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295 Montague Street. Built by David Jack d. 1820. David Sullivan 2020.Main
Title
David Jack House
Content
295 Montague Street. Built by David Jack d. 1820. David Sullivan 2020.Item
David Jack House, 295 Montague Street. Rear view. David Sullivan 2020Item
This simple Cape Cod was built circa 1824, probably by David Jack, and was later owned by Walter Morris, who married into the Jack family. His wife, Maria Jack, was one of a suite of children by Jack's second wife, Mary Hunt [Wyer], who was herself the younger sister of Rebecca Jack, the first wife. This house is dated approximately by a story of Major W. McStay, whose grandfather was doctor to the garrison in the middle part of the 19th century, and who recollected in a letter to a local writer that McStay built his house in 1824 near the home currently owned by the Morris sisters and cleared a path through the woods to it.
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St. Croix CourierApril 9, 1942
Shiretown Items
Cherry Hill
I have learned what constitutes to true "Cherry Hill" in St. Andrews and how it got its name. About 1825 Dr. McStay purchased the entire block on which the house he built, though later remodelled, still stands and which is known to the present generation as the Wallace Property. Indians were camping on a little cleared spot at the time and were asked to vacate. The remainder of the block as well as all the rest of that part of the town, though surveyed for streets, consisted of thick woods. While the house was being built a bear used to come out and feed on scraps the men threw to him. A Mr. Jack built the house now owned by the Misses Morris (occupied in summer by Marshall Hodgeman) and the McStay boys cut a path through the woods so that the families could visit back and forth. When Dr. McStay cleared the remainder of the block he found a row of cherry trees running straight through the centre which he thought must have been planted by the Indians as there were none found elsewhere in the neighborhood. He named his home" Cherry Hill," which name it still bears. About fifty years ago that whole neighborhood was called Cherry Hill and the boys who lived there were known as the Cherry Hill Gang.