Beneath a broad crowned oak, on a sloping hill o’erlooking wide the lovely region round.  On a soft thick turf I lay; the air was still- distinctly heard was each remotest sound. The clacking wheel in a cornfield, at the mill the circling ‘plash, and far the faint rebound of low and bleat from mountain side, the stir of insect swarms, the drone bee’s hum and swirr. -James Gates Percival “The Dream of a Day”

This house was originally built by Mathew Hart in 1759. Hart served during the Revolutionary War as a Private in Captain Selah Hart’s Company, Colonel Wolcott’s Regiment, and later as a Corporal in Captain James Stoddard’s Company, Colonel Moseley’s Regiment. He further contributed to the war effort by producing bullets for the Continental Army made from the lead from the nearby mine. He was also the maternal grandfather of the poet, James Gates Percival.

Around 1800, Hart removed to De Ruyter, New York and the house was sold to Norman Winchell. In 1813, Winchell sold it to Oswin Percival (brother of James G). And in 1824, Percival sold it to Sheldon Moore’s father, Roswell.

Sheldon’s brothers, Oliver and Roswell, Jr. and their respective families shared the house from 1824, until Roswell, Jr. built his own home on nearby High Road and Oliver temporarily left Kensington, going first to West Springfield, Massachusetts, and later Miller’s Falls, a section of the towns of Erving and Montague originally known as Grout’s Corner. Oliver’s daughter, Nancy, and Roswell’s son, Nelson Augustus (the artist), were both born in this house on August 2, 1824.

On August 13, 1831, Sheldon Moore wrote his fiancee’, Susan L. Dickinson and told her that his brother Oliver was moving to Massachusetts and leaving the house to them. They occupied the house until Sheldon’s death in 1866.

After Sheldon’s death, Susan L. Moore lived with her children until her own death in 1897.

From at least 1900-1939 the house was owned by Oliver Moore’s granddaughter, Alice and her husband Isaac Porter.

Sources:

• “Tenth Generation” by Ethelbert Allen Moore (1950)
• “Autobiography of Nelson Augustus Moore of Kensington, Connecticut” (Unpublished)
• “Sheldon Moore Papers” Yale University Manuscript (MS 992)
• “Sheldon Moore Place” Photograph by Nelson Augustus Moore, Connecticut Historical Society Object 2006.65.2. Inscription: ‘Sheldon Moore Place. Where I was born and in the same day Nancy Moore (my cousin) daughter of Oliver Moore she died at Millers Falls Mass aged 15 years and was buried in West Lane Burying Ground-N.A.M.’

Picture Sources:

• “Mathew Hart Place” The Connecticut Magazine, Volume 6 (1900) Illustration by Isaac Porter
• “Berlin Historical Building 024” WPA Architectural Survey 1935-1942, from the Connecticut State Library Digital Archives
• “Sheldon Moore’s Home in Kensington” and “The small barn on the property” by spellmanjr October 31, 2014