History of the Winslow Marston House
In Hyannis Port, Barnstable, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Map of Hyannis Port originally published in 1880. The Marston House has been hilighted. Click to enlarge.

Historical Significance:

Unlikely History 1786 - 1826 Based on Town of Barnstable Historical Commission, Survey of Historic Homes*.

This house has been owned by 10 members of four or five families in the past 218 years: timeline:

1786 ___1826/7 ___1887________1946___1959______2005

| Marstons*..Marstons..| Smiths.........| Wende| Shermans............

| 40 yrs....61 years....| 59 years......| 13yrs..| 46 years................

This is unsupported by Census, Family or Probate records. However, Stephen Davis's argument that Joseph Bassett, son  of Daniel Bassett, was the builder and first resident is partially supported by Census, early maps and family history. Both the Historic Commission and Davis agree that the house was built in 1786. The biographical facts of the Marstons given below are accurate, whether or not Winslow and Nymphas Marston built and/or lived in the house.

-Snowden, Laurie P., recorder. Barnstable Historical Commission, "Form B - Building, area B, Form no. 38, Winston Marston House". Boston: Massachusetts Historical Commission, June, 1981.

Deacon Winslow Marston, owner: 1786 - 1817

Winslow Marston was born June 1, 1764 in Marston Mills, the son of local business leader and mill owner Prince Marston and Sarah Winslow Marston. Sarah was a great granddaughter of Edward Winslow, one of the passengers on the Mayflower, . She was a descendant of King Henry III of England through her paternal grandmother, Penelope Pelham, the wife of JosiahWinslow.

The brothers Prince and Nymphas were sons of Benjamin Marston, born about 1694 in Salem. Soon after December 8, 1716, Benjamin and his wife Lydia Goodspeed Marston moved from Taunton to Barnstable where he built and operated a grist-mill. In 1738 he acquired the first mill in America for carding wool and fulling cloth, which had been established in 1689 by Thomas Macy. The pioneer mills and woolen factory were the nucleus for the village of Marstons Mills. Prince succeeded his father in the management of the mills.

Winslow Marston built the Winslow Marston House on Marston Avenue, Hyannis Port in 1786 after having obtained the land from his paternal uncle*, the respected County Judge, Hon. Nymphas Marston Esq. At age 12, Winslow's father died and he was adopted by his uncle Nymphas whose own children died in childhood. (See biography: Nymphas Marston)

Winslow married Elizabeth Blish, on July 22, 1786, and moved to their new home in Hyannis Port where they raised five children. He was bequeathed Uncle Nymphas' extensive properties and later settled on Nymphas' estate, adjacent to that of his father Prince in Marstons Mills.

Winslow was a yeoman and not politically active. He was a man of conspicuous virtues, a deacon of the West Parish Meeting House, and quite wealthy. Elizabeth Blish Marston died August 5,1837 at the age of 72 and is buried in the Marston Mills Cemetery. He died 14 years later on January 6, 1852 at age 87 and is also buried at Marstons mills Cemetery.

Lithograph of Winslow's Uncle, Nymphas Marston and his signature. (engraving copied from original painting by John Singelton Coply) This original lithograph and Marston Family Papers. Ca. 1819-1865 9 including deeds (ca. 1819-1858) of Allen, Benjamin, Clement, and Winslow (yeoman); Charles, as assignee in a bankruptcy case; and William (trader), all of Barnstable, to real estate in Barnstable. Also a certificate of marriage in 1865 of Prentiss (farmer) to Sophronia Backus, both of Barnstable are also in the Nickerson Room manuscript collection at Cape Cod Community College.

Some writings of Nymphas Marston (which I have not yet researched) are among the Joseph Emerson Smith Papers, 1803-1874, at the Harvard
Law School Depository, Modern Manuscript Collection, Special Collections.

Hon. Nymphas Marston, owner 1817 - 1826?

Winslow's first child, Nymphas Marston, was born February 1, 1788, ten days before the death of his namesake uncle. Nymphas graduated with a bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1807. During the War of 1812: Nymphas along with his brother Prentice and first cousin Clement (Father of Capt. Zenus Marston), were privates in the Massachusetts Militia in Capt. Calvin Crocker's Company from January 28 to October 5, 1814. The company was raised in Falmouth on January 28, 1814, at the time the British brig "Nimrod" bombarded the town.

Nymphas was married about 1817 to Eliza Weld Blish, born January 25th, 1800, daughter of Major Joseph Blish Jr., by her grandfather, the Reverend Oakes Shaw, pastor of the West Parish of Barnstable. Her uncles were: William Smith Shaw, private secretary of President John Adams and Hon. Lemuel Shaw, The illustrious chief justice of the supreme judicial court of Massachusetts for 31 years. Her cousin Elizabeth Knapp Shaw, daughter of Uncle Lemuel, was married in 1847 to author Herman Melville.

Nymphas gained possession of the family home at Hyannis Port. Whether they lived there is unknown. They had one surviving child, Prentiss, born December 15, 1817, who always lived in Barnstable and succeeded to his fathers estate. Their second child, Oakes Shaw Marston, was born in May,1820.

Elizabeth died soon after the birth of Oakes Shaw, on June 15, 1820 at age 2I. Oakes Shaw died March 13, 1821 at age 10 mo. It seems Nymphas never remarried as he was listed in the 1850 Barnstable census as living with his father Winslow and son Prentice in Marstons Mills.

Nymphas became an influential attorney at law of great reputation, an eminent counselor and highly respected as a citizen. He served as the County representative to the Massachusetts General Court from 1821-1823 and was a member of the State Senate in 1826 and 1827.

He served as Justice of the Peace in Barnstable County from 1827-1828, The records of Justice Nymphas Marston, 1 vol. 49pgs. Typescript is in the Nickerson Room manuscript collection at Cape Cod Community College.

He was appointed by Governor Lincoln as Judge of the Barnstable County Probate in February 1828 where he served 26 years with distinction until December 1854. At some time he moved to and retired on his fathers estate in Marstons Mills.

He died May 2, 1864 in Barnstable, MA. The epitaph on his grave marker in Marstons Mills reads: "As a man he was modest, sincere, and upright; as a friend he was faithful, constant, and true; as a judge he was able, impartial, and sympathetic, the protector of the widow and orphan. A learned lawyer, a wise and discrete counselor, a persuasive and winning advocate, richly furnished for all the contests of the bar. He sought no professional triumphs at the expense of trust or the sacrifice of justice, won his highest distinction in settling differences and in composing strifes." He is quoted as saying: "I was a father to the poor and the cause which I knew not I searched out."

He was a man of "infinite jest". There is an often told story of Nymphas Marston that; while defending a man charged with the theft of a pig, Marston told the jury this had been a case of mistaken identity, his client had a spotless reputation, and he was a hard worker and honest in his dealings with others. Marston's plea was so eloquent and persuasive, that the jury deliberated only a few minutes before finding his client not guilty. Once the verdict was announced, the defendant turned to Marston and asked, "So what do I do with the pig?" Marston replied. "Eat it... The jury has found that you did not steal it."

In another case argued before a jury at Barnstable, a man was tried by the district attorney, Nymphas Marston for a violent assault. In argument, his defense counsel, who was from an inland county, alluded to the fact that the injured person had not called a doctor to treat wounds which he had described as serious, and based the defense very largely upon this. He saw no possible answer to his argument. But he did not know his ground.

Judge Marston, afterward attorney-general of the State, born and bred of a family of Barnstable lawyers, had this ready answer. "Gentlemen," he said, "you have heard the plausible argument of my ingenious young legal friend, who has come from a distant city to enlighten your benighted understandings, and you see through his sophistry. You all know the father of the victim of this assault is a ship Captain; you know what our young friend, with all his learning, has plainly never discovered; that a man is not master of a ship for thirty years without learning how to deal with wounds, and you know well that there is no doctor on Cape Cod who can heal cuts and bruises better than the Captain can. Why should he have sent for a doctor?"