The tradition is that the house at Clark Swallow's, whether the second or third house of Thomas Whitman, was built about 1680; leaving a gap of four years, at least, when he was without house or home, with a family of six children under twenty years of age.

   The present road from Whitman mills, on Satuckett river, to Turnpike bridge, on Matfield river, was laid out by a jury, 1690.   First volume Bridgewater Town Records, page 147, as follows:

  "A highway laid out by a jury from Isaac Harris, his house, to John's bridge.   It runs from Isaac Harris, his house, as is directed by marked trees, to Good^m Whitman's house, on the east side of his house, and from thence as directed by marked trees to the river.   And so over the river, between Edward Mitchell's and John Hayward's; and so across John Hayward's land, where the way now is, above his barn and between his house and barn, and so along the way to town."

   Isaac Harris married a daughter of Robert Latham, and lived in a house ten rods back of William Allen's house, on the north bank of Satucket river.   This road, no doubt, went about where it is now, east of the Whitman house, now Swallow house, and over Matfield river, where the Turnpike bridge now is, and up the hill between the Mitchell and Howard land, as may now be seen, and was probably then laid out through a wilderness.   Johns bridge, in this record, means the old bridge over Matfield river at the Turnpike bridge.

   This house, probably the third house of Thomas Whitman, great-grandfather of Dea. John, and this Whitman neck of land were the home, homestead, and birth-place of thirty-six children—three generations of his blood—born in the eighteenth century, to wit: sixteen children of said Nicholas Whitman, grandfather of said John, by his three wives, 1702-1736; six children of his father, John Whitman, by two of his four wives, 1730-1747; and his fourteen children, by two wives, 1765-1799.   And these thirty-six children were, probably, all born in this house at Clark Swallow's, sold to David French, as aforesaid.

   This Thomas Whitman had nine children, four sons and five daughters, all living at the time of his making his will, in 1685.   And May 9, 1707, book 10, page 56 of Plymouth Records, he gave a deed of gift to his youngest son, Nicholas Whitman, thereby conveying to him "my whole farm whereon I now dwell; bounded easterly, by Satucket river, westerly by John's river, and northerly by Nehemiah Allen's land, about 110 acres."