his kin. As "Mrs. Tidd's house"
it was long known in Medford. The place was subsequently owned by George
L. Barr, and by George C. Nichols, from whose hands it passed to that
of Mr. Geer, the present owner. To be sure, it has sadly fallen from its
high estate, but it still remains one of the most interesting and
romantic houses in all New England, and when, as happens once or twice a
year, the charming ladies of the local patriotic society powder their
hair, don their great-grandmother's wedding gowns and entertain in the
fine old rooms, it requires only a slight gift of fancy to see Sir
William Pepperell's lovely bride one among the gay throng of fair
women.

MOLLY STARK'S GENTLEMAN-SON

Of the quaint ancestral homes still standing in the old Granite State,
none is more picturesque or more interesting from the historical
view-point than the Stark house in the little town of Dunbarton, a place
about five miles' drive out from Concord, over one of those charming
country roads, which properly make New Hampshire the summer and autumn
Mecca of those who have been "long in populous city pent." Rather oddly,
this house has, for all its great wealth of historical interest, been
little known to the general public. The Starks are a conservative, as
well as an old family, and they have never seen fit to make of their
home a public show-house. Yet those who are privileged to visit
Dunbarton and its chief boast, this famous house, always remember the
experience as a particularly interesting one. Seldom, indeed, can one
find in these days a house like this, which, for more than one hundred
years, has been occupied by the family for whom it was built, and
through all the changes and chances of temporal affairs has preserved
the characteristics of revolutionary times.

Originally Dunbarton was Starkstown. An ancestor of this family,
Archibald Stark, was one of the original proprietors, owning many
hundred acres, not a few of which are still in the Starks' possession.
Just when and by whom the place received the name of the old Scottish
town and royal castle on the Clyde, no historian seems able to state
with definiteness, but that the present Dunbarton represents only a
small part of the original triangular township, all are agreed. Of the
big landowner, Archibald Stark, the General John Stark of our Revolution
was a son.

Another of the original proprietors of Dunbarton was a certain Captain
Caleb Page, whose name still