Goddard, John, House

About this property

The John Goddard House is a historic house at 235 Goddard Avenue in Brookline, Massachusetts, US. The two-story wood-frame house was originally built by Joseph Goddard in 1670 and re-built by his grandson John Goddard in 1767, a farmer. It is one of the few 18th-century houses in Brookline, important for the role it and its owner played in the American Revolutionary War during the Siege of Boston in 1776. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The Goddard House is set on the north side of Goddard Avenue, opposite the northern border of Larz Anderson Park in southeastern Brookline. It is a roughly square wood-frame house, with a hip roof, central chimney, and a three-bay facade with a projecting gabled vestibule. The interior retains period fixtures, including wall paneling, doors, and hardware. The house was built in 1767 by John Goddard on land originally purchased by his grandfather Joseph. Goddard, a teamster, was active in local civic affairs, notably serving in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress prior to the American Revolutionary War in 1775. Goddard's property was one of several places in Massachusetts used by rebellious colonists for the storage of munitions (probably in the barn, since demolished). During the Siege of Boston, Goddard acted as wagon-master general to the Continental Army during the Fortification of Dorchester Heights, a night-time act that required the wagons to be rendered as quiet as possible to avoid notice. 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. Sermon preached in the First Parish Meeting House, Brookline, Mass. USA; by William H. Lyon D.D. in dedication of the Stained-Glass Window in memory of John and Hannah Goddard. The evacuation of Boston on the seventeenth of March 1776, was the greatest victory which the Continental troops had gained up to that date. Nearly a year had passed since the days of Lexington and Concord, and just nine months since Bunker Hill. The attempt to conquer Canada had failed disastrously, and the eyes of the combatants on both sides of the ocean were directed to the struggle in and around Boston. There had seemed little prospect of American success when the siege began, and as time passed and no change in the condition had been affected, the prospect did not grow brighter. When the spring began to open, however, Washington began to stir, and the result was a feat of engineering which both astonished and dismayed the too confident enemy. On Monday night, March 4, a heavy cannonade was opened upon Boston from Roxbury, which was as hotly returned by the enemy, who had no suspicion of what it covered About seven o'clock two thousand men marched to Dorchester Heights. Eight hundred formed an advance guard, followed by carts with intrenching tools, then came twelve hundred more troops, and last of all a train of three hundred wagons, carrying fascines and hay. Every possible precaution had been taken to prevent discovery. 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. So, though there was a bright moonlight, the British were completely taken by surprise when they beheld, the next morning, the fortifications which made Boston untenable. “Good God!” exclaimed General Howe, “these fellows have done more work in one night than I could have made my army do in three months. What shall I do?” At first he undertook to bombard the intrenchments, but his gunners could not fire so high, though they sunk the hind wheels of their cannon in the ground. Washington hoped they would attack him, in which case troops that were waiting on the other side of Boston would have assailed the city. “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. So ended the siege of Boston.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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