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TAVERN BURNT AND REBUILT

About the middle of March, 1733, the tavern house of Widow Mary Leavitt, which stood on the Portsmouth road, near where the house of the late Samuel G. Carswell now stands, took fire and was entirely destroyed. It was the Sabbath, and the fire broke out in time of public worship, when nearly all the people were at meeting, so that for want of help, most of her goods were lost. A correspondent of the Boston Weekly News Letter, writing from Hampton the next Friday, March 23, says: "The next day after the fire, the neighbors got together with eight-score oxen, as we hear, to draw her timber for a new house, which is now almost framed, and would have been raised this day, if the storm yesterday had not prevented." The house which Mrs. Leavitt's neighbors so kindly and so promptly assisted her in building, a large two-story house, was, many years afterward removed to another site, and is the one now owned and occupied by the heirs of David Towle, on the road to Drake Side. Back to previous section -- Forward to next section -- Return to Table of Contents