It is a roughly square wood-frame house, with a hip roof, central chimney, and a three-bay facade with a projecting gabled vestibule.

Goddard, a teamster, was active in local civic affairs, notably serving in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress prior to the American Revolutionary War in 1775.

After the siege lifted and the British troops left Boston, Goddard refused George Washington's offer to remain in military service due to his duty to his large family.

The wheels of the carts were wound with hay, and the oxen shod with felt, and no whips were allowed to be used, the poor uninterested beasts being prodded along with sharpened sticks.

“But the renowned Lord Percy Disappointed us,” wrote John Sullivan to John Adams, for he, instead of his Prospect Glass, took a multiplying Glass & viewed our people from the Castle, & made them fifty thousand, when, in fact, we had only sent on four thousand.” The result was that, to their humiliation, the whole British force, in great disorder and confusion, abandoned the city, leaving over two hundred cannons, thousands of muskets, and great stores of powder, lead, and other military necessities, and betook themselves to their fleet.

Our business is with him who so efficiently and successfully organized and conducted the wagon train which bore the materials for the fortifications, John Goddard of Brookline.

We find in the town records that on December 15, 1767, John Goddard was chosen one of five persons to “be a Committee to prepare a form for subscription against Receiving of those European superfluities and make Report” as to those “superfluities.” On the twentieth of November in that year Parliament had laid a duty on paint, paper, glass and tea imported into the colonies, and the Americans proposed to defeat it by simply going without those articles.

As the sky grows darker with the clouds of war we find Mr. Goddard appointed (September 1, 1774) on another committee “to Ex amine into the state of Said Town as to Their Military preparations for War, in case of a Sudden attack from our Enemies”; and on the twenty-seventh made one of two delegates “to attend in the Provincial Congress, to be held at Concord, to meet the Delegates from the other Towns in the Province and unite with them in all Such Measures as shall Appear to you to have a tendency to promote the Welfare of this Province and to recover and Secure the first Rights and Liberties of America.” Again, on January 1, 1775, he is made 'one of a committee to see that the vote “To comply with the Recommendation as set forth by the Continental and Provindal Congress, be Duly Observed.” We find also that at a meeting of the committee of safety at the house of Captain Stedman, in Cambridge, November 2, 1774, it was “Voted: unanimously, that Mr. John Goddard of Brookline be wagon master for the army, and that Captain White inform him of his choice, by the province;” and again, in records dated “Head Quarters, May 15, 1775,” “This is to certify, that Mr. John Goddard has been appointed by, the joint committee of safety and supplies as Wagon Master to this colony, to convey such articles of stores from one part of this colony to another as the public exigency may require, and that such other wagoners or drivers are to be employed as he shall recommend for that purpose.” It is proof of the efficiency and success of Mr. Goddard in this important service of transportation that it was recorded in the Orderly Book of Captain Abijah Wyman's company in Colonel William Prescott's regiment, on August 9, 1775, that “Mr.

The cannons, however, remained and were carried around through Heath Street in Roxbury to Dorchester Heights, leaving the old barn which had sheltered them to stand as a witness to this day.

Mr. Goddard was urged by General Washington to conduct the transportation of his army to New York, and to remain with him to the end of the war, in which case he would have had the rank of Lieutenant- Colonel to begin with but be answered that he could not leave his wife and children, and having aided in driving the enemy from his own province, resigned and spent the rest of his life upon his farm.

The sleeved jackets and trousers were manufactured in the same family way; in making pocket handkerchiefs, the white linen was first made, though not very fine, and handed to the children, who tied shot up fancifully in it, and then dyed in the dye-pot in the corner of the fireplace; when done, washed and dried, we untied the shot, and behold the beautiful white rings made by the strings around the shot' through which the dye did not penetrate; to make the checked and striped shirts, the colored part was died in the same pot.” And “how often have I seen the anxious mother search the well, which was about eight feet deep and fed by a spring, and protected by no curb, when by reaching and stirring with a long stick bubbles would rise, which went far to convince her that the child was there and she suffered most excruciatingly, till the missing was found.” Whether she had the experience of one of our more recent Brookline mothers, who bore nine children and had eight of them down with the measles at once, in four rooms, two in a room, we are not told.

Her maternal methods were simple, if we may judge from the reply made to someone who asked what she did with so many children, that she “put leather aprons on them all and turned them all out to play.” All was not play, however, with the young Goddard's, for we are told of John, the eldest son, that before he was nine years old he had committed to memory and recited to Rev.

According to the English law of that day, he was allowed to bring only five pounds in money with him, and the rest of his property, which he had stored in London, was burned in the great fire.

It was his third son, Joseph, born in London, who came to Brookline in 1670, to a part of it then included in Roxbury, and bought a strip of land extending from what is now Clyde Street to Jamaica Pond.

There was a lane leading to Jamaica Plain and a cart road through the estate now owned by Mr. Moses Williams to what is now called Warren Street.

This was the John Goddard of whom we have been speaking, and in whom the sturdy republican strain which was in his great-great-grandfather, Edward, of Cromwell's day and which sent his great grandfather, William, to this country, came once more into action.

The eldest son of the Revolutionary John, who bore the same name, was a delicate boy, though, like many a youth of the kind, he lived long and passed through much.

The tenth of these, Abijah Warren Goddard, spent his long life of ninety-seven years upon the original farm, building the present home in 1857.

Abijah's elder brother, Samuel Aspinwall Goddard, seems to have inherited in especial force the sturdy patriotic spirit of his English ancestors and of the Revolutionary John.

Circumstances took him to England, where he became a naturalized citizen, but he was a fearless and persistent advocate of the Northern cause in a land where there was great need of defense and explanation.

John Bright made special acknowledgment of the help he had received from this loyal American, and it is clear that he did much toward preventing the British from recognizing the Southern Confederacy.

Congress Should for the Safety of the American Colonies, Declare them Independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, that we said inhabitants will Solemnly engage with our Lives and fortune to support them in the measure.” The ring of this vote makes one suspect that the sturdy John had a hand in forging it.

Who can tell what ancient vigor and fineness may come back to the descendants of the Greeks and Romans, or to those of the barbarians who poured down from the north and dispossessed these stocks of the fair domains of southern and eastern Europe?

But we trust that enough will remain of the old colonial English blood to preserve the ideals of freedom which were incarnated in men like John Goddard and not less in women like Hannah, his wife.

I do not know who his descendants are, but, like the warrior of old who drew his bow at a venture and hit a king, I throw out this thought in the hope that somewhere it may strike the right man or woman.