The Heard Room
Part of c. 1820-1840 “Ell” addition created to accommodate Jerusha Grout Heard’s mother (Susannah Grout) and unmarried brother (William) and sister (Susan) after Jerusha married Newell Heard in 1822. It was originally their parlor. Now furnished in mid-Victorian style, the wallpaper is a 1986 reproduction of paper used during 1850-1860. Lace curtains and Empire style sofa are also typical of the period.
DRURY PORTRAITS
Dated to the 1840s, these are paintings of two Drury brothers, Aaron Kingsbury (1813-1859) and Elijah (1817-1864). We are not sure which
portrait is of which brother. Elijah worked as a stabler and died in Boston.
His brother, Aaron Kingsbury Drury, married Abby Kirkpatrick and they had three children; after he died, she married George Gleason and
became known as “Grandma Gleason.” Many of her belongings are upstairs in the Gleason Room. A daughter, Lizzie Drury, married and her son, Charles (Malcolm) Campbell became house caretaker. Read more about him by visiting the Campbell Room.
TILT-TOP TABLE
Also called a tea table. c. 1840.
SIDE CHAIRS
Empire style c. 1840s, grain-painted with caned seats
SECRETARY (bookcase)
19th century. Bun feet are not original to the piece. Books belonged to the Heard and Grout families and were given to the Historical Society by Blanche Heard, the last owner, to save them as a collection. It has a fall-front desk on the top drawer.
BUTTERFIELD CANE
Made by Charles Butterfield, of Cochituate, while a Civil War prisoner for nine months in 1864. He joined his father and older brother leaving nine younger siblings. Among the 23 battles he took part in are Mine Run, Spottsylvania, Bethesda Church, Petersburg, Marshall House and Weldon Station, VA. Captured by the Rebels in Weldon Station, he was imprisoned in Libby, Belle Isle, and Salisbury Prisons where he witnessed terrible conditions and many deaths. At Libby he was without shelter, and was constantly without rations– several times the single eye of an animal was served to him which hunger forced him to eat. At Salisbury he joined 4,000 prisoners, of whom 3,000 were unsheltered. Holes were dug in the ground, using hands for shovels, to make shelter from the freezing cold. A day’s ration was a half-pound of bread per man, with a small piece of meat every three or four weeks. Rice-soup was served about as often as the meat. It was insufficient to support life; and day by day, the squads were thinned by deaths. After the war Butterfield ran a boarding house in Cochituate and became a shoemaker and loved to race horses on the ice at Dudley Pond. His family’s house, 14 Pemberton, still stands.
PHOTOGRAPHS IN OVAL FRAMES
Betsy Adams Heard (1797-1890) and Col. David Heard (1793-1881) taken by John Augustus Heard, his cousin who grew up in this house, in his Boston studio in 1863.
CHARLES SUMNER and LYDIA MARIA CHILD
This bust of the ardent abolitionist and Massachusetts senator may have belonged to his friend, Lydia Maria Child, who lived in Wayland on Old Sudbury Road from 1852 to her death in 1880. In 1833, Child gave up her critical acclaim and financial security to write about the plight of African Americans and denounced slavery as an unimaginable evil. She spent the rest of her life struggling financially but would never stop her quest to reform society. The Society owns a number of her important papers and possessions.
STOVE
Morrison & Tibbets, Troy, N.Y. Patented 1852. Fireplaces were no longer depended upon for heat – stoves were more efficient. This is exactly like the one the last two Heard sisters used when they lived here in the 1950s.
PEGBOARD
Hand-carved by a Wayland farmer Charles Fairbanks (b.1820). Peg solitaire was a very popular single player game played with a board having holes in the pattern of a plus sign. There are pegs in all the holes except one. The objective is to clear the board of all the pegs except one.
HEARD FAMILY CHART
Richard Heard and Sarah Fiske bought the house in which you are standing in 1744 from his brother-in-law Jonathan Grout, the miller. This Heard family chart shows the children of their four sons with two homesteads on Pelham Island Road. Richard was a town leader, selectman and served in the new state legislature. By 1780 he had moved to the Fiske House (where Sarah grew up) on the north side of Pelham Island Road, just west of Jeffrey (torn down in the 1920s). His grandson, Newell Heard, married Jerusha Grout in 1822 and lived here in the Grout-Heard House until his death in 1865. Note: both houses served as smallpox hospitals in the 1700s.
SUSAN GROUT (1796-1877) AND WILLIAM C. GROUT (1804-1876)
The unmarried sister and brother of Jerusha Grout Heard. They were life-long residents of the house. After Jerusha married Newell Heard in 1822, the house was enlarged to accommodate the two families. William was a miller and surveyor, who served the town as Selectman, Town Clerk, and Treasurer.
ORGAN OR MELODEON
Mason & Hamlin, after 1853. May be similar to one used by William Grout, miller, town clerk and resident of this house.
HAND ORGAN
A portable barrel-operated reed organ typical of the late 19th century. Played by means of a crank turned by hand and, when pinned with hymns, were often used to provide accompaniment for church services where no organist was available. Owned in 1878 by Lieut. H.D. Smith USN. When he left Wayland, he left the organ in possession of J. S. Draper.
THE FRUGAL HOUSEWIFE
Written by Lydia Maria Child when she was in her early 20s. The books was enormously successful and could be found in almost every “middling” household in the country. It was aimed at the many women who did not have servants and had to “make do” taking care of their own homes and families – something few advice writers were interested in. Maria achieved great popularity from her early advice books and novels.
HEARD FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS
These photographs are the Heard family members described above. Newell Heard who lived in this house is pictured third from the left top. Of the two homesteads only the one on the left survives at 187 Pelham Island Road. This could be described as the Stone-Bent-Heard-Buckingham-Sears House.
CORNER WHATNOT
Victorian, c. 1860’s. Holds China tea cups (dating from 1800 to 1889) that belonged to Sarah Heard, widow of John Augustus Heard, town librarian (1885-1901), and mother of the last two Heards to live in this house. She used them when she entertained members of her whist club. When the new Town Hall was constructed on this site in 1878 the house was moved to Old Sudbury Road. Her husband, John Augustus Heard, who had died two years before, was a daguerrotypist and photographer who traveled a great deal.