Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/43

 THE HOME OF THE G1LMANS.

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��way modernized. It stands out alone in the landscape, with an air of venerable dignity, its huge chimneys rising above the tall trees, and its windows looking down upon the street and over the water, where many a time they must have seen pageants and sights worth looking upon. In its one hundred and fifty years of life, it must have seen much that was interesting in the history of Exeter.

We walked up the broad pathway to its portal in the gloom of the fol- lowing morning. The storm was over, but the sky was still lowering, and the mists were rolling up thick and heavy from the Squamscot. The old house looked stern and uninviting, and I ex- perienced a sensation of awe as I stood under its lofty front, a feeling akin to that I had felt when in the evening shadows I walked up to the portico of Monticello, or when in the dull Novem- ber morning I first saw the roof of Mount Vernon. It may be that the august memories that invested it might have affected me ; the solemn mood of the weather may have depressed me ; or the old house indeed might have been in one of its inhospitable moods. Of course houses have their moods as well as people.

The Oilman mansion was built some- where near the year 1 740, and is there- fore of an age contemporary with the Mount Vernon mansion, the Walker house at Concord, and the Sparhawk mansion at Kittery. It is only a few years older than the Gov. Wentworth house at Little Harbor, and but a year or two younger than the Meshech Weare house at Hampton Falls. It is a good specimen of the domestic style which prevailed in the colonies before the Revolution. Built of brick covered with wood, three stoiies in height, with dormer windows in its upper story, gambrel-roofed, and its walls a yellow dun color, its air of antiquity is unmis- takable, and at the same time it pleases the eye with its varied charms. It stands well in from the street, with a yard and shrubbery in front. " You have a goodly house here, and a sightly,"

��said Judge Livermore to his friend Oilman, while stopping with him once during the Revolution ; and Judge Liv- ermore said rightlv.

The interior of the house is as worthy of inspection as the outside promises. There are sixteen rooms in all, exclusive of closets, and so forth. The principal apartments in the mansion are the hall, the parlor, and the room on the south- west corner used by the Oilmans for an office. The house is built all of hard wood, and the polished oaken floor of the hall shines like a mirror. It is a broad, generous room, with more than one reminder of past greatness in its wainscoted walls, its staircase railed in with the curiously wrought balusiers which the taste of the times required.

The parlor is a large room, some longer than it is wide. It is not very lofty, being rather low posted as are all the rooms 011 the first floor, those in the second story being higher. There are three windows looking out to the south. These windows have deep embrasures and seats, and folding shutters. The "Squire's Room," as it is called, is some eighteen by twenty feet, well-lighted, cheerful and cosy. His presence seems to haunt it, and it looks to-day very much as it must have looked the last time he set his foot in it, irrespective of furniture. To name the great and famous men who have sat within those walls, would exhaust no little time. The wisest, and bravest, and best of the sons of New Hampshire have gathered there at times, in private confab, in social converse, and to discuss affairs of state. Jean Paul Richter has declared — ■• no thought is lost." If this be true, how affluent of mirth, wit and elo- quence that historic room must be.

The chambers are of good size and noble prospect. The best chamber is finished entirely with wainscot work, ceiling and all, and there was never any plastering in the room. From its win- dows one gets fine and extensive views of the surrounding country.

As we came out of the house, the sun broke out in its glory from the cloud of mist. What a sudden transforma-

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