Long years ago before our country was thickly settled, and when our forefathers extracted from the soil a scanty living, the houses were simple little ones, often built with only four rooms. It was in such a house as this that William Coddington made his early home. It was delightfully situated, close to the bank of Black Brook, and surrounded by overhanging trees. [Illustration: PLATE LXXXVI.--The Quincy Mansion, Quincy, Mass.] In 1635 William Coddington and his fellow associates received a grant of five hundred acres at Braintree, now Quincy, Massachusetts, extending from the old Dorchester line at Squantum to Howe's Neck, and about a mile inland. This was a goodly tract of land, with level meadows that promised good plowing. The next year, in the heart of the grant, Mr. Coddington built a house that consisted of a large kitchen, a living-room, and two chambers. Near him was a small colony of settlers, including Reverend John Wheelwright, Anne Hutchinson, and Sir Harry Vane. They composed a congenial group of free thinkers, who met often in the Coddington kitchen to sit around the large open fireplace, while they discussed religious views much more liberal than the Puritan's way of thinking. Many of them, for holding these views, were banished to Rhode Island. Coddington did not live long after the house-building, and was succeeded by Edmund Quincy, the first of the name to live in what is now known as the Quincy homestead. He was a man of considerable wealth and importance, coming here from Boston and bringing with him six servants, which was considered a most pretentious establishment in those days. His wife, named Judith, was a woman of great ability, and after the death of her husband, managed the estate with good judgment. Her daughter, also named Judith, married John Hull, the mint-master, and became the mother of Hannah Hull. Hannah became the wife of Judge Samuel Sewall, and as the story runs, received for her dowry her weight in pine-tree shillings. The second of the name of Quincy to occupy this house was also named Edmund and afterwards received the title of colonel. He was a man of dignified personality and forceful character and had held at various times most of the important offices in the town. His death in 1698 was followed by that of his wife, two years later, and the reins of government fell into the hands of Edmund third, then a youth of twenty. The responsibility made the latter a very thoughtful man. He became more distinguished than either his father or his grandfather, passing nearly his whole life in public service. It was this Edmund who, in his twenty-first year, married Dorothy Flynt, the first Dorothy Q. of history, and ancestress of all the other Dorothy Q's.