York Town News
This old house is more than meets the eye
By Jennifer L. Saunders
R. L. Chase, a family-owned building moving company out of Wells, has been working with local residents Bob and Doreen Cutts in their efforts to save the 18th-century Matthews house on Route 1. The house has been moved back on the property and is in the process of being set on a foundation as a new chapter in its history begins. Inside, elements from the past remain in the quaint, two-room house with a loft above for sleeping.
Photos by Jennifer L. Saunders
"Bob Cutts is a great person to have this house," said Old York Historical Society Director Scott Stevens. "Old York is very pleased."
That's because the little gray-blue cape, which up until about 10 days ago was located just on the edge of Route 1 in the area between the York Fish and Game and Whippoorwill, has a special history all its own.
In fact, when the 18th-century house and its three acres of land went up for sale several years ago, Old York even explored the possibility of purchasing and moving the house to save it.
However, as Old York Research Librarian Virginia "Ginny" Spiller pointed out, such a move would be problematic in terms of the town's ordinances. When she learned the house was going to be sold, Spiller said she was afraid it would disappear from York's landscape.
"I tried to find people who would buy it, but nobody wanted the land," she said, explaining that to move the house would mean the loss of a permit to build on the Route 1 parcel. "I cannot believe what has happened with the ordinances. It really upsets me. … If you move this historical house, you lose your building permit."
Bob Cutts agreed. Thus his plan is to move the house back on the existing site, restore it and, as he seeks the town's approval for a mixed-use, historically based development, to use the house as a residence. Ultimately, with town approval, the pair hopes to transform the property into a resident-and-visitor destination such as a quaint café or ice cream shop with the look of a 19th-century New England farm.
The house was lifted off its 241-year-old cellar hole on Monday, June 26, and began its journey back on the property and forward into the future. Bob Cutts said he is very excited about some of the finds in the house - rare bits of antique elements that have survived the centuries, despite modernization that occurred as early as the mid-1800s.
Old York Curator Tom Johnson has agreed to assist Bob and Doreen Cutts with their plans to restore the house to its condition of the mid-1800s while preserving as many original features as possible.
"There are a lot of things in this house that are not early, but it is an early house," Spiller explained - noting the land itself was purchased land from the Sewalls in the 1700s and a mill site once stood at the back of the property.
Spiller said seeing a house like this saved is very good news to Old York, as such examples of life for working families in York's early days are few and far between.
"I was just so pleased to find that house was not going to be demolished," she said, adding that until Bob and Doreen Cutts came forward, "All efforts to save the property were in vain."
This particular little house also has a special link to the Spillers and to others in town, she said, explaining that she unearthed connections to the house when contributing an entry to an historical text of Maine families from the 1790 census.
The census, she explained, merely includes the head of each household with numbers of children between certain ages, their gender and the town they live in.
"We are putting names to the numbers," she said, adding, "It is so exciting. …We end up documenting the head of household, his parents, his wife and her parents, their children … their births and death, all their marriages. We do approximately 100 years, from 1740 to 1840. It is just phenomenal because now we get cross-references in here."
It was in that process, and working with her husband Dexter Spiller as he traced his own family tree, that she found her husband's connection to Elijah Matthews, who built the house in 1765 and lived there with his wife and five children.
"Elijah Matthews was a mariner. That's what he calls himself in a deed," Spiller said. "He was a civil servant, he was a private in the Revolutionary War. … There's so much more, because I then went through all his children."
In fact, it was one of his daughters, who lived in the Matthews house from her birth in 1767 to the end of her life 1845, who ultimately inherited the farm.
Elijah Matthews' son Walter is an ancestor of the Spillers and the house also has direct links to Martha Ballard's diary, made famous as "A Midwife's Tale," as Ballard delivered the first child of William Matthews.
"Once you get involved in genealogy, you're always reading," Spiller said of the connections.
For Bob and Doreen Cutts, having the historical information on the house has fueled their labor of love to save the house and create "Caswell Farm," to be named in honor of the property's most recent owner and his willingness to help make the project a possibility.
