How a smallpox inoculator kept his mansion during the Revolution

The Isaac Winslow House is a mansion in Marshfield, Massachusetts, built around 1700. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Judge Isaac Winslow built the house circa 1699 on land granted to Governor Edward Winslow in the 1630s. The house is virtually untouched by modernization and serves as an example of how Loyalists lived in the years prior to the American Revolutionary War. It was occupied by a family of governors, generals, doctors, lawyers, and judges who helped to create the South Shore.

Among its occupants were General John Winslow, a leader of the Massachusetts militia known for the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia. His son, Isaac Winslow, was a Loyalist doctor who lived in the house and inoculated residents against smallpox. Largely because of Isaac Winslow's actions during the smallpox outbreak, the house was not confiscated after the Revolution. Another notable occupant was the manservant Briton Hammon, who after being captured by Indians off the coast of Florida and later escaping, wrote his life story and became among the first African-Americans to have published his work in the New World.

The house remained in the Winslow family until 1822, when it was owned by Daniel Webster. Today, the grounds include a carriage shed housing Webster's one-horse phaeton, a Concord stagecoach once used to transport passengers from Marshfield to Hingham, and a brougham formerly owned by a railroad magnate. The property also features a working blacksmith shop and a Tea Room built in 1920 to serve turkey dinners to raise money for the house restoration.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons