Dorchester Illustration no. 2407 Catharine Clapp
This is one-half of a stereoview card showing Catharine Clapp in the parlor of the Lemuel Clap House. In the late 18th to early 19th century, the family began using Clapp, but Catharine’s father Lemuel continued to spell his name with one “p”. When Lemuel died in 1819, he left the house to his unmarried daughters Catharine and Rebecca. Rebecca died in 1855.
The illustration shows Catharine in her later years sitting in the parlor. The Society has pieces of the wallpaper seen in the illustration – the wallpaper was there during the Revolution when the house was used as a barracks for Colonial troops during the Siege of Boston. There is a story that the men who occupied the house in the run up to the fortification of Dorchester Heights tried unsuccessfully to pry the roses from the walls to adorn their uniforms.
The entry for Catharine in the family genealogy:
Catharine, b. April 17, 1782; d. unm. Feb. 21, 1872, in her 90th year. She retained her mental faculties to the last, reading her bible and other good books daily, without glasses, which through her long life she never used; was a worthy woman, of the old puritan stamp; lived and died in the house in Willow Court, occupied by her father during his life. The house, after her death, as elsewhere mentioned, passed into the hands of her nephews, Frederick and Lemuel.
The following is from Supplement p. 321 in The Clapp Memorial. Record of the Clapp Family in America. Compiled by Ebenezer Clapp. Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1876.
After the death of Catharine, the east room or parlor not being used; and no fire being kept there, the wall paper became loose and a part of it came off. This paper was known to have been on the walls one hundred and three years, and doubtless was imported from England. It was of a showy pattern, with large columns or pillars, with bright red roses intertwined about them. It has been said that when Capt. Lemuel’s military company was quartered in the house, in the early part of the Revolutionary War, the soldiers tried to get these roses off to put on their hats, but their efforts proved unavailing. During the last few years, pieces of this paper have been much sought after for relics. In the east chamber can be seen in the floor the charred marks of the legs of the iron kettles used by the soldiers, and in two other room the ceiling show marks made by their guns while exercising. In striking contrast with the chimneys of the present time, the west chimney of the old house measures about eight feet square in the cellar.
The Clapp Memorial also mentions: William Blake Trask, a Dorchester cabinet-maker and later a prominent genealogist, married Richard Clapp’s daughter Rebecca (Richard was a brother of Catharine). They built a house on Clapp Place in 1844 (now numbered 42 Mayhew Street), where they resided for 10 years. Subsequently, for seventeen years, they lived in the Lemuel Clap House with Catharine and Rebecca, aunts to Mrs. Trask. They continued there until Catharine’s death in 1872, then moved to the brick house erected by Mrs. T’s father, Richard, on Pond Street.