VISITING THE HARLOW OLD FORT HOUSE

 ((Originally posted in August 2012))


A week ago I learned that the house built by my 8x great grandfather William
Harlow in Plymouth, Ma. still exists and was open for tours on Thursday afternoon.
Now I live about twenty miles from Plymouth and except for visiting Plimoth
Plantation about forty-five years ago I haven't visited the historical sites down
there. Considering how much of our family history took place in Plymouth and
the adjoining towns I decided it was time I fixed that. So yesterday I drove Ping
the Wonder Car down to visit the Harlow Old Fort House.

It was a nice day and I took one of the backroads, Rte 36, most of the way. I'm
glad I went now because in a week or so when people start visiting Plymouth
on vacation the traffic will be heavier. The Harlow House is located at 119 Sandwich
House just past Plymouth Center and right across from the Plymouth Fire Dept.
headquarters. I arrived twenty minutes before the start of the tour so I looked
around a bit and took a picture of one of the rooms through a window. I also
looked around the gift shop and the workshop where events and educational
programs are held. Pat, the young lady in charge, asked me to sign the visitors'
book and when I told her I was a Harlow descendant she asked if I could add
the details of my lineage. Luckily, I just happened to have a relationship
chart with me that I had printed out that morning.

The tour started at 2pm and there was only myself and an elderly couple from
Colorado.  Our guide was a gentleman named Ron who was very good. He
demonstrated the steps William Harlow would have taken in constructing a
wooden barrel(my ancestor was a cooper by trade) and then led us into the
common room for a discussion of what life was like for the Harlow family in
the late 1600's. The discussion continued in a third room and I was impressed
with how knowledgeable and enthusiastic Ron was talking about the history
of the house.

I won't go into specifics of Ron's tour; after all, if I did that there'd be no
reason for you to go and hear him yourself, and you really should do it if
you are in the Plymouth area on a Thursday afternoon. But I do want to
paraphrase something Ron said: how many people can say they've stood
on the same floor, in the same house, in the same location(the house has
not been moved) that their ancestors did centuries before?


Thanks to the Plymouth Antiquarian Society and their volunteers, I can say that!

((Admission for adults is $5.00, $2.00 for children. You can read more about the
Harlow House and the two other houses maintained by the Plymouth Antiquarian
Society here at their site.))

52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS 2018 WEEK 42: WILLIAM HARLOW OF PLYMOUTH, MA.

William Harlow's  Old Fort House

Starting  now with the families of Florilla Dunham's female ancestors, I'll begin with Mary (Harlow) Dunham's father William Harlow, my 8x great grandfather.  William Richard Cutter has this to say about him:

(I) Sergeant William Harlow, the immigrant ancestor in America, came from England to Lynn, Massachusetts, where his name appears on a list of residents in 1629-30. In 1637 he was one of the men from Lynn who settled the town of Sandwich in Plymouth colony. In 1637 he was a witness and legatee in the will of Thomas Hampton, of Sandwich. In 1639 he was proposed for freeman and took the oath of fidelity. He had a lot of four acres assigned to him in 1640. Afterward he removed to Plymouth. He was a cooper by trade and also a carpenter, and built several houses in Plymouth. One of them built in 1667, on a lot granted to him by the town, on the road to Sandwich, still stands; it was framed with the old timbers from the Pilgrim Fort on Burial Hill, purchased after King Philip's war, Sergeant Harlow having charge of the old fort for many years; Sergeant Harlow, a member of the South Company, served under Captain William Bradford. In 1882, when the house was repaired, a ponderous iron hinge from the fort was found and is now in Pilgrim Hall. Another house, built by Sergeant Harlow, known as the Doton House, was taken down in 1808. Sergeant Harlow was admitted a freeman in 1654; was juror, assessor, deputy to the general court, selectman fifteen years, and was active in the church. He died August 26, 1691, aged sixtyseven years. Sergeant Harlow married (first) at Plymouth, December 30, 1649, Rebecca Bartlett, who died in 1657, daughter of Robert and Mary (Warren) Bartlett, and granddaughter of Richard and Elizabeth (Juat Marsh) Warren; Richard Warren came over in the "Mayflower." Sergeant Harlow married (second) July 15, 1658, Mary Faunce. who died October 4, 1664. He married (third) January 15, 1665, Mary Shelley, who survived him. Children by first wife: William, born and died in 1650; Samuel, mentioned below; Rebecca, born June 12, 1655; William, June 2, 1656. Children by second wife: Mary, born May 9, 1659; Repentance, November 22, 1660; John, October 19, 1662; Nathaniel, September 30, 1664. Children by third wife: Hannah, born October 28, 1665; Bathsheba, April 21, 1667; Joanna, March 24, 1669; Mehitable, October 4, 1672; Judith, August 2, 1676-p808

New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of Commonwealths and the Founding of a Nation, Volume 2 Lewis historical publishing Company,  New York 1914

I was able to visit William Harlow's house a few years ago and blog about it. I'll repost that blog entry next.

VISITING THE HARLOW OLD FORT HOUSE

A week ago I learned that the house built by my 8x great grandfather William
Harlow in Plymouth, Ma. still exists and was open for tours on Thursday afternoon.
Now I live about twenty miles from Plymouth and except for visiting Plimoth
Plantation about forty-five years ago I haven't visited the historical sites down
there. Considering how much of our family history took place in Plymouth and
the adjoining towns I decided it was time I fixed that. So yesterday I drove Ping
the Wonder Car down to visit the Harlow Old Fort House.

It was a nice day and I took one of the backroads, Rte 36, most of the way. I'm
glad I went now because in a week or so when people start visiting Plymouth
on vacation the traffic will be heavier. The Harlow House is located at 119 Sandwich
House just past Plymouth Center and right across from the Plymouth Fire Dept.
headquarters. I arrived twenty minutes before the start of the tour so I looked
around a bit and took a picture of one of the rooms through a window. I also
looked around the gift shop and the workshop where events and educational
programs are held. Pat, the young lady in charge, asked me to sign the visitors'
book and when I told her I was a Harlow descendant she asked if I could add
the details of my lineage. Luckily, I just happened to have a relationship
chart with me that I had printed out that morning.

The tour started at 2pm and there was only myself and an elderly couple from
Colorado.  Our guide was a gentleman named Ron who was very good. He
demonstrated the steps William Harlow would have taken in constructing a
wooden barrel(my ancestor was a cooper by trade) and then led us into the
common room for a discussion of what life was like for the Harlow family in
the late 1600's. The discussion continued in a third room and I was impressed
with how knowledgeable and enthusiastic Ron was talking about the history
of the house.

I won't go into specifics of Ron's tour; after all, if I did that there'd be no
reason for you to go and hear him yourself, and you really should do it if
you are in the Plymouth area on a Thursday afternoon. But I do want to
paraphrase something Ron said: how many people can say they've stood
on the same floor, in the same house, in the same location(the house has
not been moved) that their ancestors did centuries before?


Thanks to the Plymouth Antiquarian Society and their volunteers, I can say that!

((Admission for adults is $5.00, $2.00 for children. You can read more about the
Harlow House and the two other houses maintained by the Plymouth Antiquarian
Society here at their site.))