawful Money. N.B. established a local reputation in the prac- The ball on the Top is not to be included tice of architectural design sufficient to in the above.- bring his talent to the attention of the Witness my hand July 28th Academy building committee even 1794- Bradbury Johnson23 though he had just arrived in Exeter. Since this contract implies that Johnson It is impossible to say just how much of designed the cupola of the Academy, the finished design of the 1794 Phillips while the earlier contract suggests that Exeter Academy building derived from Clifford planned the body of the building, Clifford’s draft (Fig. 2). The matter is full credit for the design of the structure complicated by the associationof a youn- cannot properly be assigned to either ger builder-architect, Bradbury Johnson, Clifford or Johnson. It seems reasonable with the Academy building. On July 20, to suggest that in this, as in at least two 1794, about a month after the building other instances, the two men cooperated frame had been fully raised, another in producing the necessary drawings for contract was written: the building. Both men evidently com- I hereby agree with the Committee for bined the aesthetic sense of the architect Building the Academy in Exeter to build with the skill of the builder, for the con- Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor struction accounts for the Academy door of the Academy was a focal point, clearly show that Clifford and Johnson and bore a close resemblance to a window were the master joiners of the structure. enframement illustrated in Plate XLVII of Apart from small sums paid to each man Batty Langley’s 1745 Treasury of ’ Designs. at various times, Clifford received Both the first and second floor windows of f234:16:11 for his labor while Johnson the Academy appear to have been derived was paid ~Z214:0:0,and these sums far ex- from Langley as well. ceed those paid to any other workmen on While Exeter’s new Academy building the job.24 was being completed, the nearby meeting The Academy building, which burned house of the First Church, built in 1730, in 1870, was of a striking, if somewhat was rapidly deteriorating. In April, 1796 a retardutaire, design. It was described in Dr. committee of five men was appointed to Tenney’s article of 1795, when it had just prevent the boys of the village from been completed: playing around the building-a sign that The school room is calculated for about its condition was indeed precarious.Final- ninety; and for neatness and conve- ly, on January 22, 1798 it was nience it is thought to exceed all others known in the country. The second story Voted,That J. T. Gilman, 0. Peabody, forms a spacious room for exhibitions, Nathl. Gilman, S. Tenney & E. and a small one for a library. The Clifford, Esquires, be a committee building.. . has on top an elegant cupola to make & report a plan or plans . [and] does honor to the institution, of a [new] meeting house.27 and to the taste of the gentlemen [note And on February 6th, plural] who designed it.25 the Committee appointed for the Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale purpose reported the plan of a meeting- College, concurred with Dr. Tenney’s house consisting of the ground floor, and the elevation of the front.** judgment, calling the Academy “superi- our to any other building, destined to the This plan was unanimously accepted and same purpose, within my knowledge.“26 resulted in the construction of the unique Several photographs of the Academy building that still stands in Exeter, and building survive, and show it to have been was said to have been erected at a cost a dignified structure with a seven-bay exceeding &10,000.29 Unfortunately, the facade and a central pedimented pavilion archives of the First Church contain no three bays wide. The detailing reflected vouchers or accounts for the erection of nothing of the Adamesque or Federal the house, and so the detailed history of architectural style prevalent in Boston by its construction cannot be compiled. It 1794, but rather showed a Palladian taste would be especially instructive to know characteristic of every Exeter building as- who drew the plans, for the building sociated with Clifford’s name. Apart from reflects a significant departure from estab- Johnson’s cupola, the embellishment of lished types of meeting houses both in the structure was confined to the central plan and elevation. Although the interior pavilion. This was ornamented with two of the building was completely re- superimposed orders of Tuscan pilasters, modelled in 1838, the facade retains its those on the first story rising from high original appearance (Fig. 3). The house is pedestals and those on the upper story essentially T-shaped.30 The main body, supported by a heavy horizontal cornice hip roofed and two stories high, is ori- that marked the second floor level. The ented so that its longest dimensions form 28 Old- Time New England

FIG. 3. 1799 FIRST PARISH MEETING HOUSE, EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE. Photo by the author. Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor

the front and rear elevations of the to their own with all its ornaments.. the house cannot display such a front as the building. Projecting from the front of the Exeter & the Steeple is not yet Iin- body is a striking pavilion from which the ished. tower rises.This pavilion, three bays wide and two stories high, has arched doors and In 1888, Charles Bell wrote of the windows in contrast to the rectangular Exeter meeting house, “Its style and openings elsewhere in the building. The proportions have been much admired, tracery in the arches of the windows is and it is undoubtedly a fine specimen of Adamesque in inspiration; and yet, the the architecture of the period. Ebenezer composition of the facade is essentially Clifford of Exeter is understood to have Palladian and is strongly reminiscent of designed it. “34 Since then, virtually every the front of the building author who has discussed the building, a few hundred yards up the road. As in the including Fiske Kimball, has attributed it Academy, the meeting house facade is to Clifford. There is no doubt that Clifford divided horizontally into two stories by a was associatedwith the structure: he was heavy entablature, and each story is a member of the committee to secure ornamented with unfluted pilasters. The plans for the building, and among the few roof entablature is basically a copy of vouchers remaining in the church archi- Palladio’s Roman Doric order, although it ves from the time of the construction of may be a composite from plates in various the house is one that reads: builder’s guidebooks. Gentlemen Exeter April 1st 1799 Soon after its completion, this meeting Pay Ebenezer Clifford Esqr thirty pounds house became well known throughout fifteen Shillings and six pence in full for his acct for meeting house. eastern New England. Samuel McIntire $30.15.6 Gideon Lamson3S was sent to study it before designing the South Church in Salem.3* In 1801 William Unfortunately, as in the case of the Bentley wrote: Phillips Exeter Academy building, the The new Church [in Exeterl is the attribution of the design of the Exeter most elegant in the state . . It has a meeting house to Clifford alone is not pediment in front well supported, & secure. In The First Church in Exeter, upon the tower two Lanterns with as written in 1898, John Taylor Perry stated: good effect as this kind of architecture admits. There is a flight of stone steps to It has generally been thought that the the entrance in front & the building new house, which has been much ad- within is arched & finished well. The mired. had for its architect Mr. Clifford. pulpit stairs pass behind. The front of but he cooperated with a Mr. Johnson; the galleries is the best finished work I who may have furnished the specifica- ever saw, & with admirable effect. The tions. This statement, Mr. Alfred Con- pews are all long, entirely unorna- nor had from his father, who worked on mented, & not even painted. 1 am sorry the structure. .36 to see any of them touching the walls of the house. The isles IsicJ ought to be The full identity of this “Mr. Johnson” is through and round such a house.32 provided by the First Parish tax records Shortly afterward, in recording his impres- for 1798. Opposite the name of Bradbury sions of the unfinished meeting house in Johnson is the notation “(architect of Newburyport, Bentley further showed his Meeting House) Standing 1874. “37 Thus, pleasure with the Exeter building: some person in 1874 appears to have had In Cary’s new house I should have either evidence or recollection of the fact preferred the front of the Exeter gallery that Bradbury Johnson, and not Ebenezer 30 Old-Time New England

Clifford, designed the meeting house. As 4). More surprising, it is related to several is the case with the Phillips Academy plates in James Paine’s Noblemen and building, the precise contributions made Gentlemens Houses, suggesting that by these two men have become inextrica- Clifford had an important part in its design bly confused by time and incomplete (Fig. 5).42. Its exceptional feature is a documentary evidence. clerestory rising above the central three There are elements of the meeting bays of the facade, capped with a pedi- house that suggest a true “cooperation,” ment and flanked by balustraded hip roofs as mentioned by Perry. While nothing is over the two outer bays of the house, thus known about Bradbury Johnson’s library, affording a low third story in the center of the Palladianism of the meeting house the building. The doorway of the Tenney suggests the careful use of a builder’s House is almost an exact duplicate of the handbook. Clifford, because he is known entrance of the Academy building, even to have owned at least one architectural to the point of having two lights of glassin volume, may perhaps be credited with the place of the two upper door panels. It is strictly academic features of the building. slightly more modern than the Academy On the other hand, the cupola of the door in the fact that its pilasters lack the house is nothing other than an enlarged high pedestalsseen on the older building and somewhat attenuated version of the and are fluted. In the tympanum of the cupola on the Academy building. Since pediment there is a delicate motif of the earlier cupola was built (and presuma- intertwined wooden tracery, which clearly bly designed) by Bradbury Johnson, the derives from still another builder’s tower of the meeting house may be guidebook, William Pain’s The Practical Johnson’s work. Further, the pulpit win- Builder (1774; Boston edition 17921, dow of the meeting house is, except for which appears to have been available in some Doric trim, an exact counterpart of Exeter at least as early as 1794.43 the doorway of the New Hampshire Fire Both the clerestory roof and the general and Marine Insurance Company building doorway type of the Tenney House are in Portsmouth (now the Portsmouth suggested by plates in James Paine’s Athenaeum), which Johnson designed a Noblemen and Gentlemens Houses. The few years later in 1803.38 Thus, the building thus affordsa striking example of meeting house appears to reflect the taste the adaptation of grand English designs to and design skills of two talented and the modest needs of the New England closely-associatedbuilder-architects. town-an adaptation all the more ingen- In 1800, at the time of the completion ious in that Paine’s book appears, at first of the meeting house, the Exeter surgeon, glance, totally inapplicable to American Congressman, scientist, and author Dr. building practice. The designer of the Samuel Tenney erected a new mansion Tenney House, whether Clifford, John- house next to the church building. Ac- son, or both, revealed an imagination cording to John Taylor Perry, either greatly to his credit. Ebenezer Clifford or Johnson “built” this In 1803, when Ebenezer Clifford was house.39Either man could have designed fifty-seven, he planned the only structure the dwelling, for both men knew Dr. which today can be documented as solely Tenney.40 The house shows a strong his own design. On November 15, 1802 kinship to the meeting house next to it,41 the academy building in the town of and to the Academy building as well (Fig. Atkinson, about fifteen miles from Exe- Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor 31

FIG. 4. DR. SAMUEL TENNEY HOUSE, EXETER, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1800. Photo by the author.

FIG. 5. PLATE LXV, “PRINCIPAL FRONT OF ST. IVES,” from James Paine’s Noble- men and Gentlemens Houses, London, 1765. Owned by Clifford, this book may have pro- vided the design source for the Tenney House. Photo by the author, courtesyof the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur Museum. 32 Old-Time New England

ter, burned to the ground.44On March 15, Only in its details does the newer building 1803 the Trustees of Atkinson Academy betray Atkinson’s lack of the large endow- Voted:-that the new building for the ment that had benefited Exeter. The Academy be erected . . . on an doorway is in the Tuscan order rather eminence north of the road than in the more elaborate Roman Doric leading from the house of at Exeter. The window heads have flat Nathaniel Peabody to the meeting house . . boards in place of the pulvinated friezes of Voted:-that the building be erected the earlier building. The cupola rises from according to a plan drawn and a square tower rather than from the oc- presented by Ebenezer tagonal base on the Exeter Academy. Clifford, Esq!s Apart from these economies, there are a The frame of the new building was raised few differences between the academy on May 12, 1803. From the first, the buildings which may have been dictated building must have been planned for only by aesthetics. Clifford, in designing the one room on the first floor and one Atkinson Academy, retained the essential above;46 and in July 1805 William form of the Palladian Exeter Academy Bentley recorded in his diary that the building, yet was apparently aware of the “lower part lays in one great undivided Federal architectural style that was mak- room & the stairs ascend on the south part ing its appearance along the New of this room.“47 On the exterior, the Hampshire seacoast.The roof pitch of the Atkinson Academy building was an al- newer academy is slightly lower than that most exact duplicate of the somewhat in Exeter, both on the main building and larger Phillips Exeter Academy (Fig. 6). on the frontal pediment. More important,

FIG. 6. 1803 ATKINSON ACADEMY, ATKINSON, NEW HAMPSHIRE. Photo by author. Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor 33 the superimposed orders that ornamented municated with his attendants in a vessel the pavilion in Exeter are abandoned in above.s0 It is still preserved in the Clifford Atkinson, being replaced by two attenu- House, and a replica is now used as a ated pilasters that rise two stories to the weathervane on the barn. cornice of the building and that can only Cliffords’ remarkable character is be termed Federal in style. revealed by the date at which he engaged The favorable impression that the in these dangerous experiments. At least Atkinson Academy produced upon an in- one descent was made in 1803, the same telligent and critical viewer is conveyed in year that Clifford designed the Atkinson Bentleys’ diary entry for July 24, 1805: Academy building-when he was tifty- We found above 60 youths, about an seven. equal number of males and females, & in good order. The building is in an most In 1803 a gundelow,loaded with twen- elevated situation & well accomodated. ty tons of bar iron, sank in seventy-two It is in a plain but lofty style & is sur- feet of water in the Piscataqua River. mounted by a bellfry with goodeffect. . Ebenezer Clifford of Exeter and Richard The School of the Academy is in a Tripe of Dover used a primitive diving spacious room & the females are on one bell (59”’ high x 5 ’ across) in their at- side 81the males on the other.48 tempt to get a tackle to the gundelow. There were seats for two men in the bell. As creative and independent as The shank of an old anchor served as a Ebenezer Clifford appears to have been in footrest. Fifty-six pound iron weights his architectural work, only a part of his were attached to the rim of the base, bringing the total weight to about two remarkable personality is revealed in the tons. Many successful descents were buildings with which his name is con- made. The bell stayed under water for an netted. One persistent tradition about hour or more each time, about twenty Clifford, now confirmed as a fact, reveals minutes of which was required for gra- him to have been both inventive and ad- dual descent and ascent. Though they failed to salvage the gundelow, Clifford venturous. According to one account: and Tripe were as much interested in the he was an ingenious mechanic, and con- healing properties of the bell as in its hy- structed a diving bell, with the aid of draulic significance. Clifford, long an which he is said to have recovered a habitual rheumatic, always felt better for quantity of silver money from the wreck his submarine experience.5t of a Spanish or other foreign vessel, at the Isles of Shoals. The coin had Although Clifford and Tripe (a Dover suffered, during its long submersion, a house-carpenter) failed to raise the gun- wondrous sea change, and was found to dalo at this time, Clifford salvaged the iron be covered with some kind of marine in- sometime between September 1806 and crustation. A portion of it was placed for safekeeping in the old Exeter Bank, and September 1808. Meanwhile, Tripe had when the vault of that institution was en- obtained a patent for “im- tered and robbed of its valuable con- provements in Diving Machines” on tents, about the year 1828. some of Mr. April 1, 180652 and, feeling that the iron at Cliffords’ silver pieces were among the spoils. The story goes, that the peculiar the bottom of the Piscataqua River appearance of the money afforded the belonged to him as much as to Clifford, he clew by which the guilty persons were brought suit against the latter in October detected!9 1808. Unfortunately, the records of this A carved wooden swan similar in ap- lawsuit do not show whether Clifford or pearance to a full-sized decoy was used as Tripe was the actual inventor of the diving a signal buoy by which the diver com- bell, though they state that Tripe highly Old-Time New England resented “a certain advertisement in a One of the most interesting revelations of Portsmouth paper, which gave to Esqr. this sad account is that Clifford appren- Clifford the honor of the diving bell.“s3 ticed his young son to Portsmouth’s When Tripe died in 1817, he still owned leading cabinetmaker. Here is another this patent, which was due to expire on instance of the close relationship between April 1, 1820 and was evaluated at the craftsmen of a particular region. These $50.00.54Clifford, however, seems to have men were well acquainted with the talents retained custody of the diving bell itself, of their fellows through a series of com- since it was in his barn during the nine- plex trade and family connections. In- teenth century. 55 Again, as in the case of deed, in 1803 a number of these men Clifford’s involvement with Bradbury incorporated themselves as the Associ- Johnson as an architectural designer, it is ated Mechanics and Manufacturers of the difficult to define the precise role played State of New Hampshire, “for the lauda- by Clifford as opposed to that of Tripe. ble purposesof promoting and encourag- What is clear in every instance, however, ing industry, good habits, an increase of is that Clifford possesseda highly original knowledge in the arts they profess and and inventive mind that acted as a catalyst practice, and their common interest.“57 in stimulating similarly talented men to Perhapsthe most significant instance of their best efforts. The fact that Clifford in- Clifford’s direct influence on the younger evitably appears as a participant in the generation (apart from the effect he must series of extraordinary designs and inven- have had on his associateBradbury John- tions that occurred near Exeter at the turn son) was realized in the life of one of of the nineteenth century is clear his apprentices, Jonathan Folsom testimony to the influence of his unique (1785-1825). Born in Exeter, Folsom personality. began his service with Clifford about In the years around 1800, when Clifford 1800. At the conclusion of his term was engaged in the most interesting (which would have extended to 1807 if building designs and submarine adven- this were a seven-year apprenticeship), tures of his career, he influenced the Folsom moved to Georgia “in pursuit of development of two younger men, both of business and information.“58 After a few whom gave early evidence of unusual skill years’ residence there, he returned to and both of whom died too young to Portsmouth where he soon began to build realize the full extent of their talents. The some of the most remarkable dwellings first of these youths was Clifford’s own constructed in the Piscataqua region in son, George Clifford (1783-1809, who is the eighteen-teens. Among these was the known only through his obituary notice: Thomas Haven House of 1813, which in . . . this valuableyoung man, inherited Folsom’s own words was “noted for its a double portion of those excellent grand and romantic appearance.“59 This mechanical powers, for which his father, house bore a striking resemblance to is so eminently distinguished; and hav- ing served an honorable apprenticeship, Thornton’s “Octagon” in Washington, with the ingenious Mr. [Langley] Board- DC., which Folsom may have seen in his man of this town [Portsmouth], he travels. After superintending the con- repaired to the Havannah, in the fond struction of a granite breakwater at the hope of obtaining more than a compe- Isles of Shoals and building the first ship- tence . . . but death stepped in at the close of 6 months, and loosed the silver house at the Portsmouth Navy Yard,@) cord of life, at early 22.56 Folsom crowned his brief career by erect- Ebenezer Cliflord, Architect and Inventor

ing the granite Unitarian Church of 1824, age. If the attributions of his early work in which may have been designed by Alex- Kensington are correct, Clifford had ander Parris. During this project Folsom passed from the simple, almost vernacu- died at the age of forty from over-exertion lar, work of the pre-Revolutionary period and exposure. through the highly academic Palladianism Despite his varied interests in architec- of the early Federal period and had ended tural design, marine salvage and mill his career as a master of the delicate and operating, Clifford evidently did not termi- inventive Adamesque design of the years nate his career as a joiner until ill health after 1800. As an architect, he had been and advancing age forced him to do so. involved with the design of some of the Actually, one of the best-documented most impressive buildings in northern instances of Cliffords’ work as a joiner New England, buildings that made his occurred somewhat after he had gained home-town of Exeter one of the most dis- local fame for his other pursuits. Between tinguished villages in the region. 1807 and 1809, the merchant James Toward the end of his life, Clifford Rundlet, who had moved from Exeter to suffered a decline in health and spent Portsmouth about 1794, built his three- several idle years with his wife Anna and story frame dwelling in the latter town his unmarried daughters, Eunice and (Cover). Fortunately, many of the ac- Elizabeth. Elizabeth (Betty), in her diary counts for the construction of the Rundlet entry for December 2, 1819, sadly wrote: House were published in 1946 by Rund- My father, too, he is declining, nor is it lets’ descendant, Ralph MayP1 Consider- probable that he will ever commemorate ing Rundlets’ Exeter origins (and the fact another anniversary day of thanksgiv- ing! on Earth-64 that Portsmouths’ leading craftsmen were then engaged in building St. Johns’ Actually, however, Clifford did not die Church),6* it is not surprising to find until October 10, 1821. many Exeter names among the craftsmen Ebenezer Cliffords’ wife survived him who fashioned Rundlets’ mansion. Sig- by nine years, and his property eventually nificantly, the leading joiner on the job, came into the hands of his daughter and in fact the highest-paid workman in Elizabeth. Elizabeth died in 1863 and un- the accounts, was Ebenezer Clifford. In fortunately specified that her entire estate January 1808 Rundlet paid Clifford be sold at auction. This was accordingly $555.05 for “joiners’ work, etc.,“63 and it done, and in that auction most of is likely that much of the interior detail of Ebenezer Cliffords’ effects were dis- the Rundlet House is the product of persed.6S With this dispersal began the Cliffords’ hand. obscurity that has deepened ever since, It is clear, then, that Clifford continued until the surprising talents and ac- to be active and influential at least until complishments of the man have been the age of sixty, and that he was still one reduced to a half-remembered legend. of the finest joiners of his region at that 36 Old-Time New England

NCITEs

“Diary‘ of Betty Clifford,” 1819-1828, files of Is Samuel Tenney, “A Topographical Descrip- the First Congregational Church, Exeter, New tion of Exeter in New-Hampshire,” Cohectkms Hampshire, entry for November 9,182O. “This of the Massachusetts Historical Society for the day my father [is] 74 years old he was born Year MLICCXCV (Boston, 1795). Cktr. 29th (Old Stile) l746-the change of Stile I6 lsaac W. Hammond, ed., Documents Relating makes it 9th of Novr.” to Towns in New Hampshire, A-F, State Papers *The Rev. Mr. Roland Sawyer dated the Series Vol. XI (Concord: The State of New erection of the Shaw House at “around 1774” in Hampshire, 18821, 669. The Exeter Social an article in the Hompton Weekly Union Library was incorporated by an act passed June (Hampton, N.H.) of March 21.1952. However, 20, 1797. Mr. Sawyer states that this house was suffi- “Helen Park, “A List of Architectural Books ciently finished for occupancy by December Available in America Before the Revolution,” 1768, in a letter dated November 2,1946 to Mr. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Joseph Downs (in the files of the Metropolitan XX, 3 (October, 1961), 115-130. Museum of New York). In 1938 R. T. H. I8 An inventory of Cliffords’ estate taken for a Halsey, in A Handbook of the American Wing lawsuit in 1802 (Rockingham County Superior (p. 851, conjectured that the panelling had been Court Records, A-21204-21209) includes “5 installed in a seventeenth century house in a Large Books” and “9 Bound Books.” This is remodelling of co. 1725. Until the land titles can certainly not an extensive personal library, yet be checked, the exact date of this house must the existence of the Paine volume with its remain in question. bookplate hints that some or all of these 3Sawyer, article in Hampton Weekly Union, fourteen volumes may have been architectural March 21, 1952. books. 4Sawyer, article in Hampton Weekly Union, I9 Rockingham County Superior Court Records, February 28, 1952. A-12876. Sawyer,‘ The History of Kensington, New 2oWilliam Bentley, The Diary of Wihiom Bentley Hampshire, 1663-1945 (Farmington, : the (Salem: The Essex Institute, 1907). II, 392. author, 19461, 229-230, 270. Brooks Palmer, *t The Massachusetts Magazine for 1790 was “The First New Hampshire Clockmakers,” available in Lamson and Ckiiornes’ Exeter Antiques, July, 1948, 36-37. bookstore at least as early as 1794, and probably 6 Rockingham County Superior Court Records, before. Edward C. Echols, ed., The Phillips A-10875. Exeter Academy, A Pictorial History (Exeter: The ’ ’ ibid., A-479 I. Phillips Exeter Academy Press, 19701, back 8Ibid., A-l 1378. endpaper. s ibid., A-4895. 22Archives of the Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire. to Rockingham County Deeds, 133:374; 133:375: 134:158: 134:159: 134:160. The con- 23 Ibid. struction date of the Gilman Garrison is based 24Account book of John Taylor Gilman, upon research by Richard M. Candee in the 100-108, Archives of the Phillips Exeter Acade- files of the Society for the Preservation of New my, Exeter, New Hampshire. The author is England Antiquities, which owns the building. particularly indebted to Mr. Rodney I‘ Charles H. Bell, History of the Town of Exeter, Armstrong, former Librarian of the Davis New Hampshire (Exeter: the author, 1888), 417. Library, Phillips Exeter Academy, for making This wing has sometimes been attributed to available the material relating to the 1794 Clifford, without known documentary proof. Academy building. *See‘ deeds cited in note 10, above. 25Tenney, op. cit., 96-97. 13Frank 0. Spinney, “An Ingenious Yankee 26Timothy Dwight, Travels; in New-England and Craftsman,” Antiques, September, 1943, New-York, I (New Haven: the author, 18211, 116-119. 417-418. I4 Leon Howard, “Thomas Gdiorne: An Amer- 27Record Book of the First Parish, Exeter, ican Predecessor of Wordsworth,” American N.H., entry for January 22, 1798. Literature, X (March, 1938-January, 19391, 28Ibid., entry for February 6, 1798. 417-436. 29”A Sketch of the ecclesiastical Affairs of Ebenezer Clifford, Architect and Inventor

Exeter from its first settlement in the 1638 48 Ibid. down to the year 1827--” MS, no author, no 49[Charles H. Bell], Exeter in 1776 (Exeter, pagination. MSS NHT Exeter, New Hampshire 1876), 33-34. Historical Society. 5oBell, History of’ Exeter, 418. 30The extension at the rear of the building is a 51 William G. Saltonstall, Ports of Piscataqua modern alteration. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19411, 3 ’ “Some Account of the South Church,” Essex 185n. Unfortunately, Saltonstall did not cite the btstitute Historical Collections,XXX1 (18941, 80. source of this detailed information, and no 32Bentley, Diary, II, 390-391. newspaper account of these descents has yet 33ibid., II, 395. been located. 34Bell, op cit., 190. 52 Edmund Burke, List o/Patents _/or Inventions and Designs Issued by the United Statesfrom I790 35Archives of the First Parish, Exeter, N. H. to 1847 (Washington, D.C.: 1847). 170. 36John Taylor Perry, 77reFirst Church in Exeter, 53 Rockingham County Superior Court Records, New Hampshire (Exeter, 18981, 94. A-30059. 37Tax Records of the First Parish, Exeter, 1798, p. 36, Archives of the First Parish, Exeter, N.H. 54Strafford County Wills, 21:204. 38 James L. Garvin, “Bradbury Johnson, 55 William Gilman Perry, Exeterin 1830 (Exeter, Builder-Architect,” unpublished M. A. thesis, 19131, 23. University of Delaware, 1969, p. 68. 56New-Hampshire Gazette, September 10, 1805. 39John Taylor Perry, op. cit., 95. George Clifford had died on August 5, 1805 (“Diary of Betty Clifford,” 1819-1828, files of 40 As has been seen, Ebenezer Clifford and Dr. the First Congregational Church, Exeter, N.H., Tenney were both on the committee to report a entry for August 5, 1821). plan for the Exeter meeting house. Dr. Tenney and Bradbury Johnson lived only five buildings s7 Constitution oJ ’ the Associated Mechanics and apart on Court Street in Exeter; and when ManuJacturers 01 the State oJ New Hampshire Johnson sold his house in 1802, Samuel Tenney (Portsmouth: C. W. Brewster and Son, 1869), 3. and Oliver Peabody purchased it (Rockingham 58 New-Hampshire Gazette, October 25, 1825. County Deeds, 161:273). 59 /bid., October 26, 18 13. 4t In the late nineteenth century the Tenney 6o Elizabeth Knowles Folsom, Genealogy oJ ’ the House was moved from its original location Folsom Family, 1638-1938 (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle next to the meeting house to 65 High Street in Publishing Company, 1938). 234, 396-7. Exeter. 61 Ralph May, Among Old Portsmouth Houses 42The facade of the Tenney House relates (Boston: the author, 1946). especially to Plates XXXIX and XL of Volume 62James L. Garvin, “St. Johns’ Church in I of Noblemen and Gentlemens Houses, showing Portsmouth: An Architectural Study,” Historical the south front of Serlby, Nottinghamshire and New Hampshire, XXVIII, 3 (Fall 1973). 153-175. to Plate LXV, the principal front of St. Ives. 63 May, op. cit., 27. 43The 1794 catalogue of Lamson and Odiornes’ 64”Diary of Betty Clifford,” 1819-1828, files of Exeter bookstore (see note 21, above) lists the First Congregational Church, Exeter, N.H., “Paines’ Architecture.” This probably refers to entry for December 2, 1819. William Pains’ The Practical Builder (Boston edition, John Norman, 1792) rather than to 6sLetter, Rev. Mr. Roland Sawyer to Mr. James Paines’ Noblemen and Gentlentens Houses Joseph Downs, dated November 2.1946, in the of 1765,.which never appeared in an American files of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New edition. York. Mr. Sawyer writes: “In 1878, my father attended an auction at the old Clifford home 44 Harriet Webster Marr, Atkinson Academy, The when the last of the fourth generation of Early Years (n.p., 1940). 73. cabinetmakers sold the place-and a farmer 4s Ibid., 76. bought their old planes and tools for firewood, 46An excerpt from the diary of Rev. Stephen many of them then over 100 years old-he had Peabody of Atkinson (now owned by the togo twice with a two horse wagon to haul them American Antiquarian Society), quoted by home for firewood.” Since Elizabeth Cliffords’ Marr, states that at a trustees ’ meeting “a auction was in 1864 (Rockingham County Wills majority appears to be against two chimneys in #l89960), the date given in Mr. Sawyers’ letter the schoolroom.” Marr, op. cit., 78. is either wrong, or this auction was of another 47 Bentley, op. cit., 111, 175. estate.