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House History of 16-18 High Street, Wiscasset, Maine
By Sarah Scott Cook, great-great grand-daughter of Henry Clark from research notes of her father, Henry Edwards Scott, Jr. the great-grandson of Henry Clark.
The “Musical Wonder House” at 16-18 High Street in Wiscasset, Maine, was originally built as a two-family, known in those days by the name of a ‘double house’, each side the mirror image of the other, separated by a firewall that ran all the way through from front to back. The house was built in 1852 by Henry Clark (1800-1871) with A. Wood of the Wiscasset shipyard of Clark and Wood. My great, great grandfather was this Henry Clark, born in 1800 in Pownalborough (later named Wiscasset), who was, at age 52, enjoying some wealth as a prominent businessman in his native Sheepscot River town.
Wiscasset, in the mid nineteenth century, was a port for cross -Atlantic sailing ships and coastal schooners that were built here and launched to haul goods up and down the eastern seaboard. Before the Civil War, Henry Clark’s shipyard built the ship Golden Horn, completed in 1854, just two years after the impressive house at 16-18 High Street. Though a busy man, Clark took time to plan and build the house at High Street as a home - on the number 16, south, side for himself and his wife, Sophia McCray Cutter Clark (1802-1868), and the youngest two of their three daughters –Eliza Ann and Helen. Clark assigned the number 18, north, side to his eldest and married daughter, another Sophia, her husband Captain George H. Wood (1822-1857), and their daughter, the Clarks’ first granddaughter, Eliza (named after Sophia Wood’s sister).
Captain Wood commanded the Golden Horn, the ship built and owned by his father-in-law. However, Wood died in 1857. His wife Sophia Clark Wood (1823-1885) was left a widow at age 34, with one child to care for - the then 10-year old Eliza Wood (1847-1905). The unfortunate death of Captain Wood was followed by some good luck that came to the Clarks in the form of my great grandfather, Jonathan Edwards Scott, Jr. (1812-1886) “A successful ship master and ship owner” (See Wiscasset Public Library genealogy files), CaptainJonathan Scott, a Wiscasset native like Henry Clark, took as his second wife, in May, 1857, Eliza Ann Clark (1826-1867), the middle daughter of Sophia and Henry Clark.
Captain Scott brought to his marriage with Eliza Ann two daughters from his first marriage, to Joanna Oram Parsons of Edgecomb, Maine. After an Atlantic crossing with her husband, Joanna tragically died in 1852, abroad, in Antwerp. Joanna’s and Jonathan’s two daughters had to sail back to Maine with their captain father, now a widower, and their mother in a casket. At that time the girls, Helen Scott (1842?-1858) and her baby sister, Fannie Thaxter Scott (1850-1912), were about 10 years and two years old, respectively. Joanna was buried in the Scott family plot in the Wiscasset cemetery.
At number 18 High Street, the widowed Sophia took in, along with herself and her own young daughter Eliza Wood, the widower Captain Jonathan Scott, his new wife Eliza Ann, and Captain Scott’s two daughters, Helen and Fannie. Perhaps, the company of family made the pain of loss more bearable. However, death was not to be very far away. Helen Scott, only sixteen, died in 1858, one year after her father, Captain Scott, had remarried.
Some comfort may have come to the Clark-Wood-Scott family when Eliza Ann gave birth, in the northeast second floor bedroom of number 18 High Street, to the only son of Captain Jonathan Edwards Scott, Jr. The baby boy was born October 17, 1859, and was named Henry Edwards Scott (1859-1944), no doubt after his grandfather Henry Clark. Baby Henry was to become my grandfather. One can only hope that this healthy baby brought sustained joy in a household that would experience more losses in the 1860’s. In 1862, the Clark’s youngest daughter, Helen Clark Neal (1833-1862), married to Edward Neal, died before reaching the age of 30, most likely in childbirth. I note that Helen and Edward Neal’s baby Sarah was born in 1862.
In 1864, Captain Jonathan Scott bought the south side, number 16 High Street, from his father-in-law, Henry Clark. Thus started the High Street shuffle. Captain Scott, his wife Eliza Ann, his surviving daughter Fannie, and five year old son Henry moved from number 18 into number 16 High Street. Henry Clark and his wife Sophia Clark moved out of number 16 and into number 18 High Street to reside with their widowed daughter Sophia Wood and their granddaughter Eliza Wood. The north side, number 18, was still owned by Henry Clark.
A short three years after these moves, tragedy struck the families again. Eliza Ann Scott died of consumption in 1867, and her mother Sophia Clark died the next year, 1868. Before he turned nine years old, the boy Henry had lost his mother and grandmother in rapid succession. During the summer of 1868, Henry Scott was sent away from Wiscasset to stay with Aunt Mary Scott, his father Jonathan’s spinster sister, on the family farm in Minot, Maine. On his ninth birthday, October 17, 1868, Henry was sailing out of Belfast, Maine, on the ship Emily McNear, recently built in that port and commanded by his father Captain Jonathan Scott. His half-sister Fannie Scott was also on board and, at age 18, no doubt took on the care of her younger half brother. Fannie and Henry were on the voyages with their captain father until 1871 when the Emily McNear was turned over to Captain George Scott, Jonathan’s brother. Henry Scott’s letter of June 29, 1931 states that Fannie Scott “…and I returned from England to Boston in the Spring of 1871, and went to housekeeping at Wiscasset, in the south side of…” the High Street house. That was the same year that the Knox and Lincoln Railroad came to Wiscasset.
After some time in the state insane asylum in Augusta, Maine, Henry Clark died in 1871. Henry Clark had been suffering from some mental illness, especially since the loss of his wife and two daughters. Captain Scott and his two children had just returned from their voyages. I do not know if they saw Clark before his death. However, Jonathan then bought the north side of the High Street house from his sister-in-law, Sophia Wood, and her daughter, Eliza Wood Ring, married to William Ring. The year 1871 is also notable for the birth of the Ring’s first child, Helen Sophia. If Henry Clark were still alive at the time of the birth, Helen Sophia would have been his first great grandchild and may have been the fourth generation in the Clark family line to reside in the High Street house.
I assume that Sophia Wood continued on for a time at number 18 High Street before she moved to Concord, Massachusetts. There she died in 1885 without ever remarrying.
In 1871, Captain Jonathan Scott owned the entire High Street house, both number 16 and number 18. At the end of that year, he took as his third wife, Mary Tucker Rundlett (1823-1905), the widow of Oakes Rundlett. The evening marriage ceremony took place on December 14, 1871, in the Wiscasset home of Mary’s son, Richard Tucker Rundlett, across Main Street from the Sortwell house. Jonathan’s children, Henry Scott, age 12, and half sister Fannie Scott, 21 years old, attended. According to Henry’s letter of 1938 to his niece Fannie Chase, Henry and Fannie Scott “left the company, soon after the ceremony was finished, in order to light up the south side of the High Street house for the arrival of the newlyweds.” It is assumed that Captain Scott and his new wife Mary then lived in number 16.
Two years after her father’s, Jonathan Scott’s marriage to Mary, Fannie Scott was married to Captain Joseph Tucker Hubbard – September 4, 1873. This ceremony took place in number 16, the south side of the High Street house. Fannie Scott Hubbard and Captain Hubbard lived in Wiscasset, most likely at 18 High Street until 1880. They had three children during that time. After many ocean voyages, Captain Hubbard gave up command of his ship, Richard III, owned by the Tucker family of Wiscasset. The Hubbards moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where their children grew up.
Captain Jonathan Scott and his wife Mary also moved from Wiscasset. In 1879, they moved to Watertown, Massachusetts, where Jonathan bought a house at 153 Mt. Auburn Street. Young Henry was close by in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was a student at Harvard College. The house on High Street in Wiscasset was rented until Jonathan died in 1886. The next year, 1887, Jonathan’s widow, Mary, returned to Wiscasset to reside at number 16 High Street. This must have been a lonely experience for Mary who, shortly thereafter, moved over to be with her son, Richard Rundlett. Mary gave all her interest in the High Street house to her stepchildren, now fully grown - Henry Scott and Fannie Scott Hubbard. Henry owned the south side, number 16, and half sister, Fannie Scott Hubbard, the north side, number 18.
In the early 1900’s, the Hubbards and Scotts shared the High Street house and filled it again with young children. Henry Scott had married Harriet Adelia Chapman of Middlebury, Vermont, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1888. They eventually had four children and lived in the High Street house as time allowed or required. Henry had become a teacher and traveled a lot to take a teaching position or to do research. Fannie Scott Hubbard’s daughter, Fannie Chase, who was Henry Scott’s niece, returned to Wiscasset as a married woman. The young Fannie Hubbard had met and married Dr. Walter Greenough Chase(1859-1919) of Boston. The ceremony took place on October 20, 1906. The location is not clear to this writer. This may have been a bittersweet event since young Fannie Hubbard’s father, Captain Joseph Hubbard, had died the year before, in 1905. Fannie Hubbard Chase and her husband made number 18 High Street their summer home, probably keeping house with Fannie Chase’s widowed mother, Mrs. Hubbard. Dr. and Mrs. Chase had two children – Charles Greenough Chase (1908-1998) and Judith Thaxter Chase(1910-200?), grandchildren of Fannie Scott Hubbard and Captain Joseph Hubbard, also great grandchildren of Captain Jonathan Scott and his first wife Joanna Parsons Scott. The High Street home was enjoying the sound of children’s voices once more.
Fannie Chase’s mother, Fannie Scott Hubbard, died in 1912, leaving her half of High Street, number 18, to her daughter and Dr. Chase. In 1913, my grandfather Henry Edwards Scott sold 16 High Street to his niece, Fannie Hubbard Chase and her husband, Dr. Walter Greenough Chase. Henry Scott and his children , of which one was my father Henry Edwards Scott, Jr., were the last of Henry Clark’s descendants to live in the High Street house.
It is assumed that Fannie and Dr. Chase took out the dividing wall between numbers 16 and 18 High Street and replaced the two separate staircases with the flying staircase and balconies. The last of Captain Jonathan Scott’s descendants to live in the High Street house were Charles (Chippy) Chase and his sister, Judith Thaxter Chase Churchill. Chippy Chase lived in the High Street house for some time, finally selling the house, still numbered 16-18 High, to Danilo & Lois Konvalinka in 1963.
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