El Borak's Myopia

El Borak's Myopia

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The Old Indian House Door

The door on the right hangs in a museum in Deerfield, Massachusetts. It's not a very pretty door, and it's really not an important door, though it does have a name. This particular door also seems to be one of those bizarre objects that historical researchers cannot seem to avoid, providing as it does endless historical rabbit trails to run down. But rather than throw away research I accidentally did while working on Good Hater, I figured Friday afternoon might be a fine time to tell the story of The Old Indian House Door.

On the morning of Feb 29, 1704, French troops and Indians* attacked the Massachusetts colony outpost of Deerfield. In addition to killing 56 people, the victorious French and Indians captured a hundred or so colonists and forced them to march all the way to Quebec. They didn't get everybody in Deerfield, though, as they could not manage to break through the above-mentioned door, which guarded the entrance to Mr. John Sheldon's house. They did leave some pretty nasty hatchet marks in it, though, as you can see. And they shot Mrs. John Sheldon dead through its hole.

The remaining John Sheldon eventually managed to get most of the people of Deerfield back. The town was rebuilt and a lot of people from it came to visit Sheldon's house, which they renamed "The Old Indian House" to perpetuate his memory, and to look at its wonderful door. And they kept coming, sort of like the people in Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham** who learned that they could get a seat by the fire and a drink by asking to view Tailbiter.

Well, long after Sheldon's death the house passed into the hands of a man named Henry Hoyt***, who quickly tired of strangers knocking on his door and asking to look through his effects. So he offered to sell the Old Indian House, door and all, to the people of Deerfield so anyone could come look at the door any time they wished, as long as it was during proper business hours and not just whenever their coach passed by Hoyt's house. The people of Deerfield showed very little interest in that idea. So Hoyt considered and then implemented a second: he tore the Old Indian House down. But he kept the door. Apparently he liked to look at it, too.

I mentioned before David Starr Hoyt, the Free State gun runner killed in Kansas during its Territorial period. Well, some time in the late 1840's, David Starr had inherited the door. But rather than looking at it peacefully like everyone else, he ran off and got killed, leaving the door (and precious little else) to his young, blind, and now orphaned daughter. After family friends tried unsuccessfully to get someone in Deerfield to buy the door so the poor girl would have something to eat, they finally sold it for $100 to a Boston physician by the name of Slade. Dr. Slade put it in his study and looked at it for four years. On and off, of course.

The people of Deerfield missed the old door now that they had to travel all the way to Boston to look at it. So they established a Blue Ribbon commission to approach Dr. Slade about selling the door back. Of course, he did so - he was That Kind of Chap - and the people of Deerfield held a grand celebration on the anniversary of the French and Indian attack at which Dr. Slade was the guest of honor. Everyone listened to his stories and laughed at his jokes, and he went back to Boston with his original $100 to look at rather than an old door with a hole in it.

The people of Deerfield then established a trust, complete with actual trustees in whom they entrusted the task of making sure everyone could look at the door and no one would have to be annoyed by them. At first, the trustees displayed the door at the entrance of the town's main hotel, but it burned down. Then they placed it at the entrance of the corner store, but that went out of business. Finally, they placed it in a barn, dissolved the trust, and entrusted further management of the door to the newly-established Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association.

And the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association eventually put pictures of the door online, so now everybody in the world can look at it, no one has to be annoyed by them, and nothing will ever burn down or go out of business again.

The end.

* Even though the colonists found themselves fighting the French and the Indians, this is not the French and Indian War, which is known in Europe as the Seven Years' War. The Deerfield Raid took place during Queen Anne's War, which is known in Europe as The War of Spanish Succession. The French and Indian War proper would be waged by French and Indians against the grandchildren of these Colonists, who blew the chance to name their war something much cooler than Queen Anne's War.

** You really should read it.

*** No relation. I gave up genealogy when I discovered that certain areas of my family tree did not branch as much as 4 out of 5 geneticists recommend.

Labels: history

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