[p. 121]
In that mansion used to beAfter the death of Madam Tidd the walls and fences were removed, the outlying land was sold for house lots, and streets were laid out until the old house was left, with its slave quarters and summer house, in the midst of a two-acre lot. Later the summer house was removed, but happily not entirely destroyed. It is now the property of the Sarah Bradlee Fulton Chapter. Parts of it were on exhibition during the festival week. Beautiful spring weather, budding trees, and springing flowers made the outside of the house attractive during the exhibition, and in the evening the soft candlelight from the muslin-curtained windows seemed to bid the visitor welcome. As he passed under the Stars and Stripes which waved over the doorway, and was greeted by ladies in the gowns of their foremothers, he felt that time had turned backward in its flight. The rooms did not suggest an exhibition. They were furnished with ancient furniture, mostly mahogany, loaned by present or former residents of Medford. Some pieces had been in town a century or more. The ‘thousand-leg’ table, which was the centrepiece in the drawing-room, was brought to this country in 1680. General Stark's clock stood at the head of the stairs, which its distinguished owner had often trod. Scattered about the house were chairs which belonged to Dr. David Osgood, the young preacher of Medford
Free-hearted Hospitality.
His great fires up the chimney roared,
The stranger feasted at his board;
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow.
the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
