They say good things come in threes, but what’s wrong with a pair?
The houses at 11 and 13 Sewall St. are not twins, but they look similar. The reason for that is their shared ownership.
In a document from the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS), the houses are referred to as the Woodfin houses after Philip Trasher Woodfin, an expressman — a person tasked with ensuring the safe delivery of valuables like gold and money.
The MACRIS document states that Woodfin had the houses built for him at some point in the 19th century. The document theorizes that the smaller of the two houses, 11 Sewall, was built circa 1845.
This is also bolstered by the fact that when Woodfin purchased the property from Samuel Hooper II in 1867, the deed stated that it was “situated by Sewall Street consisting of a two-story wooden dwelling house, with the land under and adjoining.”
As such, the authors of the MACRIS document believe that an original building served as the core of 11 Sewall. However, they do not believe that the same process applied to 13 Sewall.
The document refers to “depictions on local maps” to estimate that both houses were built between 1872 and 1881.
The houses are not the only interesting things to bear the Woodfin name.
Philip’s eldest son, Philip T. Woodfin Jr., was a Civil War veteran. According to a plaque on his grave in Hampton, Va., he was promoted to first lieutenant in the 16th Massachusetts Battery.
In his 1901 obituary, he is regarded as being “the first man to enter Faneuil Hall on the morning of April 16, 1861.” This is likely in reference to signing up for the Union Army at the start of the Civil War.
He was also the governor of the National Soldier Home in Virginia from 1873 until his death in 1901.
Another of the sons, Benjamin, was declared “Marblehead’s Strong Man” by The Boston Globe in 1900. The Aug. 30 article reads, “The strongest man in the Essex County, and probably in the state, is Mr. Benjamin W. Woodfin of (Marblehead).”
The article pays homage to his father Philip, continuing, “He is a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, standing 5 feet 11 ½ inches in hight (sic) and weighing 240 pounds. He is the son of the late Philip T. Woodfin, who was a very strong man, and the son naturally inherits the father’s muscle and sinew. ”
His accomplishments include winning an Essex County 1986 strong man competition where he, across three events, lifted 2,942.5 pounds. For this, he received a medal declaring him Essex County’s strongest man.
Other anecdotes of his strength are included in the article. They claim he carried a 1,300-pound bathtub up a flight of stairs on Marblehead Neck, held back two horses running in opposite directions with only his arms, and extricated himself from under a 2-ton safe in Lynn.
Now, I do not entirely believe that Benjamin did all of these feats, as they would have required him to possess superhuman abilities and break nearly all our current weightlifting records.
However, I can easily believe that his older brother Philip Jr. was a war hero, considering the legacy of heroic figures in Marblehead.