-88-
"Enos
Candee appears to have bought the
place of the executors of the estate of John Twitchel, March
26, 1804.
The description is 'five acres more or less, with house, barn
and store
theron standing". In 1801 the Records show that John Twichel
owned the
place. It was shortly after this time that tradition states
that
Morning Star Lodge, Free accepted Masons was organized in this
house.
Certain it is that there was a close connection for many years
between
the place and the Masons. However, the Records show that the
Masonic
Hall was built shortly after this time, and the house could
not have
been used as a meeting place for very long..."
"On looking over the Records of the
Congregational
Society, I find that the meeting of October 6, 1741 called to
decide on
the place to build a meeting house, was held at the house of
John
Twichel. This carries our history back 163 years."
"Surely then, considering all of these
things, we
have done a good work in restoring this house for the use of
the church
with which it is connected by the ownership of several of its
members,
and the residence of two former Rectors, the Rev. Aaron
Humphrey, and
the Rev. John Anketell..."
The
photograph shown on page 86 was given to
the present owners of the house by Percy Hamilton Goodsell,
Jr., who
wrote the present owners of his recollections of the history
of the
house in November, 1966.
"Enclosed is the promised photograph
of the
Candee sisters and their mother, my great-great grandmother.
She was
Elizabeth Perkins, born in Watertown on January 7, 1799, and
died
October 10, 1885. She married Enos Candee, who was born in
Oxford, July
22, 1792 and died there, February 10, 1786*. Unfortunately,
I cannot
identify all the sisters, but I do know that the second from
the right
in the rear row is my great-grandmother, Eunice, born
September 19,
1821. She married on January 1, 1840, John Austin Peck and
died in
Naugatuck on January 28, 1903. The third from the right in
the rear was
the eldest daughter Elizabeth, who was born November 14,
1819. The one
at the right in the front row is Hannah Augusta, who was
born November
17, 1828, and married on November 18, 1858 to Frank Hall.
She is the
only one I ever saw, and that was when I was only three or
four. The
story is that Elizabeth refused to wear a black dress, like
all the
others, but insisted on wearing gray. There are several old
copies of
this picture in the family, and in all of them some unknown
hand has
blacked in Elizabeth's dress."
"I was much interested in Mr. Peck's
record, especially since it controverts what I have
understood about
the history of your house. I had been led to believe that it
was built
by Caleb Candee, the grandfather of Enos, who was born in
West Haven in
1722 and moved to Oxford where he died October 4, 1777. He
is buried
with his wife, Lois Mallory, in the Jack's Hill Cemetery.
One of their
sons was Job, born in Oxford, April 20, 1760, where he died
December 2,
1845. He and his wife, Sarah Benham, are buried in the
Church Hill
Cemetery. He was wounded in the hand at the burning of
Fairfield during
the Revolution."
*Enos died 10 Feb 1865.
