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houses of said Ipswich": "the size and quality of these superb oak-beams, their finely-finished moulded edges, the substantial oak floor joists, the great posts, with their escutcheons so laboriously wrought, the noble size of these four great rooms, proclaim that this was a home of wealth and refinement, and make it easy for us to believe that it was the finest mansion of the town."

The work of restoration required patience, thoroughness and delicacy. All the woodwork had to be laboriously and carefully scoured to remove the grime and whitewash with which it was coated in layer after layer. The process of reconstruction was fascinating to follow in its revelation of the peculiarities of ancient methods of housebuilding. The spaces between the studs, from sill to plate, were found filled-in with brickwork, and this was preserved so far as possible. In one of the chambers, the manner of this construction is exhibited by means of a plate of glass set into the wall and framed with the care that might be shown for a treasured old master. The places where the handsome old windows were were shown with exactness, and their restoration proved one of the most effective features of the house, bringing it closer into relation with its models across the sea, where the same form of window is to-day in common use. It was of course easy to disclose the fireplaces that had been shut in to allow the substitution of the ugly and economical stove. But these were small fireplaces of comparatively modern date, nesting within the enormous originals-the latter so well preserved that it was an easy matter to restore them in all their completeness. Much of the old plastering was so perfect that it did not have to be touched. And, by way of experiment, for a deal of the new work made necessary to replace the old plastering, the ancient fashion of making a compound of clay, sand and salt hay was tried with

entire success.

Exactly how old the house is has not yet been ascertained. But it certainly dates back to the middle of the seventeenth century, and possibly a house that stood on the place when its sale to Mr. John Whipple, an eminent man of Ipswich, was completed by a quitclaim deed from John Fawne in the year 1650, may have formed a portion

of it. Mr. John Whipple had been living on the spot since 1642 at least.

The Whipple House in its present shape is a growth formed by successive enlargements made in the course of a considerable number of years. In its original shape it apparently consisted of what is now the western half of the main portion. First the house was doubled in size and then two successive additions were made in the rear, giving it the long sloping roof on the north side so characteristic of many old farmhouses. In its present shape, therefore, the house in its very old portion comprises four remarkably large rooms, two on the ground-floor and two above, each with a fireplace big enough to contain great logs of wood. In the adaptation of the house to the uses of the Historical Society, and its conversion into what may be called a museum of the ancient New England home, each of these four rooms, with its collections, has been given a typical character.

First and chief of these comes the "hall" in the great east room. This is by no means the hall of the eighteenthcentury Colonial mansion the spacious entrance-room, with its stately staircase, running through the centre of the house. Here the front door is likewise in the middle, but a tall man must stoop to enter, and keep stooping while in the diminutive entry, where a steep and narrow flight of stairs twists itself upward besides the gigantic chimney-stack that shows how its original size was doubled when the house was. In New England, as in Old, the hall was the common gathering-place of the family- the place where the meals were cooked and eaten, where the spinning and weaving were done, where the household came together to enjoy the heat and the light of the enormous fire on the hearth beneath a chimney which, as Mr. Waters tells us, was ample enough to allow boys on mischief bent to drop a live calf from the roof, as they did one night into poor old Mark Quilter's kitchen. It was often a scene of much jollity, we may believe, for the Puritans could not always and universally have maintained their traditional austerity. And the room was so spacious that we may be sure that it invited to no little frolicsomeness among the young folks, and we may even fancy that at

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FIRE-PLACE IN THE KITCHEN, WHIPPLE HOUSE.

times the floor was cleared for a bouncing good dance. So the place was a "hall" in the amplest sense of the word. It was not until a much later date that the room became exclusively a kitchen. And our Irish fellow-citizen, even though he may have rolled up wealth in city contracts, is but perpetuating the traditions of the baronial hall when he insists on spending his home hours sitting by the kitchen-stove in his shirt-sleeves, with claypipe in mouth.

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The beautiful old hall of the Whipple house is a fascinating gallery of the quaint utensils of domestic and industrial use in the old-time New England home-everything that entered into kitchen-service, barn-service, field-service, spinning, weaving, etc., beside various other things whose purposes the most patient research, the most ingenious conjecture, have not yet been able to discover. laugh at the clumsiness of certain of these utensils, but we are compelled to admire the simple way in which many others met the needs of the time. Clever examples of Yankee, or pre-Yankee, ingenuity are some of these things for instance, the "cradle-churn," where the milk was contained in a long, trough-like receptacle mounted lengthwise on rockers. As the house-wife and others went about their domestic tasks they would give it a touch in passing. This was sufficient to keep it going, and so the butter was made without any appreciable effort.

In the corner of the large west room there remained a fine old buffet as a relic of the olden days. This suggested the wainscoting of the room with some handsome panelling taken from an old house in the town, the Rogers Manse, built in 1728, and given to the Historical Society by the owner. Over the mantle a quaint painted panel, representing a panoramic view of Ipswich town from the river, with Jeffries Neck in the background, and the water enlivened with old-fashioned shipping, was inserted. The woodwork was painted white, making a typical eighteenth-century room of it. This is appropriately used for the exhibition of old china and crockery, silver, etc., oldfashioned musical instruments, a collection of rare old books, pamphlets and manuscripts, and many other interesting things.

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