Research Catalog

Title

Red house : being a mostly accurate account of New England's oldest continuously lived-in house / Sarah Messer.

Author

Messer, Sarah.

Publication

New York : Viking, 2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 390 pages; 22 cm

Summary

"Built in 1647, the Red House in Marshfield, Massachusetts, was the home of one family for eight generations. The will of Walter Hatch, the original owner and builder, hung on the living room wall and warned that Red House was to be passed down "forever from generation to generation to the world's end never to be sold or mortgaged from my children and grandchildren forever." In 1965, Richard Warren Hatch went against the weight of tradition and sold the house to Sarah Messer's parents. Shortly after the Messers moved in, Hatch began returning photographs, furniture, and other objects to the house, many several hundred years old, saying they belonged there." "Weaving stories of the Hatch and Messer families and drawing upon recurring themes - such as fire, drowning, and X-rays - Sarah Messer explores the odd experience of growing up with another family's birthright. We meet eighteenth-century lovers, preachers, and shipbuilders; nineteenth-century poets and soldiers; and twentieth-century flower farmers and Girl Scout camp proprietors. We witness a 1970s reenactment of Pilgrim life, and a 1990s renovation project that brings the Messer family together only to take apart layer upon layer of myth and fact surrounding the Red House." "This memoir asks thought-provoking questions about home, identity, and history and is a testament to how America fuses identity with place. What transforms a house into a family home? How do houses shape their inhabitants? What role does a Great House play in achieving the American Dream? Red House combines family lore with the pulse of real history."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Marshfield (Mass. : Town) > Biography
• Hatch family
• Red House (Marshfield, Mass.)
• Marshfield (Mass. : Town) > Buildings, structures, etc

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 377-385).

ISBN

0670033154 (alk. paper)

LCCN

2003065780

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries