Winslow House - North and South Rivers Watershed Association

634 Careswell St, Marshfield, MA 02050, USA

Owned By: Historic Winslow House Association

Also known as the 1699 Isaac Winslow House and Education Center. The ancestral home of the founding family of Marshfield. Property includes trails which lead to the Hoyt-Hall Preserve.

Features

Built circa 1699 for the Hon. Isaac Winslow (1671–1738), this was the third house constructed on the land granted to Gov. Edward Winslow in the 1630s. The property was named “Careswell” after the family home “Kerswell” in Worcestershire, England.

Edward Winslow (1595–1655) was a passenger on the Mayflower, and a prominent leader in the early years of Plymouth Colony. He served as governor, as ambassador to England, and as an intermediary with local Native American tribes. His son, Col. Josiah Winslow (1628–1680), also served as governor, and led the Colonial Militia in the 1675 “Great Swamp Fight,” the decisive battle of King Phillip’s War. Dr. Isaac Winslow inherited the property two generations later. Isaac’s large medical practice served southeastern Massachusetts and helped to innoculate against smallpox. During the Revolutionary War, he was one of Marshfield’s leading loyalists. It is said that because he was so beloved by the people as a physician, his property was not confiscated after the war. Still, he was the last of the family to occupy the house. After his death in 1822, his estate was sold to honor debt. Subsequent owners included Daniel Webster, who initially used “Winslow Place” to house his tenant farmers. Several additional owners laid claim to the property in the decades that followed. In 1920, Edward Ford, John Gutterson, and Edgar Sherrill, who referred to themselves as the Winslow Associates, founded the Historic Winslow House Association. Since then, the Association has focused on the restoring and preserving of this classic first period colonial mansion.

The property is also available for private events.

Trail Description

A loop trail begins at the rear of the property, extending parallel to Webster Street to the historic Marcia Thomas House. It continues behind the Thomas house, through the woods at the edge of a ridge, and returns to the lawn near the Winslow House stables. In the middle of the loop (in the woods), there is an intersection with a connector trail, blazed in blue, that leads to the Hoyt-Hall Preserve.

Habitats and Wildlife

The forest here is primarily pine and oak. The trail that connects to the Hoyt-Hall Preserve crosses wetlands that were home to cranberry bogs 100 years ago, and are presently red maple swamp. The tidal salt marsh and Duxbury Bay are very close by (to the east), and all waters on this property drain to the Atlantic Ocean.