This Old Norfolk House

This is Part 2 of this history. Part 1 can be found here: https://nornow.org/2022/04/12/the-wilcox-tavern-house/

By Michael Selleck

The era of the Wilcox Tavern had come to an end with the death of the widow Wilcox in 1815. Her children were all established in their own lives and her son was ready to relocate to Ohio along with his wife and members of her family.  The tavern and its property were sold to Ephraim Coy, who moved from his house over on Mountain Road near Sunset Ridge. 

Ephraim Coy lived in the Wilcox house until about 1823 when it was sold to the Bigelow family. Benjamin Bigelow owned large parcels of land up on Beech Flats; he was a manufacturer of handwrought nails and introduced the first machine in this region for making cut nails.

Around this time the house was renamed the Bigelow Hotel and run by Benjamin’s son, Mark Bigelow. Census records give Mark’s occupation as farmer, but a map from the era notes the property as “Mark Bigelow’s Hotel.” According to census records, one long-term resident on the property was Moses Pierce, identified as mulatto, whose occupation was farm laborer. Pierce lived there until his death in 1872. Mark Bigelow died in 1853 at the age of 54, and his widow, Lydia, died in 1873. They had three children, and their younger son, George R. Bigelow, inherited the property. He renamed the hotel Willow Heights.

A Marie Kendall photograph from the late 19th century suggests a comfortable country lifestyle for the Bigelow family. At some point in the second half of the 19th century a large wraparound porch was added to the house. In the photograph, a man in a hammock on the porch (George Bigelow?) is surrounded by four women, presumably two of whom are his daughters, Emma and Sarah (his wife, Ann, had died in 1887). The other women are possibly boarders or visiting relatives. During this period, a two-story side porch was also added to eastern side of the house. It was very common at this time for houses in Norfolk to have second-story sleeping porches. 

In 1886, at age 24, Emma Bigelow married Jason Drake of Stoughton, Mass. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. John DePeu in Norfolk. Her sister, Sarah, remained at Willow Heights even after their father’s death in 1912, at the age of 81. In the 1930 census Sarah was living with the Bush family in Norfolk and is listed as a boarder. She died on Dec. 14, 1931, after being struck by a car. She was walking home from the 50th anniversary party of Mr. and Mrs. Myron Clark and is buried at Center Cemetery beside her parents. 

Norman and Mildred Mitchell purchased the tavern from Sarah Bigelow in April 1929 for $5,000 ($82,000 in today’s currency). The Mitchells immediately set out to renovate the house by removing the porch and adding a large colonial-style pediment to the front door. Whether they knew it at the time, a new highway (Route 44) was planned to cut through Norfolk, to be completed in 1931. A map outlining the highway shows that the tavern sat too close to the state-designated road apron.

 It is not known exactly when the house was moved back from the road to where it sits now, but it was probably shortly after the Mitchells bought the house. When the house was moved, the large center chimney was replaced. This is evident from before and after photographs, as well as the floors around the fireplaces in the house, which are newer than the original floorboards. The fireplace hearths were all changed: the old cooking hearth that would have been the centerpiece of the keeping room was replaced with a handsome wood-burning fireplace, the fireplace that was in the front southwest room was replaced with a Franklin stove, and the fireplace in the front southeast room was rebuilt as well.

The overall charm of the house was kept intact, but judging by the floors and the scars of change, there was quite a bit done at that time to modernize the house. The eastern porches were enclosed, and bathrooms were added to the second floor. A photograph of the “Bigelow Tavern” taken after the house was moved has the following note on the back.

Dear Mrs. Drake,

I do not feel equal in writing a letter, but Avis gave me this AM to send to you. The house now stands 150ft back from the main highway but will not be when the new state highway is thru. This pole on the right side is from the well sweep but could not be eliminated from the picture because of trees. The garage is made from a small house they had for their farmer. The roof slopes like the main house. Back of the kitchen is a large playroom and servants’ quarters next. The old ell was torn down and made into a small house of 5 rooms on M’s Laurel Way property. Lovingly, Myra

Mrs. Drake is Emma Bigelow, and Myra is probably Mildred Mitchell. She refers to the garage as being made from a small house they had for their farmer. It’s clear that when they moved the house, they connected it to the gabled part of the house in the rear. Whose farmer’s house it was I do not know, perhaps Moses Pierce’s? Was it another small house on adjacent Laurel Way? The result of putting these two houses together is the house that I live in today. 

The Mitchells lived here until 1946 when the house was sold to the Lansing family, who only used it for a few years until the Robertson family purchased the property in 1950. That family owned the house until 1981. Herbert and Carolyn Robertson’s daughter, Pinky Bazzano, grew up here and has told me stories she remembers of the house. She mentioned the connection between the front and rear bedrooms on the east side of the house. Pinky slept in the front room, which was separated from the rear room by a movable wall. You could open the wall by hooking it to the ceiling and have a full front-to-back room with a fireplace in the center.

I always wondered why the fireplace was so close to the corner in that room. After hearing Pinky’s story, the old colonial house came to life in my mind. It could have been a ballroom for dancing when Ezekiel and Rosanna where newlyweds, and it probably served as a dormitory-style room for weary travelers on the turnpike during the days of the Wilcox Tavern.

Sometimes, late at night, I wander through the house and imagine what these walls have seen. I am only the 10th owner of a house that is well over 250 years old. If only these walls could talk!

This is the second of two articles on the history of the Wilcox Tavern and the third of a series of articles on 18th-century Norfolk houses. To date, close to 50 have been identified, spread over Norfolk’s 46.4 square miles.