Certainly it was with no idea of successfully farming the land he had acquired, for half of it was stony and half covered by pine forest.

But the house he constructed was the wonder of the country-side in its day.

It was a big, two-story building, the lower half being "jest cobblestones," as the neighbors sneeringly remarked, while the upper half was "decent pine lumber." The lower floor of this main building consisted of a single room with a great cobble-stone fireplace in the center of the rear wall and narrow, prison-like windows at the front and sides.

There was a small porch in front, with a great entrance door of carved dark wood of a foreign look, which the Captain had brought from some port in Massachusetts.

A stair in one corner of the big living room led to the second story, where four large bed-chambers were arranged.