I speak next of the Samoset House estate, not for the purpose of following its title, but for the purpose of speaking of its occupants at various times. As long ago as I remember the estate extended from Court street up Wood’s Lane to what is now Allerton street. Its Court street line extended by the line of the present gutter, the street being widened afterwards by cutting off a strip of that and adjoining estates on the north. There was a high, close board fence along the street, which I remember because when a boy I brought up against it a runaway horse which I was riding. The house on the estate was what is now the old part of the Samoset, and was owned and occupied by Mrs. Betsey H. Hodge and her father, Dr. Jas. Thacher, until 1827. It faced the south, and was reached by a driveway from Wood’s Lane, and its spacious yard was bounded on the southwest by a carriage house and barn, a handsome lawn lying along Court street. The estate called La Grange was altogether the most aristocratic one in town, and at the above date, with the exception of the old Merrick Ryder house on the southeast corner of the Mixter lot, and an old red house on the corner of Lothrop Place, no houses were in sight at the north. In 1827, Dr. Thacher moved into the easterly part of the Winslow house on North street, and the estate was sold to Charles Sever, who married in that year Mrs. Hodge’s daughter Jane. Mr. Sever was a Kingston man, brother of Col. John and James N. Sever, and as I have no recollection of his connection with any business in Plymouth, I think he must have been associated with his brothers in navigation and foreign trade. In 1833 Mr. Sever sold the estate to John Thomas, and moved temporarily into the house on Middle street next below Mr. Beaman’s undertaker’s establishment, while he was building the Sever house on Russell street, which he did not live to occupy, but which was occupied by his family until the recent death of his daughter Catherine. In 1837 Mr. Thomas sold the estate to Jason Hart, and removed to New York. His business connections in that city, and his death in Irvington, have been referred to in a previous chapter. Mr. Hart has been already noticed as a member of the firm of Hart and Alderman, and in business alone where the store of H. H. Cole on Main street now stands.