By Jonathan Tucker

The Maxwell-McIntire Garrison may have been built as early as 1645. Alexander Maxwell, the first former Scottish prisoner from the battle of Dunbar to settle in York, acquired the building as early as the late 1650s or early 1660s. It may have been first built as a single-story frontier cabin and later renovated—possibly during or in response to King Philip’s War (1675-76)—as a fortified garrison. Maxwell occupied it as his principal residence until his death in summer/early fall of 1707.

The Garrison was then acquired by Micum McIntire’s oldest son, John, and it has been owned ever since by Micum’s descendants. It was occupied continuously as a farm residence by McIntire families from about 1707 until 1875–about 168 years. During that time, the Garrison was the home of at least four generations of McIntires. They were, in order:

* John McIntire (Micum’s oldest son) and Susannah Young, who had seven (7) children.
* Samuel McIntire (John and Susannah’s youngest child) and Sarah Came, who had five (5) children.
* Jeremiah McIntire (Samuel and Sarah’s oldest child) and Eunice Kingsbury, who had ten (10) children.
* John McIntire (Jeremiah and Eunice’s eighth child) and Eleanor Junkins, who had one child. John’s older sister Sarah McIntire was the last resident of the Garrison.

There was a lot of time and plenty of incentive (large McIntire families) between 1707-1708 and 1821, when Jeremiah McIntire died, to add a western addition of the kind visible in 1870-1910 photographs and illustrations of the Garrison. See the MMCA website [ https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/general-gallery/ ] for examples.

After Jeremiah McIntire’s death in 1821, the Garrison was probably owned and occupied by son John McIntire and wife Eleanor Junkins, who had married in 1839. It was also occupied by John’s mother Eunice, and other of his siblings. Eunice and her oldest daughter Sarah continued to live in the Garrison for the remainder of their days. Sarah McIntire had been born Dec. 24, 1798 (probably in the Garrison), the first and oldest of Jeremiah McIntire and Eunice Kingsbury’s ten children.

John McIntire and his wife Eleanor Junkins had only one child, John Randolph McIntire, born March 1, 1844. John Randolph grew up for possibly the first two decades of his life in the Garrison.

The large Victorian (Greek Revival) farmhouse immediately east of the Garrison was built between 1854 (when it does not appear on the county atlas) and 1872 (when it does), possibly on the site of Micum and Dorothy’s original home, built (with help) by Alexander MacNair. Mother Eunice Kingsbury McIntire died in 1860, in the Garrison. John Randolph McIntire probably built the “new” farmhouse around 1865, when he married Helen Gertrude McIntire, another Micum descendant. Their marriage (and increasing deterioration of the Garrison) may have served as the spur for its construction.

John’s sister Sarah, the last residential occupant of the Garrison, died December 20, 1875. John Randolph McIntire and his wife Helen raised four children in the ‘new’ farmhouse. In 1909-1910, about 35 years after Sarah’s death, John Randolph McIntire, at age 65, restored the Garrison, removing the old western addition, securing and stabilizing the core of the garrison building, and preserving it for future generations.

John Randolph and Helen’s second child was Alice Randolph McIntire—great-aunt Alice whom MMCA Historian Dan Davis remembers as the keeper of McIntire family stories. John and Helen’s third child, Malcolm McIntire, grew up to marry Mary Augusta Bragdon. Malcolm and Mary were the parents of Mary McIntire Davis, whose foresight and generosity converted hundreds of surrounding acres of McIntire land into the Smelt Brook and Highland Preserves managed today by the York Trust.