F
104
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B872
1917
• Q
[ TIE OLD LEE HOUSE
EAST LYME
CONNECTICUT
by
CELESTE E. BUSH
PUBLISHED
by the
EAST L Y M E HISTORICAL SOCIETY
1917
THOMAS LEE HOUSE
TRANGERS visiting this ancient house
are sure to ask its history and to an-swer
their inquiries this article is
written. Our information concerning
it is from two main sources,— the re-port
of Mr. Norman Morrison Isham, the expert
archaeologist who was employed by the Society
of Colonial Wars to examine and report upon it,
and the family history as written by the Rever-end
Joseph Lee of the third generation of the
Lee family in this country and enlarged and
brought down to recent times in the Salisbury
Papers. The Lee family having been a promi-nent
one in Colonial times and its intermarriages
with other prominent families numerous, allu-sion
to it in other genealogical works, such as
those of Chancellor Walworth on the Hyde fam-ily,
are frequent. From them and many minor
sources we gather information which leads us
to believe that the nucleus of the house is even
somewhat older than the date of 1660 claimed
for it, a date which Mr. Isham sees no reason
to dispute.
The first Thomas Lee, coming probably from
the vicinity of Kenilworth, in England, embark-
ed for America, with his wife, Phoebe, his three
children, Thomas, Phoebe, and Jane, and his
wife's family, the Reverend William Brown, his
wife, son and daughter, in 1645. On the passage
Mr. Lee and Mrs. Brown died; the others came
on ito " Sayfcirook," as all this region was then
called, where the Browns remained for a time,
afterward going elsewhere but leaving the Lees
in Saybrook. As the Lees have been settled at
this place from a time to which the memory of
man runneth not, their holding going back of
any known records, it is believed by those most
familiar with the family history that they came
to land already secured by Thomias Lee, 1st,
either by a previous visit or through his old
friend and neighbor in England, Matthew Gris-wold
1st, who had just taken up land adjoining
the Lee holding on the south. The brief stay
of the Reverend Mr. Brown at Saybrook may
well have been for the purpose of seeing his
widowed daughter settled on the estate selected
by her late husband.
This theory is well borne out by the structure
of the house itself as read by Mr. Isham. He
reports that the east end was built first, a single,
two- story house, facing south, with a steep roof
and, as mortise cuts in the timbers show, a lean-to
on the north. Later the western portion was
added. In 1713 the road was opened on the north
2
side, in consequence of which the house was
shifted so as to face the road and a lean- to bulSt
across the entire south side.
wind frames was left in the south wall of the
l west, chamber. This frame, which has been
protected by the lean- to attic from any exposure
to the weather since about 1713, shows at least
fifty years of previous exposure in its seamed
and worn condition. Fifty years back from 1713
comes very near the date of 1660 claimed for
the house, and the western end is later than the
eastern. These facts, which are confirmed by
many side lights thrown on the Lee family from
many quarters, are strong arguments in support
of the belief that the east end was built for
Phoebe Brown Lee, widow of Thomas Lee 1st.
Mrs. Lee, who must have been very young at
the death of her husband, later married one
Greenleaf Larrabee, by whom she had several
children and, being again left a widow, she
married one Cornish, by whom she left one son
from whom the Simsbury Cornishes are de-scended.
Elizabeth Larrabee, her daughter by
her second marriage, became the wife of Joshua
Hempstead of New London and was the mother
of the famous diarist.
The descendants of Pheobe Brown Lee Larra-bee
Cornish are so interwoven with the history
In making these changes
3
of the Colony that they should be set forth in
some degree. Her son, Thomas Lee 2d, known
as Ensign or Lieutenant Lee, lived in this house
and undoubtedly built on the west end, his
family of fifteen children requiring larger quar-ters.
He was a great land holder, head of the
train band, constable ( a great office in those
days) in the times of Edmund Andros, a mem-ber
of the General Assembly in 1676; he died
in 1705.
Memorable events clustered around the house
in the days of Ensign Lee. The stream which
flows a little way west of the house was the first
boundary between " East Saybrook" and the New
London plantation. If, as was generally the
case, the present highway followed the old In-dian
trail, the historic marriage which changed
the name of the stream from ' Sunkapaug' to
' Bride Brook' must have taken place just west
of the old house. And, since the natural mead-ows
which were coveted by both settlements lie
in this vicinity, the battle which resulted in mov-ing
the New London bound eastward to the line
of Wigwam Rock must have been fought close by.
It was near the old well that " Lyme's Captain,
Reinold Marvin" made his historic proposal to
Betty, daughter of Ensign Lee. Sitting on his
sheepskin saddle, he reined in bis horse by her
side and said,'— " Betty, the Lord has command-
ed me to marry you." Whereupon Betty looked
modestly down and replied,—-" The Lord's will be
done!"— a much more Puritanic reply than Pris-cilla
Mullen's " Why don't you speak for yourself,
John." Ensign Lee's objections to the match
did not prevent the publishing of the banns,
which read:—
| Remold Marvin and Betty Lee
Do intend to marry:
And though her dad opposed be,
They will no longer tarry."
Sarah, another daughter of Ensign Lee^ mar-riecl
Daniel Buckingham, from whom was de-scended
the famous war governor. His son,
John, was the author of the " dying charge"
which Mrs. Bertha Chadwiek Trowbridge caused
to be illuminated on the walls of the old keep-ing
room. John married Elizabeth, daughter of
Richard Smith, founder of the Smith family of
Sunkapaug. Their son John was King's attor-ney
and a man of note; another son, the Rev.
Joseph Lee, was the author of the Lee Geneal-ogy;
Jason Lee, son of the Rev. Joseph, was the
famous pastor of the old Baptist Meeting House
on the Hill.
Ensign Lee's great grandson, Captain Ezra
Lee, operated the first submarine boat in New
York harbor in 1776. Captain Ezra's son, Dr.
5
Samuel Holden Parsons Lee, " Alone and unas-sisted,
combated the fury of the dreadful pes-tilence
of yellow fever in New London in 1798."
Ensign Lee's sister, Jane, married Samuel
Hyde and their daughter, Elizabeth, was the first
white child born in Norwich. She married Lieut.
Richard Lord of Lyme and her sister, Phoebe
married Matthew Griswokl 2d, so that all the
Griswolds and Lords of Lyme are Lee descend-ants.
Phoebe Hyde's grandson Capt, James
Hyde, was the great- grandfather of President
Cleveland.
After the death of Ensign Lee the house went
to his son, Thomas Lee 3d, known as ' Deacon
Thomas Lee' and as ' Mr. Justice Lee.' He was
one of the first deacons of the Ancient ' East' or
' Second' Ecclesiastical Society and the room
known as the Judgment Hall was his seat of
Justice for more than forty years. His daughter
Elizabeth, married the Reverend George Gris-wold
and his daughter Esther married Deacon
Clement Miner, first deacon of the first church
in the East Society. Only two sons survived
Mr. Jusice Lee, Samuel and Elisha. The house
seems to have been owned, in turn, in both
these branches, but the last Lee owner was Dr.
Thomas, from whom it went to his sister- in- law,
Miss Holman.
On the death of Miss Holman the property,
for the first time in 250 years, went on the
market and was taken by Mr. J. B. Rathbun
who, because the old house seemed no longer
habitable, proposed tearing it down.
The local historical society, though absurdly
small and poor for such an undertaking, felt that
they ought to make every effort to save this pre-cious
relic of the past and, by the generous help
of the Society of Colonial Dames, the Society of
Colonial Wars, the Society for the Preservation
of New England Antiquities, and several Lee
descendants, notably Mrs. Evelyn McCurdy Sal-isbury
and Mrs. Charles Dudley Warner, were
able to raise the purchase price and a sum for
necessary repairs.
Through the generosity of many friends the
old house has been fitted out with period furni-ture
so that it now stands as a very accurate
model of the domestic life of an earlier time.
No one can linger within its venerable walls
without a deepened sense of the past, for they
have been coexistent with practically the entire
life of the nation. When its frame was raised
the Mayflower Pilgrims were walking the streets
of Plymouth and it is not impossible that there
might still have been survivors of the settle-ment
at Jamestown. The first group that gath-ered
at its hearth may have known John Milton
7
and Oliver Cromwell in the flesh; they knew of
Drake and Hawkins and those great mariners
of England who laid the foundation of the Brit-ish
Empire as we know Farragut and Dewey.
Seven English sovereigns were acknowledged
in this house. It was ancient when the Decla-ration
of Independence was made. It has seen
half a dozen feeble colonies, clinging to the At-lantic
seaboard, stretch to a mighty nation and
every event that goes to make our national his-tory
came to this house as the news of the day.
With the wealth, the social standing, and the
civil offices held by the Lee family it is not to be
doubted that they received as guests most of the
people of consideration in this vicinity. Could
its walls echo the voices they have heard, how
would the entire history of our country be re-hearsed
to us! And could all the descendants
of that first group around this hearth be gath-ered
in one great assembly we should see that
as our fathers, like the patriarch Abraham, left
their own country for an unknown land to which
God called them, like the patriarch, they have
been blessed by a posterity like the stars in
heaven and the sands of the sea in number.
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FRONT DOOR- NORTH SIDE
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