1704: A Pre-Revolutionay Home In-Town

Open House May 15, 2026 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM  |  Open House May 16, 2026 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM

The story of 179 South Street begins not in Northampton, but in Devonshire, England, where Roger Clapp was born in 1609. A devout Puritan, he sailed for the New World aboard the Mary and John in 1630 and helped found Dorchester. He rose to become one of the colony’s most respected military leaders, appointed in 1665 as Captain of the Castle — commander of Castle Island in Boston Harbor, the principal defense of the young colony. As was customary for officers of his standing, he was granted extensive lands in the newly settled western reaches of Massachusetts.

Those lands had only recently passed into English hands. On September 24, 1653, the trader John Pynchon and others negotiated a deed with several Nonotuck sachems for a vast tract along the Connecticut River, paying one hundred fathoms of wampum, ten coats, and additional gifts. From that agreement, the settlement of Northampton slowly took root along the river’s fertile meadows.

Captain Clapp eventually gave his son Preserved his western lands — reportedly more than 1,000 acres. Preserved came of age in Dorchester among siblings whose names spoke to the household’s Puritan faith: Experience, Wait, Desire, Thanks, Hopestill, Unite, and Supply. Around the age of twenty, he traveled west to inspect the land and never permanently returned to Boston. He married Sarah Newberry in 1668, and together they raised eight children in Northampton, where even daughters received formal lessons — a rarity for the time.

Life on the colonial frontier was perilous. In October 1673 — in the uneasy months before King Philip’s War reached its full fury in the Connecticut Valley — Preserved’s home and barn were burned in a Native raid. Surviving on the goodwill of neighbors, he rebuilt closer to the center of town.

The home he constructed in 1704 still stands today as 179 South Street — one of the oldest surviving houses in Northampton and a rare example of First Period New England architecture. Steeply pitched gables, an overhanging second story, a massive central chimney, and a fieldstone foundation remain hallmarks of the era. Inside, grooves in the window frames once held protective boards during attacks, and a small concealed hiding space upstairs offered refuge in times of danger.

In the mid-1700s, the property passed to the Clark family, and through the marriage of a Clark daughter, to the Ferrys — who remained at 179 South Street for at least six generations, until 1975, when it left the family for the first time in over two centuries.

To own this home is not simply to purchase real estate. It is to become the next steward of a living piece of American history — ready for the chapter you will write.