Stetson House

The Stetson House is a two and one-half story frame structure with a later ell, facing north, on a roughly two-acre site in Hanover Center. Although the present dwelling house dates primarily from c. 1760, it incorporates portions of an earlier (c. 1700) house. Structural evidence suggests that the barn also may date from c. 1700. The street facade of the Stetson House displays granite Ioundation tacing, wood water table, and symmetrical placement of five bays with a center entrance. Ihe sash are 12/12 on the first story and 12/8 on the second. BZTE The elaborate entrance frontispiece with fluted Doric pilasters, rusticated paneling, quoins, and dentilated cornice probably dates from c.

1790, as does teeloey motef undar te as pamo od an they teentmicee tury shestora, pninted mid-nineteenth-century ell extends from the southwest portion of the house. The earliest interior area is the southeast room where there is a fireplace core with exposed beams. The summer beam there is champtered with lambs' tongue stops. In the northwest parlor the decorative wood trim has late eighteenth-century mouldings and a "rustification" motif which is unusual but corresponds to the same detailing on the entrance frontispiece. The cupboard door beside the fire- place has raised field paneling. Above this parlor, the northwest chamber is similar. In both of these rooms the trim represents an interesting provincial interpretation of transitional Georgian-Federal woodwork.

Trim work having a more typical vernacular Federal design exists in the mortheast parlor. The northeast and southeast chambers underwent "restoration" sometime between 1916 and 1928. The owner, Dr. Lloyd Vernon Briggs, left no records to justify his choices. These two chambers have exposed traming. Ihe wall surtace in the northeast chamber is simply the interior side of the exterior wall sheathing.

The Stetson House, built c. 1700, retains integrity of location, design, materials and workmanship and is one of the earliest extant buildings in Hanover Center. It is also associated with one of Hanover's oldest families and remained in their ownership for nearly iwo hundred years. During its earlier years it played a key role in the life of the community serving as a tavern and a meetinghouse. It stands on a two-acre plot which is part of a far more extensive parcel of land originally acquired in 1634 for the Plymouth Colony by the first Stetson in the area, Robert Stetson. The area was then known as Scituate, and Stetson obtained a section encompassing parts of Scituate and present-day Hingham and Abington from the Namasakeesett Indians.

In 1634 the Plymouth Colony Court granted Stetson a "considerable tract of land" which included shore along the Nhe towm or, sand part of Herring Brook. By 1642 the area was incorporated as Stetson erected a saw mill on Herring Brook in 1656, probably the first in that part of the colony. "Cornet" Robert Stetson, so named because he was a Cornet of the first light horse corps in the Colony, was said to have considerable wealth. He served as a Deputy to the Colony Court, a Colony Cormissioner, and a member of the Council of War. One on his sons, Captain Benjamin Stetson, was very likely the builder of the house. As early as 1690, Captain Stetson was engaged in shipbuilding on the North River. He left the property, with an unspecified acerage, to his son Samuel in 1715.

Samuel, known in the records as "Drummer" Stetson, evidently continued the family tradition of nickname by CER military association.