My Home's Story: An Historical Mystery by Lea Wait
My Home’s Story:
An Historical Mystery
In the mid-1950s my grandparents and
parents bought a Maine house built in 1774. Since then the house has served as
a full or part-time residence for almost everyone in the family. I’m lucky to
be the current (full-time) owner.
Of course, any old house comes with
stories. In the case of this house, over 240 years of memories.
The house’s history has also landed
it in many books on Maine history, and, although it has never been opened to
the public, in many Maine guidebooks.
It’s known as the Marie Antoinette
House.
Captain Stephen Clough, the house’s
owner in the 1780s and 90s, was in the “salt and spar” trade: he took the
trunks of white pine trees to Europe, where they became masts and spars for
royal navies, and brought back salt, used to preserve fish for long winters. His
business partner was James Swan, a Boston businessman he’d met when they fought
together during the American Revolution. After the Revolution Swan went to
Paris, where he bought and sold American war debts. Lafayette, Talleyrand, and
many people in the French court were his friends.
The story is that in 1794 Captain
Clough and his ship Sally were in Le
Havre, under instructions from Swan, and that Clough, along with Lafayette and
Talleyrand, plotted to help French queen Marie Antoinette escape from the
Bastille.
Did they? That’s the mystery. We
don’t know.
We do know Clough and his ship were
in Le Havre, and that many plots to save the queen failed. We know Clough set
sail from France in the middle of the night (a very unusual things to do) at
the beginning of the Reign of Terror, which ended with the deaths of many supporters
of the royal family.
Clough arrived in Boston with a ship
filled with expensive French furniture, tapestries, clothing, porcelain, and so
forth. James Swan took possession of most of the things (they’re now in the
Boston Museum of Fine Art) and Clough sailed home to Maine, where his wife gave
birth to his fifth child, a girl, whom he named Hannah Antoinette.
People said the belongings he
brought to America belonged to Marie Antoinette, and were to make her
comfortable when she reached Maine. But the queen’s residence had been looted
long before Clough got to France. People said he brought with him Marie’s Persian
cats, who mated with Maine raccoons and gave birth to the Maine coon cat.
(Highly unlikely.) People said the ghost of the unhappy queen came with Clough,
and haunts the house or its rose gardens. (I’ve never seen her.)
Did Clough try to help Marie
Antoinette? Or did he hope to enable some Royalists to escape from France?
We’ll probably never know.
I tell one version of this story in
my latest book, THREAD AND GONE, which will ship this week. In my book today’s
owner of the house finds a piece of elaborate medieval needlepoint under the
eaves of the attic and then … but to learn more, you’ll have to read THREAD AND
GONE!
Maine author Lea
Wait writes the Shadows Antique print mystery series, the most recent of which
is Shadows on a Maine Christmas, and
the Mainely Needlepoint series, the most recent of which is Thread and Gone. She also writes
historical novels for ages 8-14 set in nineteenth century Maine, and Living and Writing on the Coast of Maine,
essays about her life as an author. For
more information about Lea and her books, see her website, www.leawait.com,
and friend her on Goodreads and Facebook.
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