The David Collins Seager Farm, Sea View Heights Now Deer Hill,
Sea View, Ma.
When I was young,so many times I wondered what Sea View was like one hundred years ago.
My playground was the woodland across Station St., behind the Seaview Railroad Station. This was the eastern boundary of the Seager Farm. My favorite spot was under a huge Pine tree and on a bed of pine needles. I would lay there and look up and wonder how old it was and what it had been through. My Dad told me it was over a hundred years old.
Oh. how I miss my old friend.
If we go back that 100 years, say 1840, we would be sitting under a young pine tree much to small to be harvested by the local shipyards, however it’s parents had succumbed to the axe and saw pit to become part of a sailing ship built at Whites Ferry. Or more likely found their way to the saw mill to become wide pine boards that I walked upon in the 1820 homestead of Barstow Carver, the Freden residence for 38 years, 110 Elm St. That old pine tree never saw it’s 200th. birthday, It lost it’s life to progress– a housing development.
A large farm up on Sea View Heights was to take over the hillside that overlooked Sea View Village.
Map of Sea View Heights. c. 1903
Red= Pleasant St., Dog Ln., Summer St., Church & Elm St. Yellow= The highest point of Sea View Heights & Important buildings. Green= Seager’s Farm buildings & roads. Pink= 60′ + feet above sea level.
In 1898 a young entrepreneur from Boston, David Collins Seager, acquired land off Pleasant St., Summer St., and Station St., running south along the Old Colony Railroad tracks.
Atop of this hill, at the age of 29, between 1900 and 1903, he built a seven room colonial style farm house along with a large barn to house horses, cows, a bull and sheep. Housing for hogs,& chickens, plus a mushroom cellar. A pump house was built to the east, half way between the house and Railroad tracks.
There were two roads to access the property, one came in from near the corner of Pleasant St and Dog Ln. The other came off Station St. and up the hill to join the upper road now known as Deer Hill Ln.
A tennis court and Club House were built as well as plantings of nut trees, ornamental trees, a large grove of rhododendron on each side of driveway approaching the stone pillar entrance to the farm house.
Looking from the house through the entrance- way.
The High Road looking toward the Seager Farm, now Deer Hill Ln.
The Low Road, looking down from the Farm & terminating at Station St. No longer there.
The two above photos are from Archie Randall’s glass negatives.
The cart path in the foreground became part of the Seager Farm lower road on the South side of the Littletown/Sea View Depot.
David C. Seagar of Boston made his first purchase of land in Marshfield in 1898, later purchasing adjoining properties which together totaled 100 acres. This land was located on a hill, soon to be known as Seager Hill, He established a working farm here which included horses, pigs, sheep, cows, a bull, fowl and a mushroom cellar.
This cutaway view is much like the long red building in the painting.
David employed a farm manager from Scotland and several farm laborers from Italy who lived on the farm. David died in Boston 12 February 1939 age 69 unmarried, survived by nephews and nieces. In 1943 ,one of the nephews, Theodore Seager, acquired 12 acres of the farm with the house. The remainder of the Seager Farm was sold, by the executor of David’s estate over the next several years. Re: David Collins Seager: born at Syracuse, New Yorjk, 1869 – resident of Boston by 1893 – occupation in 1900 manager of real estate business – by 1903 resident of Marshfield – in business of loaning relatively large sums of money to many individuals in the form of mortgages – cranberry grower for twenty years owning many bogs in several towns – Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture 1917 to 1921. Tax assessment from Marshfield 1907; Valuation David C. Seager: Poll tax 2.00; Horse 60, cow 40, 7 swine 35, other ratable 5000, house 1500, shanty 25, sheep barn 500, piggery 100, Thornton and Dinnegan land 116 a 2500, Little land 3/4 a 10, Sherman land 43 a 400. Total Estate: 10170. Tax Total: 154.56.
David was a gentleman farmer, he did not work the farm, he hired a capable sheep and cattle farmer from Scotland, by the name of Tom Anderson.
Tom oversaw the workings of the farm and farmhands. There are records showing there were also five farm laborers from the same town of St.Stellian Italy, working and residing in a dwelling near the house, however there is no evidence of this housing or record of taxes.
The Seager Farm as I remember in the early 40’s
painting by Ray Freden
I think it was 1940 or ’41 that my Dad and I ventured up the hill to the Seager farm. Dads mission was to look over the tennis court near the farm house. Dad’s side business was rebuilding and caring for clay tennis courts. The tennis court was in deplorable condition and the cost of restoring the court was out of the question.
David Seager’s tennis court and club house as it may have been
in the late 30s, the Club House was a pile of rotten lumber and only a few posts were left around the court.
The lighting was strewn around where it fell. It didn’t take long for the granite hitching posts to be missing.
The club house & tennis court.
The Farm manager Tom, must have been devastated upon David’s sudden death in Feb., 1939. Tom certainly had a deep affection for David and the farm. The records show Tom as a hired hand in 1910, and he was still employed in 1939, that’s 29 years employed with Mr. Seager.
I remember Tom walking about Seaview and the Hills. He had a brisk step and sometimes wore oxford saddle shoes when out for a stroll.
My Mom knew the name of his Tam hat and Scottish tweed jacket , as well as his Knickerbockers, aka Knickers
I remember his knickers because I had to wear nickers in the first grade and hated them.
Most of Tom’s hikes were to the Marshfield Hills General Store and Post Office. Occasionally he came down the low road to Station St. then down Summer St. to Stedmans Store on Sea St.
In the early 40s ,Davids Nephew, Theodore ”Ted” Seager and family moved into the farm house as their residence. David’s great nephew, Ted Seager Jr. told me that Tom returned a few times to the farm. He stayed in the barn apartment. Ted told of his family inviting Tom to a few dinner’s, however, Ted Jr., doesn’t remember any of the conversation. Ted Jr’s. Dad, ”Ted” Seager never farmed the land.
Much of land was sold later to Mr. Allen Wheeler
of Scituate and was develop into house lots. Now Deer Hill.
Excerpts from the late Agnes ”Jo” Bonney, 5 Station St
A special thanks to ;
Ted Seager Jr. —- Jan peterson, researcher, Marshfield.
Also, Aldo Salvetti,s rememberances, Marshfield.
”Life on a farm is a school of patience; you can’t hurry the crops or make an ox in two days.”
W. Ray Freden, Seaview, 70 years.