Dorchester Illustration no. 2441 361 Neponset Avenue
An Unusual Case of a Divided House: Apollos Clapp
In researching the history of houses, one sometimes finds the division of a house to settle an estate. One heir is given one side of the house, and another heir the other side. This situation occurs along with the division of land, where the line of separation of the land goes through the house separating it into two portions. Then two families occupy the house, keeping to their own sides.
Although division as a result of inheritance was not rare, the division of houses as a result of property seizure for payment of debts seems less common.
Apollos Clap was born in Norton, Massachusetts, on February 27, 1787, a descendant of Thomas Clapp who emigrated from England to Dorchester in the mid 1630s.
Apollos Clap acquired his home lot very soon after landowner George Minott decided to have part of his ancestral lands surveyed for sub-division. Surveyor Mather Withington delivered a sub-division plan, dated Jan. 1, 1809, to George Minott, and on Feb. 22, 1809, Minott sold to Apollos Clap the lot that became Clap’s own home. It is probable that Apollos built his own house in 1809 or very soon thereafter. On January 13, 1818, Apollos married Hannah Howe, whose family lived at Neponset. Certainly the house would have been constructed and ready to move into by the time of their marriage. In February he purchased pew 56 in the South Meetinghouse from John Codman, the minister of the church. The distance from Clap’s home to Second Meetinghouse was about the same distance as from his home to the First Church. His choice of Second Church may indicate that he was of conservative Congregationalist views.
Apollos was called a carpenter in the family genealogy, a housewright in certain legal documents and a gentleman in others In the second and third decades of the 19th century, he acquired various parcels of land in the Neponset area, including house lots, orchards and marsh. The hay from the marsh and the fruit from the orchards would have produced income to add to his earnings from his work as a carpenter. He bought and sold land; he lent money secured by mortgages. He seems to have had a partnership with Samuel Everett of Milton in the lumber trade.
In the late 1830s Clap borrowed money and gave promissory notes on his own behalf and also through his lumber dealing partnership with Samuel Everett. When Clap did not pay the debts, his creditors sued. Clap lost various parcels of unimproved land and land with buildings in the years 1838 to1839 as the result of thirteen individual court judgments in favor of his creditors. No deed of execution has been found against Everett, so we assume Everett may have disappeared or died or that he did not have any assets to seize. The history of two of the properties include divided ownership of houses. At that time Clap owned the property that is now 361 Neponset Avenue, where he and his family lived. Located on the north side of Chickatawbut Street at the corner of Neponset Avenue, his Federal-style house is still extant. He also owned property on the south side corner of Chickatawbut Street, including a cottage that is no longer standing. The cottage must have been demolished between 1910 and 1918, because it appeared in the Bromley atlas for 1910 but not 1918.
Apollos Clap died in October of 1840, the year after the loss of his property. By the time of his death, he had re-purchased much of the property he had lost. The exception was the house where his family lived for more than twenty years.
Each claimant brought suit in the Court of Common Pleas. The suits were carried over from term to term, and most were decided in December, 1838. When Clap did not appear, the court found him in default and issued a judgment instructing the sheriff of the county to seize property of the defendant to satisfy the amount of the debt plus the costs of the suit plus the sheriff’s own costs. The sheriff was commanded to detain the defendant in the county jail until the creditors were satisfied. The sheriff appointed a committee to assess the property of the defendant for the purpose of making an allocation of property to the claimant. The committee made its recommendations for setting off portions of property to each of the claimants, who acknowledged satisfaction, and a deed of execution was recorded. We must assume that Apollos Clap was held in jail from December, 1838, to April, 1839, when the executions were recorded.
The home property, now 361 Neponset Avenue, was set off in April, 1839, to James Lyford, Reuben Swan, William Gordon, Jacob Foster, Edmund J. Baker, Benjamin Franklin Glover and Amasa Hunt. The division of land and the house followed a north-south line through the middle of the house and an east-west line dividing the east side of the house into two.
Reuben Swan, yeoman, received land including the western portion of the house and an ell extending westward. He received the use of the kitchen and the washroom or back kitchen, the cellar rooms underneath and the rooms above and the attic or garret as well as a shed or woodhouse.
William Gordon, cabinet maker, received no land, but the use of the southwest corner room was set off to him with the right to go in and out of the entry on the south side of the house.
Jacob Foster, housewright, received the southeast corner of the house and the southeast corner of the land including the entry way on the south side of the house and the use of the southeast corner room on the first floor together with a large closet opening into said room on the north of the same and right to pass and repass from the same room through the kitchen of said house this day set off to Rebuen Swan, down the cellar stairs to said Jacob’s portion of the cellar in such direction as shall do the least possible injury to said kitchen.
Benjamin Franklin Glover, yeoman received the northeast corner of the land, the northeast corner room in the house and the entry leading toward Neponset Turnpike subject to a right of passage in and out from the dwelling house to said turnpike road of all persons their heirs and assigns to whom we have appraised and set off portions of the same dwelling house this day. He also received the use of a room in the basement directly under the northeast corner of the house with “a right to pass out around said house to the pump back of it over land this day set off to one Reuben Swan.”[1]
Edmund J. Baker, Esquire, received a small portion of land directly in front of the room set off for the use of Gordon, plus Baker received the use of the two second-floor rooms on the south side of the house and the right to pass up and down the stairs and the entry on the east side of the house. He also received the use of the cellar room immediately under the southwest corner of said house set off to Gordon with the right of passage through the kitchen to reach the cellar room.
Amasa Hunt, yeoman, received the use of the northeast corner room on the second floor with a right in said Hunt to pass and repass from said chamber, in and out, down the front stairs, through the front entry of said house and through the front yard to the turnpike.
In the months between the setting off and the re-sale of the property, we do not know if any of the men needed to pay expenses on the properties such as real estate taxes or maintenance. Also we do not know if they may have rented out their portions of the house or received income in any other way from the property. Charles H. Minot and John O. B. Minot bought out all six interests in the property during the period 1841-1843, and when Charles sold his share to John, the property came back to single ownership.
[1] Norfolk County Registry of Deeds. Book 123, Folio 71.
