Here is the link to the map: Newburyport – Keeping the Story Alive, Mapping historic stories of Newburyport, MA houses and places, with photos, paintings, videos, old maps, history and anecdotes. Created by The Newburyport Blog, Mary Baker Eaton, editor. (This is one of the many stories that is on the map.)
Moulton Castle
Courtesy of The Museum of Old Newbury, The Snow Collection
Henry William Moulton (1833 -1896)
Captain Henry William Moulton returned to Newburyport after the the Civil War in 1865. He came into possession of Moulton Hill, overlooking the Merrimac River, which had been in different branches of Moulton family for six generations. The top of Moulton Hill was said to have the most beautiful landscape in all of New England. In 1868 he built a Gothic-style, 22-room wooden mansion, described as a “noble and picturesque home” on top of the hill, which became known as Moulton Castle.
View from Moulton Castle
Moulton Castle
Courtesy of The Museum of Old Newbury, The Snow Collection
Captain Moulton had six children, his only son died when he was less than a year and there was no son to assume his name and the estate.
View of Moulton Castle
Boston Athenaeum, Digital Collection:
George H. Walker & Co.’s Atlas of Essex County, Massachusetts. Boston, 1884, p. 143.
Following Captain Moulton’s death in 1896, the property was bought by financier Charles W. Moseley who tore down Moulton Castle in December 1900. The site of the mansion is now known as Castle Hill and is part of Maudslay State Park.
Moulton Castle
Courtesy of The Museum of Old Newbury, The Snow Collection
Part of the Poem called “Moulton Castle,” by Charles Clinton Jones
“It stood on a pine fringed hill-top
O’er looking the ancient town,
And the winding course of the river;
That turreted castle brown.
For more than a generation
It guarded the country-side,
The city and bay and islands,
And the marshes low and wide.”
Henry William Moulton (1833 -1896)
History from The Moulton Family Search and the Boston Athenaeum and History of Maudslay State Park in Newburyport by Rebecca Beatrice Brooks
Photographs:
Courtesy of The Museum of Old Newbury, The Snow Collection
Boston Athenaeum, Digital Collection:
George H. Walker & Co.’s Atlas of Essex County, Massachusetts. Boston, 1884, p. 143.
This story is also now on the new website that coordinates with the interactive history map, History ~ Newburyport at HistoryNewburyport.com.
History ~ Newburyport, a new Website about Newburyport’s stories
The story on Moulton Castle can be found here at the new website History ~ Newburyport HistoryNewburyport.com.
Story on Moulton Castle on the new website, History ~ Newburyport