Our route from Newport, RI to Boston, MA wasn't the most direct as my sister and I had a few early American places we wanted to see on Day 4 of our trip. This included some old family stomping grounds. Our Day 4 route is shown in RED in this close-up map from the large map used in the photo threads for Days 1-3 (including PA-NJ-NY-CT-RI historic towns and trains, and Newport).

 

 

After we left the wonderfully historic city of Newport, most of our route eastward on July 23, 2013 was on divided highways. But the farther east we got, the narrower the roads became including this one -- US 6, the boulevard I live on in Lakewood, OH.

 

In East Sandwich, MA we pulled off the highways onto a narrow path called Spring Hill Road, and found our way to this place, the Wing Fort House built nearly 400 years ago. The Wing Family is one of the oldest European families in America and holds an annual reunion near this house. My family is descended from Stephen Wing, one of three Wing brothers. Stephen Wing built this house for him, his wife and their 11 children, one of whom was Elisha (a man's name then) who married Mehitable Butler. They had seven children, among them Jedediah Wing who married Elizabeth Gifford. They had 10 children, among them Mehitable Wing who moved from Wareham, Massachusetts with her family to Quaker Hill, NY (which is near Southeast Station, NY -- see my photos of trains at this station in the Day One pictures) where she met my great, great, great great, great grandfather William Prendergast of Waterford, Ireland.

 

So my (great)7 grandfather was born in this house in 1668, 27 years after my (great)8 grandfather built it in 1641. The house has been expanded and altered many times over the years....

 

 

 

Who lived in this house? Many people did. You can see my (great)8 grandfather Stephen Wing at the top of the list, and my (great)7 grandfather Elisha Wing listed from Stephen's second marriage. He was the last of my direct ancestors to live here. The Wings lived in this house for 200 years until the mid-1800s. That was more than 160 years ago! That starts to make one realize that America isn't new, nor did it start suddenly in 1776. So who was the last person to live here? Cora Maria. She wasn't able to maintain the house anymore and left in the 1940s. The house sat vacant for a few years but was acquired by the Wing Family of America and restored. It is open to public tours: http://www.wingfamily.org/

 

That's our tour guide and maintenance man who lives in a house just down the street.

 

Views inside the house, including furniture, suggestions of the colonial lifestyle and peeks into the structure and construction techniques from nearly 400 years ago.

 

 

 

Note the difference in floor designs. The plain wood floor that's visible to the public was stripped of the fancy floor decorations seen behind the opened wall panel. The difference? The plain floor is what 1970s-era restorationists thought a colonial floor should look like. But the fancy decorations was actually the original flooring in this part of the house.

 

Space was at a premium in this house, especially when up to a dozen people lived in it. So rooms had to serve multiple purposes, requiring beds to fold away.

 

 

See the decorative circle in the floor? That's actually a hole so that heat from the fireplace on the first floor could come up and heat the second floor.

 

A peek up into the attic, which is used for storage today.

 

Notice the chimney has been rebuilt so that it can continue to function and heat the home as intended.

 

More sneak peeks at the house's bones.

 

One of the most important rooms in the house, the smokehouse also called the harvest room, was also used the least. But it was where a few times a year harvested vegetables and slaughtered livestock were preserved, prepared and stored for later use.

 

Again, since space was at a premium, many room's "closets" consisted of a ceiling-based rack from which dry (or at worst, slightly damp) clothing could hang.

 

One of the more recent additions to the house, built in the early 1800s. Hundreds of years ago, when you outgrew a house, you didn't move into a new one. You expanded your existing house often by adding a room, or tearing down walls or even building a larger home around your log cabin.

 

My sister Bette and our tour guide take one last look at the Wing House, ending with the study, which we now call an office. Only the largest colonial homes had a study, and the Wing House grew large by colonial standards. In reality, most colonial homes were log or stone houses. Only the wealthiest citizens could afford frame houses.

 

So we continued east on US Route 6 (aka Lakewood Ohio's Clifton Boulevard  :-D ) out on to Cape Cod. Since it was a Tuesday, traffic wasn't that bad. Yet it was still sluggish going east at midday. It was a breeze coming back west. So we had lunch at the Provincetown House of Pizza. Ironically, the owner knew of Lakewood -- not because Provincetown and Lakewood both have large gay populations. But because he got advice for a new pizza oven from a pizza parlor in Lakewood! I must say, I was expecting Provincetown to be a more historic setting, like Newport. So I was a bit disappointed.

 

This was pretty much the extent of the historic district in Provincetown.

 

And just east of Provincetown is this spot which is important to me. This is the east end of my street (Clifton Boulevard), where US Route 6 ends by turning back on itself and going back west again.

 

These are the views from the end of my street. :-D

 

 

Heading back westerly, we come into Plymouth, MA. This is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in North America. Interestingly, in 2008 my sister, mother and I visited Plymouth, England and saw the departure point of the Pilgrims where there a replica of the Mayflower tall ship and a plaque. There isn't much more on the American end of their 1620 journey. BTW, although the Pilgrims sought religious freedom, their ultra-strict brand of puritanism didn't exactly encourage freedom of religion on its own.

 

Today, Plymouth's economy centers around commercial fishing, recreational fishing and heritage tourism. This is the fishing part of their economy.

 

 

And this is the heritage tourism part of their economy.

 

So what is this grand edifice for?

 

To protect this tiny rock with "1620" marked on it. Yep, this is Plymouth Rock. If you were expecting the Rock of Gibraltar, then you'd be as disappointed as I was.

 

After driving out of Plymouth and into heavy thunderstorms, we emerge into the rush-hour traffic of suburban Boston. We park my sister's car in a garage next to Back Bay Station, walk to our hotel and don't see the car again for two days. :-D

Cool family history.

These threads are great!  Thanks for doing this.  I was born in, and love New England. 

Strange that you didn't have more of Provincetown.  I guess you missed all of Commercial Street in Provincetown?  That's where the action is, and lots of great historic structures along it and the side streets off of. It.

These threads are great!  Thanks for doing this.  I was born in, and love New England. 

Strange that you didn't have more of Provincetown.  I guess you missed all of Commercial Street in Provincetown?  That's where the action is, and lots of great historic structures along it and the side streets off of. It.

 

Thanks! We were stuck in the car and had limited time, and there were sections where traffic was backed up. So we couldn't get into some areas. Since we were hungry and needed a restroom break, we followed the paths of least resistance and ended up at the pizza joint shown above. But I loved the huge dunes and wetlands at the end of my street! That was very pretty and made the trip worthwhile.

 

I think the rock is impressive. I didn't know that it had the date inscribed. That's got to be among the oldest inscriptions in North America in English. Neat find!