Who Were the Harris Blacks?
Hopkins Blacksmith Shop at Windmill Village
To our knowledge, of the many small early houses believed to have existed throughout the Cape, only one has survived. Located on Red Top Road in Brewster, the dwelling was occupied from 1795 to 1904 by the Harris-Black family. When the town bought the property for conservation purposes from Nathan Black's daughter, Jennie (Black) Baker, the derelict house was headed for demolition, but careful study and extensive photographic examination revealed the remnants of the smallest post and beam house remaining on the Cape. In 1982 John MacKenzie, Brewster builder and antique house restorer, dismantled the house, salvaging over 70 percent of the original hand-hewn frame, relocated it to Brewster Historical Society’s Windmill Village, and meticulously restored it.
Harris Black house
For years, Brewster Historical Society puzzled over the ethnicity of the Harris-Black family, who occupied this little house. Federal census data from 1790 through 1880 listed them as “All other free persons,” “Mulatto,” or “Indian,” on the whim of the census takers, as they farmed their remote spot of land on Red Top Road near the current Stony Brook Mill Site. This past winter, with the help of DNA and additional research from descendants of the families, we were able to trace a line of descent from both Sarah (Ralph) Harris and Nathan Black to two of the Cape's most prominent Wampanoag sachems, Iyannough and Mashantampaine.
Sarah and her husband, John Harris, “a sea-faring man,” paid five pounds eight shillings for three acres of woodland and built this sixteen-foot square house. They had five children, and when John died in 1804, his widow was left to settle his estate and raise the large family. At that time, the house and land were valued at $348, the heifer worth $12, the bed and two pillows at $15. There was also a barn, an orchard, and a vegetable garden.
Their youngest daughter, Elizabeth Harris, was only a year old when her father died. She grew up in the house and spent her entire life there. At the age of 19, she married Nathan Black, a neighbor and cousin, raising ten children. Their eldest, John, named after her father, was lost at sea as a young man. Another son, Timothy, built his home across the road, marrying an Irish nanny from Dennis. Nathan died in 1865. Elizabeth continued to live in her little house until she died in 1881.
Harris Black family register
Timothy and his wife Bridget raised five children. One son, Nathan, a farmer and cranberry grower, used the little house as a storage barn. He was a self-taught barber who had his Black Hills Barber Shop next to his home. He walked to East Dennis for decades, providing haircuts at David H. Sears's store, and was known to stop on the way to serve customers by the roadside. Nathan died at age 92 in 1957.
Today, there are just remnants of the foundation of the little house on Red Top Road, where once-open fields have become deep woods.
Windmill Village at 51 Drummer Boy Road in Brewster (adjacent to Drummer Boy Park) opens for the summer season 12-3 PM Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Also on site: the circa 1795 Higgins Farm Windmill, open for tours, and the working circa 1867 Higgins Blacksmith Shop, where blacksmith demonstrations are provided throughout the season on select Fridays and Saturdays.