The End of the Jacob Osgood House

In 2012 and again in 2023 I reported on the deterioration of the Jacob Osgood House in Andover.

Parts of that building may have dated to 1699, but its historic significance arose from being where James Otis, Jr., died in 1783.

This month the Andover News website reported that the town had demolished the Osgood house as a safety hazard.

The owner of the building died last year. She had never lived there but used the property to store more than 100 tons of stuff she’d accumulated at other places and couldn’t bear to part with. By 2023 the house was flagged with a sign warning emergency personnel that it was too dangerous to enter.

Andover was able to preserve one artifact from the house: the granite back step where Otis was standing when lightning hit the building, traveled down a beam, and went through his body. It appears here in a photo by Brian C. Mooney.

According to the Andover News, “Before demolition, the stone was removed to a temporary location near the arch at West Parish Garden Cemetery, awaiting relocation to a permanent home in the cemetery.” (Otis’s body was interred in the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston.)

For more on why James Otis went to Andover while dealing with mental illness, read Lucy Pollock’s article for Revolutionary Spaces. Otis first moved to the town in 1778 to be under the care of Dr. Daniel How, and How’s house still stands in the same neighborhood as the late Osgood house.

Dr. Daniel How: prepared to receive insane patients

Yesterday I quoted Samuel Breck’s passing remark that Andover, Massachusetts, was “a town where insane people are well nursed and comfortably boarded.” That intrigued me, so I dug further. The town tradition seems to have started with Dr. Daniel How (1719-1797), a local physician who specialized in mental illnesses.

The earliest hint of this specialty that I’ve found is in the diary of the Rev. Thomas Smith of Portland, Maine. Himself subject to “hypochondriac” fits and disorders, Smith wrote with interest about a clerical colleague, the Rev. John Wiswell or Wiswall (1731-1812):

[24 Dec 1761] Mr. Wiswall taken distracted.
...
[17 July 1762] Mr. Wiswell (at New Casco [parish in Falmouth]) is close confined in the height of distraction.
...
[6 Sept] Mr. Wiswell went to Boston last night.
...
[19 Nov] Mr. Wiswell returned to this place from Dr. How, of Andover.

According to this Mental Health History Timeline and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, How’s treatment for Wiswell was a “dark chamber,” and recovery was swift—perhaps because Wiswell would have recovered anyway.

A couple of years later, Wiswell accepted a nearby Anglican church’s invitation to become their minister. From that point he leaned Loyalist, and on 11 May 1775 he was suddenly arrested by the Topsham militia under Col. Samuel Thompson. [Try saying “Thompson of Topsham” three times fast.] Wiswell was released, moved to England, and finally settled in Nova Scotia.

On 14 June 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress noted Dr. How’s work with the mentally ill by passing this resolve:

Whereas the committee are informed that Dr. How of Andover is prepared to receive insane patients and is well skilled in such disorders, resolved that Daniel Adams, a lunatic now at Woburn, be carried to the town of Andover and committed to the care of Doct. How and the said Dr. How be hereby desired to take proper care of the said lunatic at the expense of this colony.

James Otis, Jr., was another person suffering from mental illness who went to live in Andover. He first showed signs of psychosis in 1769, and had to be confined the next year, but I don’t know where he was treated then. Otis spent most of the early 1780s in Andover, perhaps receiving treatment from Dr. How. Otis lived at the home of Capt. Isaac Osgood until he was struck by lightning, on 23 May 1783. The picture above shows the Osgood house in Andover; note the lightning bolt helpfully inserted on the right.