“By a garden I mean more than a plot of ground devoted to growing fruits and flowers. Open spaces where the eye may gaze off to distant hills; where Nature, undisturbed, works miracles with trees and flowers and brooks. In such environment man finds the spiritual repose, stillness, refreshment, and delight so necessary for a troubled soul. In such places God reveals Himself—not on Forty-Second Street or in crowded tenements. In such environment poets have found their greatest inspiration and have produced some of their finest works.
The artist, too, has ever found subjects for his brush, and the master composer, Beethoven, found his inspiration for his wonderful sixth symphony in the untrammeled paths of woodland with Nature his only companion. Vying with this musical poem are the pastoral poems of Theocritus, so ardent, so delicate, so full of flowers and birds, and sprayed with the music of fountains.
The picture which our society owns of Frederic Paine and his wife standing beneath a bower of roses over their front doorway of "The Oaks'' with beds of larkspur, phlox, canterbury bells, foxglove, lemon verbena, primroses, dahlia, cinnamon pinks, and cornflower growing in sweet confusion running on either side of the house, presents a picture of contentment, peace and intimacy, of reserve and sanctity which is truly delightful. No one dashed in here and unceremoniously opened the door. No, the visitor opened and closed the gate very carefully, then knocked three times slowly with the heavy brass knocker. Mr. Paine greeted his caller with old-fashioned courtesy and ushered him into the parlor where from the southern window stretched the gardens notable for beauty, novelty, and variety of fruits and flowers…”
Source: Worcester Historical Society Proceedings, New Series, Vol. II, No. 4, Sept. 1939 - OLD WORCESTER GARDENS-Read before the Worcester Historical Society by Dr. Albert Farnsworth, May 12, 1933
".....in 1826, he [Frederick William Paine] permanently located in the Lincoln Street homestead, then surrounded by a large tract upon which, under his taste and love for horticulture grew "Paine's Garden," renowned through all the county for its wealth of trees and flowers, making the south slope of Paine Hill a bright expanse of bloom, which old citizens lovingly remember. He held numerous town offices and was in great esteem among our citizens for his judgment in real estate, his taste in gardening, and his love of books, the latter preserved in the treasures he contributed to the American Antiquarian Society's collections, and the fine home library. He died in 1869.
The Paine homestead is the home of his venerable widow, now in the 86th year of her age, still vivid in her recollections of the past and notes of the changes realized in her time and her son, Rev. George S. Paine, is the fifth in descent in possession of the Paine homestead, which for more than a century has spread its broad roof over the same family, amide changes that have made a nation out of the feeble colony, and a thriving city out of a thin village among the hills."
Source: from New England Home Journal, ‘The Old Homes of Worcester’ March 30, 1883.
A Description of the Dr. Paine House at Worcester, called “The Oaks,” as it was in His Day prepared by Mrs. E. O. P. Sturgis and read by Hon. Stephen Salisbury at the Four Hundred and Second Meeting of the Worcester Society of Antiquity on Tuesday evening, March 7, 1905
NOTE: Elizabeth Orne Paine Sturgis was born in 1826, daughter of Frederic William Paine and Anne Cushing Sturgis Paine. Her grandfather, William Paine, died in 1833 when she was 7 years old. Elizabeth died in 1911. In 1905 when this description was written, she was 79 years old.
In the orchard, on the north side of the house, stood beehives on a framework, and in this vicinity was the scene of the strange noises, the mystery of which was never solved. Those in the house, though before my day, used to hear a loud bang, as if some heavy timber had been thrown on the ground. These noises were only heard at night, however. My father and his brother used to watch night after night out of doors, but no sound was to be heard, but the moment they went into the house the noise would begin again.
On the back of the house, and some distance from it, was the barn, an immense building, with outhouses, consisting of two stories besides the scaffolding. A large yard for cattle was on the southern side, surrounded by a stone wall. On the eastern side was a trough supplied with water from the spring in the upper part of the estate. To the right of the barn was a corn chamber, set up on four stone posts, and down the hill to the north was an old well.
Nearer the house was a large ice-house, from which the ice chest was supplied when needed, which was filled every winter with ice from Lincoln's Pond. Near the back door of the house was a well with well-sweep, and down this was kept a bucket, in which was put butter, and that was drawn up when any was needed and then let down again.
At the foot of the garden, on one side, stood an old building called "the hog-house." Here the pigs were kept. Besides the place for these animals there was a large room, where used to be kept garden tools, lumber, etc. There was also a room upstairs used for rubbish of various kinds.
The horse used to be kept in the barn, and was taken round to the chaise-house to be harnessed. Later this building was moved from the front and was joined onto the barn. On the northern side of the barn was a large '' mulberry tree,'' which bore fine fruit, and close to the trough stood two cherry trees,one of black hearts and one of white. Nearby was a row of lilac-bushes. At the northeast corner of the house used to stand an immense chestnut tree. It was very old, and finally the branches began to fall, and. being dangerous, it was cut down. The trees in the front of the house I have heard my father say were of the same size when he was a boy as they are now. The garden of the house was quite noted in its day.
Starting from the broad stone steps of the porch on each side were spaces of ground covered with gravel, divided from the front and back yards by a fence. Around these spaces was a stone walk, except on the front side, and there, there were flower-beds. Passing down a flight of stone steps one reached a broad path, on each side being flower-beds, and in the grass enclosure were flowering-shrubs. Another flight of stone steps, over which was an arbor covered by a wild grapevine, and on each side of the arbor pathways led west and east, on each side of which were flower-beds, except on one, and there was an asparagus bed.
Going south a long and broad pathway leads to two more steps, over which was a lattice work covered with a vine, and following on, one came to the orchard. On each side of the two steps pathways run right and left, bordered with currant bushes. Fruit trees grew at intervals about the garden. In the enclosures made by the flower-beds grew vegetables. These flower-beds were about a yard wide and filled with flowers, plants and flowering shrubs. This garden having a southern exposure was admirably adapted to the growth of flowers, and from early spring until late in the autumn was brilliant with blossoms.
On the south side of the front yard was an orchard enclosed by a stone wall from the road, and by a wooden fence from the yard. All along within the stone wall stood a row of button pear-trees, and the orchard was filled with apple-trees. The peach-trees on the place were a great feature of it, there being a large number in the garden and all bearing the finest of fruit, but they all died many years since....
Source: Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, Volume XXI, Worcester Mass. Published by the Society. 1907. U.S. A. CXXXI.
