Tale of Two 17th Century Barnstable Houses: John Gorham and Austin Bearse

I recently stopped at two 17th century houses that belonged to my ancestors in Barnstable on Cape Cod. I was struck by the difference in their condition.

The 1660 house belonging to John and Desire (Howland) Gorham, my 10th great-grandparents, is in incredible condition. It is located at 4428 Main Street (Rt 6A) in the village of West Barnstable, which today is a very busy thoroughfare. It is a large Colonial built on an incline from the street on a pretty lot of land. It is marked with a historical plaque that reads: 

This House

Was Originally Built in 1660 By

Capt. John Gorham

1621 — 1676

It was Enlarged and Remodeled in 1745

Capt. Gorham Died of a Wound

Received in "The Great Swamp Fight”

In King Philips War

Barnstable Tercentenary 1939

It is a large house, 3,424 square feet, on 1.62 acres with a nice old barn/garage and a built-in pool. It last sold in 2023 for $1.5 million, so one can view photos of the house online. It is in impeccable condition, inside and out, clearly owned by a succession of people who loved the house and had the means to keep it in pristine shape. Looking at photos of the interior, there isn’t very much that seems 17th century except perhaps the old wood floors. 

John Gorham was baptized 28 January 1620/21 at Benefield, Northamptonshire, England. He married Desire Howland who was born Plymouth about 1625, the daughter of Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley. They had 11 children. They were first at Plymouth, then Marshfield, then onto Yarmouth, and finally Barnstable. He served as Captain in the militia and owned a grist mill and tannery. As the plaque states, John Gorham died at Swansea fighting in King Philip’s War in February 1676, at age 55. Desire died on 13 October1683 at Barnstable. 

The 1689 house belonging to Austin Bearse and his wife Mary, whose maiden name is unknown, is in dilapidated condition. It is a full Cape on a large wooded lot located at 38 Church Hill Road in the Barnstable village of Centerville. 

The house last sold in December 2024 but appears to be unoccupied. Hopefully the new owners have a plan to restore the house. It’s on attractive, wooded street just down the street from a the South Congregational Church and the 1856 Country Store. It is 1,947 square feet on a .68 acre lot which is quite overgrown. There’s a large barn near the street. Photos of the house online show that it still has many of the original (or close to original) furnishings, compared to the Gorham house which has been modernized. I can picture Mary and Austin living in this house today. There are wide plank (very warped!) floor boards, cedar shingle roof, a huge cooking fireplace that looks original to my untrained eye, some nice paneling, an incredible antique exterior door. But there are damaged ceilings, moss covering the roof, rotted wood, vines growing everywhere. I couldn’t see it from the street, but the listing shows a small half Cape on the property that was once an antique store. I’m wondering if that is an older house and where Austin and Mary first lived. 

source: Zillow

Austin/Augustine Bearse was born 1618 in England. He married a woman named Mary whom many state was a Native American, but I haven’t found anything substantiating that. Some descendants also claim Austin was a gypsy (more appropriately called Romani) but that seems to be a fanciful story. He came to New England in 1638 as a follower of Rev. Lothrop and was first at Scituate before coming to Barnstable. He was a religious man and held the position of surveyor of highways, was a freeman, and served on a grand juries. The Puritans and Separatists were not open-minded people—a Romani married to a Native American would not have had such strong standing in the community. He wouldn’t have been part of the established church or admitted as a freeman. Mary and Austin also had 11 children. Austin died before 1697.