Pyncheon Street formerly bore the humbler appellation of Maule’s Lane, from the name of the original occupant of the soil, before whose cottage door it was a cow-path.  In the growth of the town, however, after some thirty or forty years, the site covered by the rude hovel of Matthew Maule (originally remote from the centre of the earlier village) had become exceedingly desirable in the eyes of a prominent personage, who asserted claims to the land on the strength of a grant from the Legislature.  Colonel Pyncheon, the claimant, was a man of iron energy of purpose.  Matthew Maule, though an obscure man, was stubborn in the defense of what he considered his right.  The dispute remained for years undecided, and came to a close only with the death of old Matthew Maule, who was executed for the crime of witchcraft.

It was remembered afterwards how loudly Colonel Pyncheon had joined in the general cry to purge the land from witchcraft, and had sought zealously the condemnation of Matthew Maule.  At the moment of execution—­with the halter about his neck, and while Colonel Pyncheon sat on horseback grimly gazing at the scene—­Maule had addressed him from the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy.  “God,” said the dying man, pointing his finger at the countenance of his enemy, “God will give him blood to drink!”

When it was understood that Colonel Pyncheon intended to erect a spacious family mansion on the spot first covered by the log-built hut of Matthew Maule the village gossips shook their heads, and hinted that he was about to build his house over an unquiet grave.

But the Puritan soldier and magistrate was not a man to be turned aside from his scheme by dread of the reputed wizzard’s ghost.  He dug his cellar, and laid deep the foundations of his mansion; and the head-carpenter of the House of the Seven Gables was no other than Thomas Maule, the son of the dead man from whom the right to the soil had been wrested.

On the day the house was finished Colonel Pyncheon bade all the town to be his guests, and Maude’s Lane—­or Pyncheon Street, as it was now called—­was thronged at the appointed hour as with a congregation on its way to church.

But the founder of the stately mansion did not stand in his own hall to welcome the eminent persons who presented themselves in honour of the solemn festival, and the principal domestic had to explain that his master still remained in his study, which he had entered an hour before.

The lieutenant-governor took the matter into his hands, and knocked boldly at the door of the colonel’s private apartment, and, getting no answer, he tried the door, which yielded to his hand, and was flung wide open by a sudden gust of wind.

The company thronged to the now open door, pressing the lieutenant-governor into the room before them.

A large map and a portrait of Colonel Pyncheon were conspicuous on the walls, and beneath the portrait sat the colonel himself in an elbow chair, with a pen in his hand.