NEW ORCHARD ROAD

 

George Hill Yeaton (1883-1970) in the early 1960s began to fill notebooks of his memories and recollections of growing up on New Orchard Road. The notebooks included stories that were handed down to him, personal experiences and information on the various families that resided there. He used the county maps of 1858 and 1892, which show the residents of the road at that time, to construct a mental walking tour of New Orchard Road. Combining these ‘tours’ with associated stories, make for a fascinating look at the history of the area. Deed research, genealogy and photos from the Epsom Historical Association's collection, have been added to form a more complete picture of the early settlers. Mr. Yeaton’s writings appear italicized throughout this series.

 



1858 As the group left the Concord to Portsmouth turnpike and started north on the New Orchard Road, they found that Dr. Leonard W. Peabody lived in the house on the westerly side at the corner of the road and directly opposite, on the easterly corner was the home of Benjamin L. Locke.


1892 James O. Fiske, this farm was on the east side of the highway at the foot of the long hill. “Fiske’s Hill”

The Fiske family, at this time, consisted of James O. Fiske, his wife Augusta A., a son Kidder C., and a son George V. Fiske who later became a medical doctor and practiced his profession in the city of Manchester for many years.

 

The Fisk home does not appear on the 1858 map, and was probably built by Samuel and Kezia Batchelder before 1868. Samuel was a son of Dearborn Batchelder who owned the corner lot of New Orchard Road and Route 4, along with property on the corner of Route 4 and the entrance to Center Hill Road. Samuel and Kezia also owned a house on Goboro Road, and sold the New Orchard Road house to Varnum Fisk of Epsom in 1868. Varnum also owned property in the Mountain District. Varnum and his wife Dolly (Cloudman) did not have a large family, son Frank L. Fisk died in 1866; a daughter lived only about a month in 1837; and James O. Fisk who was born in Deerfield in 1836.

 

James O. Fisk married Mary J. Mouton in Deerfield June 11, 1856. They had two children: Stella L. born in 1857 and died unmarried in 1873; and Alma D., born in 1862 and married in 1887, James H. Bickford, son of Henry Warren and Orilla H. (Locke) Bickford. In 1871, James O. Fisk's wife Mary died, and he married as his second wife, Augusta A. Wiggin, daughter of John and Esther (Libbey) Wiggin, born in 1849 and married at Manchester in 1874. She was the widow of Calvin D. Johnson who died in 1871 at Haverhill, Massachusetts, they had one son, Kidder C., who went as Kidder C. Fiske. James O. and Augusta had one surviving son, George Varnum Fiske, born May 12, 1875 in Epsom and married Stella May Morrison. Varnum Fisk deeded the home to his son James O. Fiske in 1878, which when he sold it to Charles S. Hall in 1907, included 60 acres of land with the buildings. Charles S. Hall was heavily into real estate, and turned the property over in a weeks time selling the Fisk farm to Edwin J. Place of Epsom in March of 1907.

 

Edwin Josiah Place was born in Gilmanton and married in Laconia in 1886, Alice Rouella Smith. The couple had a daughter Edna in 1887 and moved to Epsom. Alice died in Epsom in 1923, and Edwin married in 1925, as his second wife, Bertha L. Burnham, born in Epsom in 1880 and daughter of George H. and Flora E. (Marden) Burnham. Just before his second marriage he sold the home to Charles  Walker of Hopkinton, who on the same day of May, 1925, deeded the property to Melvin L. Pratt of Exeter. It would appear finances saw the property become the property of a Loan and savings bank which sold the former Fisk farm to Thomas R. and Augusta Judith (Merrill) Yeaton.

 

Thomas R. Yeaton moved his family to this site in 1931, He was the son of Alvah L. and Etta (Bartlett) Yeaton, born in Northwood in 1896. His marriage to Augusta Judith Merrill (who also went by A. Judith) was in 1923 and the couple had two children: son Herbert I., and daughter Eris May. Thomas R. died in 1978, and his widow sold the property in 1978 to Robert Schroeder of Hooksett, who sold the Edwin J. Place farm of 60 acres the following year to Gene L. and Rose M. Hilliard.

 

1858 Up the long hill, across a flat and came to the “Shop Hill” where in past years a shop had stood but was now gone; then a short distance downhill to the home of D. Brown.


1892 Joseph P. Locke and his wife Lydia (Thompson) Locke, lived on the road at the junction of the New Orchard and the Range roads. The Locke buildings being on the west side of the New Orchard Road. Joseph P. and Lydia Locke did not have any children, but a nephew of Mrs. Locke, Arthur O. Friel, stayed with them at various times, when he was a boy. Mr. and Mrs. Locke made shoes by hand did some farming besides.

 

This property went through several owners, eventually being bought by the widow Tamson Bunker in 1837. The prior owner, David Sherburne, bought the lot in 1835, the deed not indicating any house on the site, though it does when it is bought by the widow Bunker. Tamson was the daughter of Moses and Lydia (Wentworth) Rand of Barnstead, who married in 1815 Joseph Bunker. He died in 1832, and she married as her second spouse, John Wallace. John was the son of Lieut. William and Mary (Brown) Wallace, who had married at Barnstead in 1804, Phebe Rand, sister to Tamson, and resided in Sanbornton, NH.

 

John and Tamson sold the home in 1842 to Cotton W. Drake of Pittsfield who owned the home for five years, selling to David Philbrick of Epsom, the 1/2 acre lot 'at the junction of the range road with the New Orchard Road.'  David Philbrick sold the home to Simon Brown of Milton, later Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1849. Census records place Simon in Massachusetts in 1850 and 1860, The 1858 map gives the occupant as D. Brown, likely David Brown, Simon's brother. Their parents were John Smith and Rachel (Philbrick) Brown, he died in 1855, she in 1858. They also had a son Samuel who resided in Epsom with his wife Sally Cochran; Hiram who died in 1831, and Nicholas who died in 1825. John Smith Brown's wife, Rachel, was the daughter of David and Ruth (Merrill) Philbrick, and it is her brother David who sold the property to Simon Brown.

 

Simon sold the property back to David Philbrick in 1858, who perhaps allowed David Brown to reside in the home, but with his wife Eunice, sold the house to William Brown of Epsom in 1860. William and his wife Lucretia sold the home the same day of Joseph B. Cass and Joseph Lawrence of Epsom. This was strictly a business deal as four days later it became the property of Andrew J. Sherburne of Epsom.

 

Andrew Jackson Sherburne was the son of John and Abigail (Page) Sherburne, who married at Northwood in 1856, Laura O. Ham, daughter of George Benson and Olive Ann (Bickford) Ham. They had two daughters who apparently died young, one unnamed in 1858, and a Nellie J., 1859. The family in the 1860 US Census is living at this New Orchard Road home, selling it to Joseph P. Locke in 1870. The 1870 US Census shows Andrew J. and his wife Laura running a hotel in Pittsfield with two daughters, Lorette J. E., of whom nothing more is known and probably died young; and Anna M., who died in 1893.

 

Joseph Prescott Locke was one of five children of Simeon Prescott Locke and his wife Sarah of Locke's Hill. He married at Pittsfield in 1862, Lydia Meader Thompson, daughter of Lewis and Elizabeth (Locke) Thompson of North Road, Epsom. The couple had no children and resided in their home until their deaths, he in 1911, she in 1907, both buried in the Quaker Cemetery in Pittsfield, NH. Their heirs sold the home to Arthur C. Locke of Pittsfield in 1911. Arthur C. Locke, born April 17, 1876, was a son of Dexter H. Locke, another son of Simeon P. Locke, and a nephew of Joseph P. Locke.

 

Arthur C. Locke married late in life, the same year he bought his Epsom home. His spouse was Carrie L. Francis, (also seen as Francier) who had married a George B. Locke in 1875 at Hyde Park, Massachusetts. They divorced and she and Arthur C. Locke married in Epsom on July 29, 1911. She died in 1944, and Arthur C. Locke sold the home to Grace A. MacKay in 1951. He died in Epsom, December 31, 1960.

 

Grace MacKay owned the home for twenty years, and passed through her estate to Marilyn Martel of Ohio. She sold the home in 1972 to Karl and Alice McCormack.

 

In the foreground, the home of Henry W. Bickford with the Stanley farm in the background. The site was the earlier home of Nathaniel Sherburne

1858 - No house on the site.


1892 Henry W. Bickford lived a short distance beyond the Locke home and on the same side of the road, their home was in the “Hollow” opposite the Old Tannery Pond. Mrs. Bickford was a sister to Joseph P. Locke, her name was Orilla H. (Locke) Bickford. Mr. and Mrs. Bickford had a family of four children but at this time, their oldest son, James H., Bickford had married Elma D. Fiske (the daughter of James O. Fiske) and were living out of town. An older daughter of Henry and Orilla Bickford, Alice, who married Fred Giles, was living in Northwood Narrows. Their daughter Annie B. and their youngest son, Charles S. Bickford, were living at the Bickford home at this time.

 

This three acre lot did not have a home in 1858, though it appears one was built shortly thereafter. The property was owned by Joseph J. Moses and John S. Cate when it was sold to John Sherburne of Epsom in 1853. John likely built the house and sold 'land in Epsom with all the buildings I own' beginning on the New Orchard Road, about three acres.

 

John Sherburne and his wife Abigail (Page) had up to ten children, of which probably there were a David, Daniel and Nancy, of which little if any information has been obtained. The couple married in 1816, and known children included George Washington; John Colby; Mary Jane; Lucetta (or Rosetta); Martha A. and Jessie Stevens. Son Andrew Jackson Sherburne for a time lived next door. This house and lot was sold by John to his son John Colby Sherburne in 1860, who died unmarried in 1878. At this time his estate was settled by his brother Andrew J., and the home was sold to William Clark of Pembroke. Clark sold the lot to Charles H. Carpenter in 1880, and Carpenter held the property until 1903 when it was sold to Henry Bickford of Epsom. The 1892 map already has Henry Bickford living in the home, which now included 10 acres.

 

Henry Warren Bickford was a son of William and Polly (Rand) Bickford of Goboro Road. He married Orilla H. Locke in 1863 at Epsom, she the daughter of Simeon Prescott and Sarah Blake (Cass) Locke of Locke's Hill. The couple had children: James H.; George Prescott; Annie Bell; Alice Prescott; and Charles Sumner Bickford. The next resident was Joseph A. Warren of Epsom who resided in the home for about five years when it was sold to Burt D. Young, co-owner of the Silver and Young store at Gossville. Young sold the land with buildings to Mrs. Margaret Stanley, wife of Herbert S. Stanley in 1915, and the property remained part of the Stanley farm.

 



1858 At this point the Range Road commenced, branching a little to the right and continuing on in  northerly direction. So down a hill, crossing the brook at the old Tannery mill pond, then up the hill to the home of J. Sherburne. His house was at the top of the hill and on the westerly side of the road; a short distance beyond but on the easterly side of the road lived the M. Sherburne family. (Mary Sherburne)


1892 Then next beyond the Bickford home was the Samuel B. Stanley place, this was at the top of the hill and on the same side of the road as the Bickford and Locke places. Mrs. Stanley was another sister of Joseph P. Locke, name, Mandana C. (Locke) Stanley. Mr. and Mrs. Stanley made shoes by hand, they also had quite a lot of land and did some farming. Their son Herbert S. Stanley, Bert, as he was usually called, was at home with his parents, not married at this date.

 

What was later known as the Stanley farm was part of lot 99, the original right of Samuel Frost, whose daughter Alice Hight of Portsmouth sold to Joshua Wentworth of Portsmouth in 1770. For a dozen years Wentworth sat on the property, finally selling it to Nathaniel Sherburne of Portsmouth in 1782. Nathaniel and his wife Jane (Nutter) sold the land, 'for the love and affection which I have to my son Nathaniel Sherburne' being the eastern half of lot 99 in 1788. The western portion was sold to Nathaniel Sherburne Jr. of Epsom, and Daniel Sherburne of Portsmouth in 1799, indicating that Nathaniel had settled on the eastern end.

 

Nathaniel Sherburne settled in Epsom with his wife Molly (aka Mary) Sanders, daughter of George Berry and Anna Perkins (Page) Sanders, who was born in Epsom in 1771. The marriage was in Epsom in 1789, and the children included: John, born 1790 and married Abigail Page; Abigail born 1771, who married Jesse Stevens; Mary (aka Polly), born abt. 1795 and married William Rand of Deerfield; Elizabeth (aka Betsey) born 1798 married John S. Rand of Deerfield, brother of William; David, born 1800, married Fanny Prescott; and Nancy who is mentioned in a newspaper article of 1807, and of which nothing more is known.

 

Nathaniel died in 1818 and was buried in the family lot on the property, his wife Mary and two sons, John and David inheriting. John mortgaged 88 acres of lot 99 to John Rand of Deerfield in 1835, and his brother David died in 1837. By 1857 John and his mother had disposed of the homestead, at which time William and Rachel Sanders sold part of lot 99 to Perley C. Giles, 36 acres with buildings, 'subject to the right of dower of widow Mary Sherburne.' Perley Giles, who had a home across the street, kept the property for four years, selling to John S. Cate in 1861 with the same widow's dower provisions. John S. Cate continued to hold the former Sherburne homestead for a decade, selling to Samuel Stanley of Epsom on August 26, 1871.

 

Samuel Stanley was born in Haverhill, NH in 1832 and married in 1859, Abby J. Worth, daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Fife) Worth, born about 1840. She died in 1860 having not had any children. Samuel married a second time, Mandana C. Locke, born in Epsom, 1835, daughter of Simeon Prescott and Sarah Blacke (Cass) Locke of Locke's Hill. She was previously married to John W. Page in 1855, with whom she had three children. With Samuel Stanley she had a surviving son, Herbert S. Stanley in 1873.

 

Samuel Stanley died in 1904 leaving the homestead by will to his wife Mandana. Mandana died in 1919, and the property, by her will, passed to son Herbert S. Stanley.

 

Herbert S. Stanley was born in Epsom, November 27, 1873 and married in Rumney November 13, 1895, Carrie Grace Keyes, daughter of Joseph Carpenter and Almira C. (Willoughby) Keyes. They had one daughter, Isabelle Pauline (also seen as Pauline F.) born in 1897. Shortly after the couple divorced. She remarried in 1900 to Everett F. Lindsay, and was living with her parents in Rumney with her daughter Pauline. She died in Rumney in 1906. Herbert S. Stanley married second in 1902 in Boston, Margaret Connell, born in Ireland, 1876, and daughter of James and Rosanna (Clark) Connell. They had three children, Samuel B., born in 1905, married in 1925, Evelyn E. Clark; Marguereite Catherine, born 1909, married in 1928 Don M. Wright, and died in 1991; and Herbert Connell Stanley, born 1915, died in Concord February 1952. Herbert S. died in 1927 from a self inflicted gun shot wound after a nervous breakdown. His wife Margaret died in Concord in 1937, and both are buried in the Calvary Cemetery in Concord. By will Margaret obtained the home which she sold in 1928 to George A. Dean. After several owners, the property was foreclosed on and bought from New Hampshire Savings Bank by George F. Dowst in 1939.

 

George Fowler Dowst was the son of Ernest George and Martha Susan (Fowler) Dowst, Martha being the daughter of Horace and Ida M. (Holt) Fowler. George Fowler Dowst married Norma F. Jevnager at Epsom on September 11, 1939 and had children Richard Ernest and Christine M. Dowst. George died in 1975 and his widow Norma sold the property to George F. Carlson.

 

The tannery across the road was sold to Jacob Hall, one acre, in 1847, which he sold to Joseph J. Moses and John S. Cate in 1850, which included land John Sherburne occupied sold to him by the widow Mary Rand in 1848.

 

The cemetery on the Stanley home was used as late as 1893 when it appears that Anna Sherburne, daughter of Andrew Jackson Sherburne, had her remains moved from the Woodlawn Cemetery in Concord to the family plot on the Stanley Farm. Though past owners remember several burials, in 1997 only that of Nathaniel Sherburne remained. There are likely many other burials now unknown.

 

 

1858 A short distance beyond but on the easterly side of the road lived the M. Sherburne family. (Mary ‘Molly’  Sherburne)


[1858 Perley C. Giles,  east side of road before M Sherburne, not mentioned by George H. Yeaton]


1892 Next we come to the Perley C. Giles place but on the opposite side of the road, here lived, Perley C. Giles his wife Clarissa S. (Grant) Giles, their daughter Viola A., son Herbert P., daughter Nettie and Ella M. Giles. Perley C. and his wife Clarissa S. Giles made shoes by hand. This made three families where the husband and wife were shoemakers, all within a radius of one-fourth of a mile.

 

I can close my eyes, think of the old days and seem to hear the sound of the mallets and broad faced hammers that the men were using on the sole leather, before they were sewed and again after sewing and turning the shoes. In the warm weather, when the windows at the shoemaker's homes were open, the sound of these hammers would carry a long distance through the air and I can recall hearing them when quite some distance from the homes of the shoemakers. In memory I can see the large fat hogs that Perley Giles had every fall, they would be in a small yard on the south side of his barn. They would be so fat that they could hardly waddle up to the feed trough when Mr. Giles came with their feed, and their eyes; there was so much fat around their eyes that all one could see were slits, in the rolls of fat where their eyes were supposed to be. I guess the Giles family liked fat pork.

 

Perley C. Giles was from Deerfield, NH where he was born on April 22, 1834, and married in Epsom, Clara (Clarissa) Grant in 1855. She was the daughter of George Wells and Sally (Foss) Grant of Epsom, born March 30, 1839. Perley bought the Nathaniel Sherburne farm from William Sanders in 1857, and the map of 1858 shows his home actually across the street. The deed included the transaction being subject to the dower of the late Nathaniel's wife, Molly (Mary) Sherburne who appears to occupy a residence just to the north of the Giles homestead. The Sherburne homestead across New Orchard Road was sold in 1861 to John S. Cate.

 

Perley bought additional land from Samuel Stanley in 1870, being on the east side of New Orchard Road in 1870. The family homestead is where Perley C. and his wife raised their children which included: Fred A., born in 1858 and married in 1881 Amanda Kimball, and after her death in 1917, married Emma I. Gilman; Ella Mary, also seen in records as Mary E., born about 1860, who married in Epsom in 1901, Charles A. Parker; Clara Nettie, born in 1861 married at Northwood in 1888, Charles Stark Pierce; Addie Estella, born about 1864, married at Epsom in 1891, Edward Joseph Canfield; Viola A., born January 22, 1866, died at Pittsfield, unmarried July 17, 1949; and Herbert Perley, born in 1868, married first at Pittsfield in 1898, Lyla Belville, and after her death in 1929, married second in 1934, Ruth Frances Sanborn, daughter of Jeremy Leavitt and Emma Sophia (Cofran) Sanborn of Chichester, NH.

 

The Giles family were a staple of New Orchard Road for nearly fifty years, finally selling the homestead in 1905 to Susan Potter of Providence, Rhode Island. The Potters continued ownership until 1960, when Theresa, who was deeded the property in 1957, sold to Walter C. Chase of Epsom. Chase, who lived further up the road, sold the land and buildings to Robert Becker in 1965. The home went through a series of owners, including Willard, Leonard, McCormack, Shuster, and finally in 1980, Morency.

 

The widow Mary Sherburne remains shrouded in mystery, despite the fact her dower rights are mentioned in many deeds, though n document has been found stating exactly what they were. Presumably her rights included a place to live, and by 1858 that was just above the Perley Giles home. In the 1860 census she is living between her grandson John C. Sherburne and Perley C. Giles, age 87, but there is no value given for any property. She appears paying tax for buildings and 27 acres of land in 1860, and appears again in 1862 and 1864 with the same land and no buildings, and does not appear in the records in 1864. She also does not appear in any record of deaths for the town or New Hampshire vital records, and is assumed she died before 1864. In 1870, Perley C. Giles bought land in Epsom, 'part of lot once occupied by Widow Mary Sherburne containing two acres' from Samuel Stanley. The house does not appear on the county map of 1892.

 



1858 Now around a curve in the road, up a small hill and they came to the J. S. Cate farm; this farm was settled about the year 1776, by Deacon John Cate. Deacon John Cate built a saw mill on the Odiorne Pond brook, just in back of the Cate home, the mill was in operation at this time.


1892 My home was a short distance beyond the Perley Giles place, but on the west side of the road, it was the original Cate farm. Deacon John Cate settled on this farm about the year 1776. It was at this house where I was born, on a Friday morning at one o’clock, A.M. December 21, 1883. I do not remember about it, all I know is what I was told in later years. I lived at this home for over fifty years, our family at this date (1892) consisted of my father James Yeaton, my mother Annie R. (Crockett) Yeaton, a brother John C., (he was seven years older than I) my sister Helen Elisabeth and my great Aunt Ruth E. Prescott. My much older brother (23 yrs. older) Edwin R. Yeaton who was born on June 25, 1860 had married a sister of Charles Eastman (of Concord) and was living on the turnpike near the Epsom Town Hall. We had at my home, oxen, steers, cows, young cattle, hogs and hens.

 

The Cate farm was part of lot 100 originally drawn by John and William Cate, and in 1773 William Cate Senior and Eleazar Cate of Greenland, sold the 112 acres to John Cate, joiner, of Londonderry. Before moving to Epsom he married Abigail Sherburne of Portsmouth, daughter of Samuel and Mercy (Wiggin) Sherburne. Their first few children were born in Londonderry, the others in Epsom and the births are recorded in the old Epsom town records, but do not appear baptized in Epsom. The children included: Abigail, born in Londonderry June 27, 1768 and married in Epsom in 1793, David Griffin, son of Nathan and Phoebe (Cass) Griffin; Ebenezer, born Londonderry Nov. 7, 1770, married Phebe Gilman of Newmarket in 1799, resided in Chichester, and recorded in a daybook some of the families' vital records; John, born in Londonderry July 19, 1773, married in 1797, Mary Towle of Hampton; Martha, born in Epsom June 9, 1775, married in Epsom as his second wife in 1824, Josiah Knowles and resided on New Orchard Road; Elizabeth (Betsey), born in Epsom November 7, 1777, married in town in 1802, Mark Moses, son of James and Elizabeth (Sherburne) Moses; Samuel, born in Epsom September 27, 1783, married Abigail Prescott, November 12, 1812; and Mary, born Epsom, Nov. 19, 1785, and died according to the Ebenezer Cate daybook, April 2, 1787.

 

A biography of Deacon John Cate appeared in the Suncook Valley Times newspaper, August 4, 1870, probably by John French:

 

"There are many worthy men whose names are not prominent in military exploits or great business enterprises who have by example and precept filled an important part in the everyday civil and religious life of Society. Such a man was Dea. John Cate, of Epsom.

As early as 1660 we find the names of John and James Cate, two brothers from England, enrolled among the taxpayers of Hampton. Their descendants are not numerous but some branches of the family immigrated to the the frontier towns, some to Epsom, Northwood and Meredith. The Christian names John and James have been

been retained, in the different generations, with the usual Puritan custom.

 

John, the subject of this sketch, was born in Greenland, 1733 and in 1766 married Abigail Sherburne of Portsmouth, a familiar and prominent family name in Colonial times. They moved to Londonderry and lived for a time in the Scotch Irish Settlement under Father McGregor. For some unknown reason they moved from there to Epsom about 1750 and settled on what was called New Orchard Road where they passed the remainder of their long and useful lives.

 

Dea. John Cate was intimately connected with the town and church affairs for over fifty years, during its most prosperous and eventful history. His patriotism or integrity was never questioned and though age had crept on at the time of the war he took an active part in aiding soldiers and serving the town. Until the day of his death he wore his three cornered hat as one of the sons of Liberty and daily prayed for his posterity and his country.

 

He was the first Deacon in Epsom and one of the leading men in church offices. The church records of Epsom belong to the Historical Society at Concord and a copy of them is in the possession of Samuel G. Drake, Esq., the historian of Boston, a grandson of Rev. John Tuck the first minister of Epsom and no name appears in these so frequently as Dea. John Cate. He clung with tenacity to his church creed and to old manners and customs. For many years with Dea. Locke he occupied the Deacon's seat and with a huge white wig and long staff by his side would read or deacon off the hymn and sing with a nasal twang according to the custom of "ye olden times."

He died of old age. Rev. Jonathan Curtis preached the funeral sermon from the text, "And he worshipped leaning upon his staff." He left three sons; Ebenezer, John and Samuel, who have all followed their father to his long home. His grandson John Sherburne Cate lives upon the old homestead settled one hundred and twenty years ago or more. Dea. John Cate was a man of great simplicity of character, pure motives, industrious, frugal and a devoted Christian. His long life, trusting faith and exemplary habits have a lasting influence. He felt great personal responsibility and discharged his duties with caution and conscientious fidelity. The Sabbath was a day of rest to him and was sanctified in his own house. In society he was a peacemaker and he ever aimed to keep a conscience void of offence towards God."

 

Deacon John Cate deeded part of his property to his son Samuel in 1813, 41 acres, and he acquired the remainder after the his father's death in 1821. Son Ebenezer moved to Chichester in 1800, and son John was deeded property just north of the homestead. Samuel Cate and his wife Abigail had a small family: son John was born and died in 1815; son John Sherburne Cate was born in 1817, married in 1841, Jane Moses Sherburne, daughter of David and Betsey Sherburne (Moses) Sherburne; and daughter Mary born in 1822 and married the same day as her brother John S., David Sherburne, brother to Jane M. Sherburne. Samuel died in 1862, his wife Abigail in 1847, and the family had a small cemetery lot just north of the homestead on the east side of New Orchard Road. The cemetery stones are primarily broken and unreadable. Samuel Cate deeded land to his son John S. Cate in 1848, being 55 acres, near the land occupied by Widow Mary Sherburne, land of Joseph J. Moses and land of Stephen Rand. He inherited the homestead after the death of his father. John Sherburne Moses and his wife Jane M. had children: Almon Fifield, John W., who died young and is buried in the small Cate Cemetery on New Orchard Road; Emma J., Elizabeth A., Annie Lizzie, who died young and is buried in the family cemetery; Jennie Elizabeth and John A. Cate. The family removed to Manchester and sold the family farm in 1871 to Frank P. Norris of Pittsfield. Norris, a Civil War Veteran, sold the property of 55 acres, with saw mill, reserving the burying ground, to James A. Yeaton in 1878.

 

James A. Yeaton was the son of John and Sarah (Bickford) Yeaton, born January 11, 1832, and married March 3, 1858 in Deerfield, Martha A. Randall, daughter of Francis Drew and Betsey (Sanborn) Randall. Their children included James Alfred, born in 1858 and died in 1860; Edwin R., born June 23, 1860 and married in 1886, Ella Melinda Eastman; and John L. Randall, born and died in 1868. Martha died on August 4, 1869, and James A. married as his second wife on April 9, 1874 at Pittsfield, Annie Rebecca Crockett, daughter of John Kelley and Sally Rebecca (Randall) Crockett. Sally Rebecca Randall was a sister to his first wife, Martha, and her spouse, John K. Crockett died in 1854, and she married second, William Goss of Epsom as his second wife.

 

Annie R. Crockett was born in 1853, and with James A. Yeaton had three children: John Crockett, born May 19, 1875 and married in Epsom in 1897, Nellie B. Perkins; Helen Elizabeth Prescott (Helen E. P. ), born July 22, 1878, married at Epsom in 1897, Charles McClary Steele; and George Hill Yeaton, born December 21, 1883, married at Pittsfield in 1909, Ada Lucy Brown, daughter of Charles Jonathan and Lenora (Jones) Brown of Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

 

A biography was printed of James A. Yeaton in the Merrimack and Sullivan Counties Biographical Review:

 

"James Yeaton, a well-known farmer of Epsom, Merrimack County, was born in this town, January 11, 1832, son of John and Sarah (Bickford) Yeaton . His ancestors for several generations were prosperous farmers in this State; and his great-grandfather, John Yeaton (first), was a pioneer settler in Epsom. John Yeaton, second, grandfather of James, was a native of this town, and resided here his entire life. A successful farmer, he accumulated considerable property. He was a Democrat in politics and a Congregationalist in his religious views. At his death he was about eighty-one years old. He was three times married. His first wife, whose maiden name was Bickford, died at the age of twenty-five. Of her two sons who attained maturity, John was the elder. The father married for his second wife a Miss Towle, who had three children, none of whom are living. His third marriage, which was made with the widow of William Yeaton , resulted in no children. John Yeaton, third, was born in Epsom, March 29, 1804 . He was reared to farming, which he followed successfully during his active period; and he died at the age of seventy-six years, leaving a good estate. He was one of the prominent men of his day. While not an office-seeker for himself, he took an active part in securing the election of capable officials. In politics he acted with the Free Soil party, but later became a Republican. He was a member of the Free Will Baptist church. His first wife, Sarah Bickford Yeaton, whom he married December 25, 1828, was a daughter of Samuel Bickford, of Epsom. She died at the age of forty-nine years, leaving five of her six children; namely, James, Sarah E., Daniel, Vianna R., and Betsy A.  Daniel Yeaton married Annie B. Rowell, of Chichester, N.H., and has three children—Alfred D., Minot R., and Alice B.  Vianna R. is now the widow of Elbridge Batchelder, late of Epsom, and has two children—George E. and Edith G.  Betsy A. married for her first husband Thomas B. Robinson, of Epsom, by whom she had two sons—Bert and Elmer. She is now the wife of John Brown, of Northwood, N.H.  John Yeaton, third, married for his second wife Mrs. Caroline Cilley, the widow of Samuel Cilly, late of Lowell, Mass, and a sister of his first wife. By this union there were two children: Stella R, who is no longer living; and Fred W.

 

James Yeaton was educated in the schools of his native town and at Pembroke Academy. After leaving school, he learned the shoemaker’s trade in Deerfield, N.H., and followed it for three winters. He then engaged in agriculture. In 1878 he purchased his present farm of sixty acres. On March 3, 1858, he contracted his first marriage with Martha A. Randall, daughter of Francis D. Randall, of Deerfield, N.H.  Of her three children Edwin Randall Yeaton is living. June 25, 1860, he married Ella M. Eastman, of this town, and now has one child—Albert James, who was born May 26, 1896. Mrs. Martha Yeaton died at the age of thirty-six. On April 9, 1874, Mr. Yeaton entered his second marriage with Annie R. Crockett, whose mother was a sister of his first wife. She was born in Concord, March 30, 1853, daughter of John K. and Sally Rebecca (Randall) Crockett. The children of this union are: John C., who was born May 19, 1875; Helen E. P, born July 22, 1878; and George Hill, born December 21, 1883.

 

Mr. Yeaton is a member of the Free Will Baptist church. In politics he is a Democrat. He served as Town Clerk for two years in succession, and has been several times elected a member of the Board of Selectmen. As a public official he was able and efficient. He is much respected by his townsmen."

 

Among the many stories George H. Yeaton related in his many notebooks, was a detailed look at what it was like growing up on the family farm. The way of life had not changed much since before the Civil War, and his account is well worth preserving:

 

LIFE ON A FARM YEARS AGO

MARCH 1890 AND MARCH 1962

 

At this season of the year my father and my older brother would be finishing “working up” our wood pile, nearly fifteen cords. In those days the trees were cut “sled length” in the woods. This was the quickest and the easiest way to “get up” a woodpile, we had a yoke of oxen which were used to haul the wood to the dooryard.

At this date wood was “fitted” by hand. The large logs that were to be used for wood had to be cut into stove wood length with a crosscut saw. This small job was done by my father and brother, as I was not old enough to handle one end of a saw. They always planned to do most of the sawing in the afternoon then at night stand the sawed blocks of wood on end. In this position they would freeze and the more frost in the chunks, the easier they would split the next morning.

 

The splitting was done by the use of wedges and a mallet or more commonly called a maul. My father made his own mauls, he would find a white oak log eight inches in diameter, remove the bark, cut a twelve inch length from it, put an iron band on each end, bore a hole on the side six inches from each end, make a rugged handle and drive it into the section of oak log and there you were, ready to split the big chunks of wood.

 

I would be with them at the woodpile mostly watching and asking questions, my time would come later when the wood box needed to be filled.

 

Occasionally one or two crows would be seen flying about. In those days the old people, if they saw a crow in the month of March would say “the heart of winter is broken, I saw a crow fly over the other day.” It was in the month of March that the hogs were slaughtered and taken to market, sometimes to Pittsfield or Suncook, or sold to the local stores in Epsom. These hogs were the shoats which my father had bought the previous fall and had been fattening during the winter months feeding them boiled potatoes and pumpkins mixed with meal.

In our cellar kitchen there was a large set kettle, this was used to cook the hog feed in. At butchering time we used this same kettle to heat water in, as one must have plenty of hot water to scald the hogs with so that the bristles could be easily removed with the liberal use of powdered rosin.

 

A butcher would come to our farm, kill and dress as many hogs as we had for fifty cents each. We would heat the water, furnish the rosin and help in handling the hogs.

 

After finishing the woodpile and slaughtering the hogs, we would tap the maple trees and make some syrup.

 

We had no regular maple orchard or sap house, but there were plenty of maple trees in the dooryard, beside the highway and scattered over the farm. My mother would boil the sap into syrup in the house over the kitchen stove.

 

The next event came the first day of April when the Selectmen would come to take inventory. They always came by way of the New Orchard Road on their first day of taking inventory.

Commencing at the lower end of the road, they would reach our place about nine or nine-thirty in the morning. This was a busy morning, carding the cattle, making things tidy about the yard and in the barn. On this day we always swept the long barn floor before the Selectmen got there.

 

The month of April was the odd jobs month, besides taking care of the live stock, bagging the ears of corn in the corn barn and taking the corn to the grist mill where they ground it cob and all. Then there were the potatoes to sort over, keeping only enough to eat and plant. The rest we would sell.

 

Some years in the month of April there were snow drifts left in the roads, after much of the road was free of snow, then whoever had charge of the highways would get men to shovel out these drifts so that the entire road would be made passable with horses and wheels. I can well remember riding through drifts after they had been shoveled out. The snow on each side of the road would be as high as the horse's back and in many places the drifts would extend for a considerable distance (the first part of April). April was the month that the farmers would look after the farm implements needed for the early spring work. If plow points on cutters on the “breaking up” plows were badly worn, they must be replaced.

 

The month of April being one of the short months of the year, before one realized it, spring came. Then with the cleaning of the barn, plowing, fencing (pasturing time was May 20) taking off the storm windows, hauling away the banking, opening up the cellar windows and getting the pen ready for the pigs, which my father would soon buy, there were not many idle days.

 

Then there was the soft-soap to be made. My father would place an old vinegar barrel just outside the cellar-kitchen door. This barrel rested on a raised platform, made of boards a little larger than the barrel and having quite a large groove on the sides and back end, but made so that it came together in the front with an outlet at the edge. The barrel had some small holes in the bottom. Next my father would bring out the wood ashes, which he had been saving during the winter months, filling the barrel with the ashes. He would then add several pails of water, this would cause the lye from the ashes to form and drip out onto the platform, from the small holesin the barrel, filling the grooves with lye. This lye was caught as it drifted from the platform in a wooded tub or large wooden pail. It would take two or three days for a barrel of ashes and water to leach out. He may have added more ashes and water to the barrel from day to day. After the lye had all leached out he would hang some large kettles on the crane in the fireplace that was in the cellar-kitchen, put the lye into the large iron kettle, together with the “soap grease” that my mother had been saving since the last soap making. This mixture had to be cooked a considerable length of time. It was then taken off, allowed to cool and then put into the soap barrel in the cellar.

 

This barrel was a queer looking barrel, it was made of heavy staves (straight staves). It was much larger at one end than the other. The large end was the end on which it stood, the smaller end open. There was always a long wooden paddle in the barrel which was used to stir the soap. My mother had a bowl which she only used to bring the soap up in from the cellar. I can well remember this bowl and bringing it up the stairs filled with soft-soap.

 

By the last of May the spring work was done, including the planting, all but the beans, some late garden seeds and the hills of cucumbers. Cucumbers should be planted the first day of June, before sunrise, and then the cucumber bugs will not trouble them. As beans will sprout and come up quickly, it was not a good idea to plant them too early on account of the late frosts we were apt to have the first part of June.

The corn which would be up would be killed by a late frost, but it would grow again, it only set it back a few days. Potatoes the same, but not the beans.

 

In the month of May the hens would be traveling around the dooryard with their broods of chickens. My mother would set a number of hens in the month of April. Strange how each little chicken would know its own mother and would only follow her.

 

The District school commenced its spring term about May 1st and that meant back to school for me. But there were other things outside of school that interested me for it was in the latter part of April and the early part of May when the large suckers came up the brook from the Little Suncook River at the shoe factory pond. The suckers also came down the brook from Odiorne Pond. These fish twelve to twenty inches in length. They had great times catching these suckers in the brook near the Ames farm. The men would come with lanterns and spears in the night, as this was a good time to get the fish.

 

In the early spring season, suckers were good eating, many families would capture a lot of the fish and salt them down in barrels. In this way they could have fish at any season of the year.

 

In dressing this kind of fish the best way was to skin them, cut off their heads and about two inches of the tail. These two inches of a sucker's tail were full of small bones, and when you cut off the two inches, you not only got rid of these small bones, but eliminated the muddy flavor which some folks thought the suckers had.

To salt down fish: first, remove the skin, cut off the head and tail, put a layer of fish in the barrel, sprinkle on some salt, then more fish and more salt. The moisture from the fish with the salt made its own brine.

 

Mrs. Yeaton and myself got caught in a heavy rainstorm in the town of Gilmanton, NH many years ago, as it was nearly night, the family on who we were calling asked us to stay over night. The next morning for breakfast we had fish, baked in milk or cream. After we had eaten we were told that the fish we had just eaten were suckers they had caught in the spring and salted down in a barrel.

 

This family lived on the shore of Loon Pond and a small brook emptied into the pond near their house. These fish came up the brook in large numbers in the early spring. I can still remember how good these fish tasted (after fifty years).

 

I remember another time in the early spring, several men, of whom I was one of the group, were repairing a section of the road near the Epsom-Deerfield town line. The brook which crossed the highway, near where we ate our noon lunch, was alive with large suckers. I suppose that they came from the Suncook Lake. We all caught as many as we wanted to take home. One man who had a small family, one other besides himself, only wanted one fish. He soon caught the one he wanted, which was the largest sucker I think that I ever saw. We caught most of these fish with our hands, you simply found a large fish lying close to the bank, or a large rock, a quick grab and you had your fish. I brought home around a dozen of the big fellows.

 

The brook from Odiorne Pond ran through the pasture and field not far from my home where I lived as a boy.

 

This was also a trout stream and many the trout I have caught in this brook.

 

I also spent many hours fishing at Odiorne Pond when young. It abounded with fish of all kinds which were native to our New Hampshire ponds, such as Pickerel, Horned Pout, White Perch, Yellow Perch, Eels. Large Black Turtles and other kinds of fish. But that is all changed now. The State of New Hampshire has cleaned out all of these fish and stocked the pond with Bass, the kind that the sporting fisherman like to catch.

 

And speaking about horned-pout, a cousin of mine from Haverhill, Massachusetts and myself went fishing oneafternoon in the Little Suncook River. Just before dark we came to the Shoe Factory Pond and on the side next to the Baptist Church we threw in our lines and in less than two hours we had caught sixty or more horned-pout, all of good size. At that time there was no limit on the numbers of pout one could catch.

 

Years afterwards I went horned-pout fishing in the big Suncook River, used a boat. Oh yes! We caught some fish, but not to be compared to the ones I had caught many years before. These last ones were all small fish.

Now back to the brook trout again. There was a small brook (and still is), which came from the old “Tannery” pond on the New Orchard Road. It joined the Odiorne Pond brook shortly before that brook emptied into the river. As a boy I caught a lot of trout from this small brook, in some places it was not over a foot or fifteen inches in width, most of the trout would be six or seven inches long, but one day, I caught a native brook trout in the Odiorne Pond brook. Not to be compared with the trout of today, which our streams are stocked with (trout from the fish hatcheries).

 

It finally came the last of June and then the New Orchard Road school closed its doors for the summer vacation, then with fishing, swimming, playing baseball, Sunday School and Fourth of July picnics, helping with the haying a little, picking blueberries for my mother to can and soon the summer was gone.

 

We would set a few traps for the woodchucks that were eating up the beans, watch the early apple trees so that I would not miss the first ripe one, then it was time to go back to the New Orchard Road school.

 

Now the blue jay could be seen and heard, especially if you went anywhere near a field of corn.

 

In the early part of September the farmers would commence to shock their field corn or instead of shocking it they would cut the stalks on the hills of corn. Albion Locke who lived on Locke’s Hill, a high hill where the frosts come late in the fall, would cut the stalks.

 

My father and his near neighbor Mr. Dotey, would shock their corn. Either way had its advantages but whichever way a person did it, it was advisable to do it before the frosts came. About this same time the beans must be pulled and stacked. After that came potato digging time and if one had any cranberries on their farm it was best to pick them before the hard frosts came. The month of October was apple picking time, that meant work for everyone on the farm. The best winter apples were picked and put in barrels in the house cellar, falls and seconds were peeled, quartered and strung on twine then hung on the apple drying racks. To protect thedrying apples from the flies, we would cover the apple racks and apples with a screen or cheesecloth.

At one end of our orchard there were two or more large pumpkin-sweet apple trees, the apples from these trees were mostly made into boiled cider apple sauce, a few were kept to eat in the winter months.

 

My folks always made a barrel of boiled cider apple sauce, the barrel was kept in a back room where there was no heat and when the weather became cold the barrel of sauce would freeze, then we would be obliged to use a heavy knife to cut it into small chunks before one could get any from the barrel. My, but it was good, sometimes when my mother made doughnuts she would fill a part of the “batch” with this boiled cider apple sauce, others she would fill with mincemeat. She made a “batch” of doughnuts every week, and pies: apple, mince, pumpkin, squash and cranberry. Always had pies on hand of some kind, besides the kinds mentioned above there would sometimes be a custard or lemon pie to eat for supper, then there were the blueberry and rhubarb pies in their season.

 

Molasses cookies: have not seen or tasted a molasses cookie like the ones she used to make. Oh! My wife is a wonderful cook, but somehow her cookies do not taste like the ones my mother made when I was a boy. (Perhaps it is in me). Then the apple dumplings with the sauce she made to eat on them or if one preferred, cream and sugar, either way, they always went.

 

The apples not made use of in any other way went into cider-apples.

 

In the fall the companies which made vinegar would buy these apples, delivered at the railroad station, where they were loaded into box cars.

 

We would keep some to make into cider to fill the vinegar barrel which was in the corn barn and every fall my father would boil down a whole barrel of sweet cider into boiled cider. This was how we got the boiled cider to put into the mince meat, the apple sauce and mix with the summer drink, made with so much molasses, so much ginger, so much boiled cider and so much sugar, then after we had put these ingredients in the jug, We filled it with water.

 

In making the boiled cider we would first get out the big old copper kettle, hang it in the fire place on the crane, fill the kettle with sweet cider, then boil it until it became of the right consistency. A barrel of sweet cider would only make a few gallons.

 

When all the harvesting was done it was something to look at in our house cellar. Bins of potatoes, rows of barrels filled with apples, boxes full of beets, turnips, then the pork barrels filled with salt pork, the barrel of soft-soap, and the row of jugs filled with boiled cider.

 

And then the shelves in the dairy, row after row and tier after tier of canned fruits, berries and such, which my mother had put up during the summer and early fall. There were cans of blueberries, blackberries, pears, grapes, apple sauce, apple jelly, currants, gooseberries, cranberries, crab-apples, strawberries, maple syrup, pickled beets and small cucumbers.

 

Then there were the stone crocks filled with cucumbers pickled in brine, pickled pigs feet and sliced hog shoulders.

 

These hog shoulders were sliced quite thick, first they would put some sage leaves, salt and pepper into the stone crock, then a layer of the sliced shoulder, then more sage leaves, salt and pepper and so on until the crock was full. We had a row of sage bushes in our garden near the gooseberry and currant bushes.

 

It was in the spring when we had the sliced shoulders to eat. My older brother was especially fond of meat preserved this way. I can still remember the aroma that came from the kitchen when this meat was frying.

 

Then there were always one or more crocks filled with butter which had been “packed down” in the months of June and September.

 

The cabbages, pumpkins and squash were kept in the coolest part of the cellar. They would keep better in a cool dry place. The butternuts were gathered in the late fall and spread on the floor in a vacant chamber or in the shed room, together with the chestnuts.

 

Cranberries which were not canned would keep in a chamber or similar place, they would stand quite a lot of cold weather before they would freeze.

 

Right away after harvesting was done, stove wood was put in the shed. This must be tiered in the shed as twelve or fifteen cords of stove wood just thrown in would take up a lot of space.

By this time the corn was all husked and put in the big slatted bin in the corn barn. Then the men came with their thresher and threshed the grain. We raised mostly oats. The grain was then put in the big bin in the corn barn. Inone corner of the corn barn was the vinegar barrel and then in the space between the corn crib and the oat bin there was a row of barrels, empty stone barrels, ready for the beans after they were threshed. A different kind in each barrel, pea beans, red kidney beans, yellow eyed beans, horticulture beans. There were two kinds of these beans, the bush cranberry and the pole cranberry bean. We sometimes raised a few black beans, can’t remember their name.

 

Then there were the long traces of field corn, which was to be saved for seed, to plant the next spring, also a few traces of popcorn and some of sweet corn. These were hung from spikes driven in the floor timbers of the overhead floor in the corn barn.

 

Then there was another row of spikes from which would be hung pieces of meat, which would freeze solid and keep all through the winter months (if we didn't eat it up). This meat would be part pork and half beef.

I think I forgot to mention the long row of Bartlett pear trees just in back of the house. We would eat all we wanted of the pears, my mother would can a lot and then there wasn't a plenty we could not use.

 

Then there was the very large pear tree (for a pear tree) near the corn barn, the pears from this pear tree made wonderful preserves, the pears were a little larger than a Bartlett pear and of a more solid or meaty texture, much darker when cooked. There were also some pomegranate trees quite near the back shed, and two or more grapevines, one was a Concord grape.

 

In those days a good farm was certainly a land of plenty.

 

There were plenty of wild strawberries one could have for the picking.

 

We did not have any chestnut trees on our land. If one wanted chestnuts, they woud go up on Sanborn Hill or in that vicinity. The crab apples, which my mother would can, either came from my older brother’s farm or our next door neighbor Perley Giles.

 

Then there were the home cured hams and bacon, the purple plums from the plum trees and the large red cherries. The cherry trees were large trees and bore large red cherries which, when they were dead ripe, turned much darker.

 

There is one thing, which I feel quite sure I forgot to mention about the apples we used to bake. My motherwould wash a number of the large pumpkin sweet apples, which came from the southeast corner of the orchard, and bake them in a large cookie or biscuit tin. My but they were good eating with milk, or cream on them. Then there was another kind of sweet apple that grew in the same orchard; they too were baked in the same way.

 

The way which we baked the Baldwin apple was a little different, first one would take out the core, then fill the cavity with sugar and cinnamon, then bake. I wonder if folks bake apples in this modern day and age? It has been many years since I have seen or tasted one.  Sometimes in the early spring one would see a flock of wild geese flying north. They would always be in formation, the old gander in the lead, the rest of the large birds would form directly behind their leader, in two lines forming a V shaped line. They most always flew high and some time in the early evening they could not be seen, but by their HONK, HONK, HONK one would know that they were passing in their flight to the open waters of northern New Hampshire, Maine or Canada.

 

In the month of November they would be seen or heard on their migratory flight to the southern waters where they would spend the winter months.

 

After the death of James A. Yeaton, his widow Annie deeded the property, 65 acres including the saw mill and excepting the burying ground, to their son George H. Yeaton. George and his wife Ada Brown had three children: Esther Ruth, who married in 1948 Percy S. Nelson; John Brown (Johnny B.), who married in 1947, Anne Lydia Sedjo; and Marjorie Annie, who died unmarried.

 

George and his wife Ada moved to a smaller house in Gossville, leaving the homestead farm by inheritance to son Johnny B. Yeaton, where it remains in the family. John B. Yeaton died in 2004, his wife in 1998.

 



1858 After leaving the Cate farm and a short visit at the saw mill, the group came to the home of J.J. Moses, this was also on the west side of the road, and at an earlier date had been a part of the original Cate Farm. This was the house, where in later years, Walter Cox, the greatest horseman of his generation was born.


After the Cox family left the New Orchard Road farm and moved to Manchester, Charles E. Cox, the father of Walter Cox, in later years was appointed Warden of the New Hampshire State Prison, he served in this position for nine years; he then resigned and returned to Manchester to live. His son Walter Cox was one of four sons. Guy W. Cox became president of the John Hancock Life Insurance Company, his brother Louis S. Cox was appointed Judge of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Another brother Channing H. Cox, was elected Governor of Massachusetts for two, two year terms 1921–1924.


1892 Henry E. Dotey was living on the farm next above us, his farm was originally a part of the old Cate homestead. Mr. Dotey was a Civil War Veteran, his wife’s name was Adelia Dotey, they had a daughter named Carrie M., who married Everett B. Edmunds. Carrie M. and her husband Everett B. Edmunds had one daughter who they named Pearl Adelia Edmunds. Henry E. Dotey, at one time lived in Dublin, N.H.

 

Though the Cox family is mentioned, there are no deeds showing any family of the name on New Orchard Road. There is a mention in a newspaper article of Messrs Cass and Cox having a successful butchering operation in Epsom and moving the business to Manchester. Included was the mention of Joseph J. Moses going with the firm to Manchester and selling his 'desirable' farm in Epsom.

 

While Samuel Cate owned the Deacon Cate farm, his brother John recieved property from his father just to the north. John Cate married Mary Towle in 1797, daughter of Abraham Perkins and Abigail (Moulton) Towle. for children they had: Abigail M., born 1799 and married in 1823 John McClary Heath, son of Capt. Simon Ames Heath, and resided in Epsom; Eliza, born in 1802 and married in 1823, Enoch French of Pittsfield; Hannah, born 1804, married in 1829, Joseph James Moses, son of Mark and Betsey (Cate) Moses; and Polly, born 1810 and married October 8, 1829 in Epsom, John Sherburne Dolbeer, son of John and Sally (Sherburne) Dolbeer, and lived in New Rye.

 

John Cate died in 1829, and the heirs, namely Enoch French, Joseph Dolbeer, and John M. Heath, all who had married his daughters, signed off on the homestead to the remaining daughter, Hannah and her husband, Joseph James Moses. He was the son of Mark and Betsey (Cate) Moses, born in Epsom in 1803, and married Hannah Cate in 1829. They had one daughter, Elizabeth S., who was born in 1836 and married Sherburne D. Cass, son of Jonathan Stickney and Eliza (Sherburne) Cass.

 

Joseph J. Moses moved to Manchester and put his property up for sale in 1870, and was bought by Jeremiah, Warren and William Tripp. The sale included land and buildings of 70 acres, along with an interest in a saw mill and water privilege. The Tripp's sold the farm, reserving the mill privilege to Henry E. Dotey of Stoneham, MA  in two deeds, one in 1870 and another in 1871.

 

Henry E. Dotey was born in Piermont, New Hampshire to William and Mary A. (Jackson) Dotey, and many of the family moved to Stoneham, MA. There he married Mehitable (aka Hattie) Darling of Dublin, NH in 1863, and had a daughter Carrie M. born in Dublin February 26, 1864. Hattie died at Stoneham the followng year, and Henry married for his second wife, Oldis A. Priest, daughter of Aaron and Pamelia (Corey) Priest, whose sister Mary was the wife of Addison Davis of Epsom. George H. Yeaton gives her name as Adelia, which is perhaps the A from her middle initial. Daughter Carrie married Everett Edmunds of Chichester and had a daughter, Pearl Adelia in 1887 who married Bert Brown at Canterbury in 1909. Henry and his wife sold the home in 1907, and moved for a year to Slab City before then moving to Pittsfield for the remainder of their years. Henry died in 1911, his wife in 1923, and are buried at Floral Park Cemetery in Pittsfield.

 

The next occupants of the property was Charles Sumner Bickford, who bought the home with his father Henry in 1907. Henry Warren Bickford was the son of William and Polly (Rand) Bickford of Goboro Road. Born in 1830, he married Orilla H. Locke, daughter of Simeon Prescott and Sarah Blacke (Cass) Locke of Locke's Hill. Henry and Orilla had children: James H., who married Alma D. Fiske, daughter of James O. and Mary (Moulton) Fiske, later divorced; George Prescott, born 1866 , died December 1866, does not appear with the family in 1870 census; Annie Bell, born in 1868, died unmarried in 1906; Alice Prescott, born in 1869, married in 1892, Fred C. Giles; and Charles Sumner, born in 1877, married in Epsom December 24, 1904, Katie A. Rand, daughter of Alfred E. and Emma (Whipple) Rand of Vermont.

 

The deed of 1907 gave Charles S. Bickford half the property with the provision that he care for his parents. Haney W. died in 1915, his wife Orilla in 1916, with Charles inheriting the homestead. He and his wife Katie had two children: Elmore Alfred, who married Hattie Elizabeth Ambrose in 1930, daughter of Albion N. and Susie F. (Coburn) Ambrose; and Orville Sumner who married in 1937 Jennie C. Wilhemina Johnson, and moved to Iowa. Charles sold the family home in 1926 to Walter C. and Anna Melhorn. After foreclosure in 1932, the property was bought by Janet Grace Kennedy of Concord who later married Orrin Merrill. Her executor sold the property after her death in 2001.

 



1858 After the group left the J. J. Moses farm they came to the home of Mark S. Moses, this was a large farm and the house was a large colonial style house that a former owner, Jonathan A. Knowles, son of Josiah Knowles, who settled at this place about the year 1776, built. It was on this farm that the “Old Swimming Hole,” was located. 


Some of the last ones to use the “Old Swimming Hole,” were: Arthur O. Friel, who left the New Orchard Rd., in the year 1899 to attend high school and later Yale College. He became in after years an Explorer, Author of a number of books, Newspaper man and at one time taught in a high school. Another boy was Walter A. Woodbury, whose father was an optician in Pittsfield.


The third one who spent many hours with these two was, George H. Yeaton. Another a Massachusetts boy, who came to Locke’s Hill with his parents summers, and afterwards became a physician and lived in California, came to my home here in the village of Gossville, in the year 1962, and said that he also used to go swimming with Arthur and Walter in the same place many years ago.


Mark S. Moses bought this farm about the year 1850. Fifteen years later (1865) Mark S. Moses died at age 57 years. His son John M. Moses, was only ten years of age when his father died, but his mother; who was a woman of wide reading and intellectual interests, lived to see her son, John M. Moses, graduate from Dartmouth College. John M. Moses taught for a time, at Coe’s Academy, in later years he devoted much of his time to writing articles for the Granite Monthly and working on the genealogy of different families. He was a man of much strength but only used it in emergencies.


In the year 1900, when I was a student at Coe’s Academy, there was a fire near the home of Mr. Moses in Northwood. One building was a large two story house the other building which burned was a school house. When the school house caught fire and there was no way to save it, John M. Moses went into the building and grasping a combination seat and desk in each hand wrenched them free from the floor, they were fastened to the floor with screws, carried them out of the burning building, then returned for two more. I saw the piles of seats and desks, after the school house had burned.


1892 The Lewis family lived a little ways beyond Mr. Dotey's, but on the opposite side of the road, this was a large farm colonial style house, a long shed connecting the two barns (the two barns were end to end.) One of them had been moved from the Cate farm and placed on the east end of the other barn, or the barn on the west end had been built onto the old Cate barn.


The Lewis family consisted of Cyrus A. Lewis, his wife Nellie M. Lewis and their five sons, named: Frank W., Harry D., Stacy A., Ernest E. and Walter C. Lewis. Ellen J. Holt was the daughter of Samuel Harmon and his wife Eunice Johnson. Ellen J. Holt was born in Hartson, Maine in the year 1825.


Franklin D. Holt died suddenly in the year 1885. He was Prudential Committee of the New Orchard Road school. Mr. Holt came from the state of Maine about the year 1878 and bought this farm. (Now the Lewis farm) His widow Ellen J. Holt, married for her second husband, on August 27, 1888 at Windsor Vermont, Hill E. Ober, born in the year 1816, the son of Benjamin Ober and Elvira (Kimball) Ober. Cyrus A. Lewis sold the farm in the year 1893 and the Lewis family moved to Concord, N.H.


The Franklin D. Holt or Cyrus A. Lewis farm had an acreage of 176 acres in the year 1886. The new owner of the Lewis farm was: Silas B. Woodbury, who died five years after he bought the farm. His widow, their son and the grandson all went to Pittsfield to live. The son, Fred Woodbury was an optician in Pittsfield for a long time
.

 

Jonathan Knowles married about 1806, Margaret Locke, daughter of Francis and MaryAbigail (Katherwood) Locke. His father deeded the family farm to him in two deeds, one in 1810, and the other in 1824. Jonathan and Margaet had children: Josiah, born in 1809, his wife unknown, but one daughter, Esther Jane; Samuel B., born 1811, married in 1835, Olive Stevens Bunker of Barnstead; Esther, born 1815, married about 1833, Samuel Dennett Nutter of Northwood; Francis, died young; Francis Locke, born 1816, married in 1844, Sarah W. Locke. Margaret died in 1817, and Jonathan married second, Ruth Philbrick, daughter of Daniel and Ruth (Merrill) Philbrick of Epsom. Jonathan and his wife Ruth had children: Ruth Morrill, born 1818,  married as his second wife, Samuel Dennett Nutter, who had married her step-sister Esther;  Margaret, born 1821, married Ezra Merrill in 1845;  Ann Maria born about 1822, married George W. Baker;  Jonathan Ayer, born 1824, married in 1843, Susan G. Bickford, daughter of Nathan and Eliza (Dickey) Bickford;  Martha Cate, born 1826, married in 1850 at Epsom, Alden Thayer;  and Sarah Elizabeth Ayer, born1829, died in1833.

 

Jonathan died in 1843, had built the house and willed the property to his wife Ruth during her natural life, then on her death, to son Jonathan Ayer Knowles. Jonathan and wife Susan had two daughters, Grace V., born in 1844, and married in 1867, James H. Snow, and as a widow was murdered in 1925 by Charles S. Hall; and Ida W., born 1850, and died in 1893, unmarried. Jonathan became a minister, and was hired to build the Epsom town house. The Reverend Jonathan A. Knowles sold the family homestead in 1854 to John Langley of Concord, and he sold it two years later to Mark S. Moses of Epsom.

 

Mark Sherburne Moses was born in Epsom, July 7, 1808, son of Mark and Betsey (Cate) Moses, his mother a daughter of the Deacon John Cate. Mark married in 1835, Elvira L. M. Dolbeer, daughter of John and Sally (Sherburne) Dolbeer, who died in 1853, having no children. Mark married second in 1854, Mary Abigail Towle, daughter of Robey Marston and Mary Abigail (Nelson) Towle. The couple had two children: historian John Mark Moses, born 1855 and died unmarried in 1919; and Cyrus S., born in 1860 and died in 1864. Mark S. Moses died in 1865, and his second wife remarried in 1868, the Reverend George Smith as his second wife. As guardian of the young John Mark Moses, Mary A. Moses sold the property to Michael McClary Steele and Henry F. Sanborn, and the farm passed through many owners - 1869, Benjamin F. Mudget; 1871, Michael M. Steele; 1875, William L. Otis; 1877, back to Michael M. Steele; 1877, Isaac Russ and Samuel Cofran; 1878, Franklin D. Holt of Hopkinton.

 

The deeds all excluded the family burying ground. Franklin Holt died in 1885 and his widow, Ellen, sold the farm to Cyrus A. and Ellen M. Lewis of Epsom.

 

The Lewis family remained in Epsom at the old Knowles farm for eight years, selling the property to Silas B. Woodbury of Manchester in 1885. Silas died in Epsom on October 27, 1898. He had married in 1862, Pluma A. Goodrich. Pluma, and son Fred C. Woodbury, heirs sold the farm to Sarah A. Weston of Stoneham, MA, in 1899. In 1906, it was bought by Adaliza Stone of Winchester, MA., and in 1829 Marion R. Stone of New York sold the property to Marion F. Brewer and Sarah E. Wilson of Quincy, MA.

 

All interest in land and buildings in Epsom of Marion Brewer, who died in Quincy, MA, left as sole heirs, her husband, brother William J. Whiting, and sister, Sarah E. Wilson, heirs of law of Francis F. Brewer, her husband, who died also in Quincy sold the property to Sarah E. Wilson in 1942. The farm was next owned by James and Mary Keeler of Hopkinton, who sold the farm in 1946 to Walter B. and Harriett A. Chase of Epsom. The Chase family owned the farm until 1976 when the widow Harriet sold the land and buildings to Gunnar and Anna M. Hagstrom of Concord. The Knowles family cemetery is across the road from the homestead farm and contains nearly a dozen family burials. The cemetery has been left to disrepair, and contains some of the finest artwork found in Epsom Cemeteries. The stones were photographed about 1998. The Moses family also had burials here, but they were removed at a later date to the Gossville Cemetery.

 



1858 Schoolhouse - As the group left the Mark S. Moses homestead they went by the family cemetery, on their left down the hill, across the two brooks and bridges and came to the Locke Hill road which branched to the right, they left this for later in the day and went up the “School House Hill” and soon came to the OLD New Orchard Rd. school house, this building was on the east side of the road.


1892 Schoolhouse - Now in memory I am sliding down the long hill (the Lewis Hill) down the hill across the “little brook,” where we got our drinking water for the school, then across the “big brook,” which was the outlet to Odiorne Pond, and I am at the fork of the road. At my left is the New Orchard Road school house, which was built in the year 1884, it replaced the old school house on the Sherburne Road, nearly one-fourth of a mile beyond the new school house.


Yes, Mayland Ames is coming down the Locke road with his round tin dinner pail in his hand, there was something about the shape of the pail that made one remember it. Mayland has on his felt boots this morning, Ernest and Walter were here when I arrived. There now, Silas B. Paige is bringing, Grace, Myrtie and Eva to school this morning. The other scholars must be in the school house, Charlie Bickford, Burt or Herbert Stanley, my brother John, my sister Elizabeth and the others. There: the teacher has just come to the door with the bell in her hand it must be nine o’clock.

Now I am leaving the school house, the scholars, the teacher and old memories.

 

The original New Orchard Road school was operational as early as 1823 as District 5 when adjustments were made to the North Road School. It appears in town records as District 5 when Nancy Rowell and Joseph N. Mason were keeping school. In 1884 a new school house was built on land sold to the district by Franklin D. Holt. This school operated through 1928, closed for a year, and its final closing was the end of the 1931 term. The building was owned by the district and sold to George H. Yeaton and later to John B. Yeaton in 1983, and has been sold  several more times through the years.

 

1858 It was quite some distance beyond the school house to the home of David Brown who lived at the top of the hill, his house was also on the east side of the road. A short distance beyond the David Brown house was the home of L. Brown, this house was on the west side of the highway.

No houses in 1892

 

The original property of lot 109 in the fourth range belonged to John Sherburne. The book 'Henry and John Sherburne of Portsmouth, NH' by Edward R. Sherburne (1904) gives these as separate lines of descent. John Sherburne is from the Henry line, who did not settle on the lot. The Sherburne's who did settle on the road came from the John Sherburne line.

 

John Sherburne married Hannah Jackson and had children Noah; Simeon, who died by 1753; Hannah, who married John Blunt; Catherine, who married first Ebenezer Odiorne, and second Dr. Thomas Deane; and Mary who married Capt. James Randall. Noah Sherburne of Newcastle, sold to Thomas Odiorne of Exeter in 1770, his part of 'the original right of my honored father' of his Epsom land, number 109 in the fourth range. At the same time, John Blunt and his wife Hannah, sold her portion to Odiorne. Thomas Odiorne was a dealer in property around the state, and sold 100 acres of lot 109 to Samuel Brown of Kensington, the 100 acres, now with buildings. Whether Thomas lived on the lot is unknown, but it would appear he built on the lot prior to the sale to Samuel Brown in 1797.

 

Thomas Ordiorne of Exeter was the son of Ebenezer Ordiorne, born in Greenland in 1733 and died in 1819. He married Joanna Gilman in 1762. Ebenezer was the son of John Ordiorne, whose brother Jotham was an original proprietor of the land east of Odiorne Pond.

 

Samuel Brown was born in Kensington in 1771 to David and Elizabeth (Winslow) Brown. He married in 1796, Comfort Speed. He was one of eight children of David and Elizabeth, and his father died in 1800, leaving besides son Samuel, a son Simon who died young; Dudley, born 1773; Dorothy, born 1776; Levi, born 1778; Maury, born 1781; Simon (2) born 1783; and Patience. Samuel and his wife Comfort sold 90 acres to his brother Levi in 1804, reserving to his mother Elizabeth the improvement of one half of the premises during her widowhood.

 

This Levi Brown, and this Brown line of Kensington, is not to be confused with the Levi Brown and his son Levi who lived on North Road. Levi of Kensington, being younger than Levi of New Orchard Road, and older than Levi's son of New Orchard Road, is often seen in records as Levi junior. This is how he appears in 1806 when he sells part of lot 109 to his brother Simon (also not to be confused with yet another Brown line who owned property on New Orchard Road near the Range Road). Simon died about a month after he bought the land from his brother, and his mother Elizabeth, who settled his estate, sold his portion of lot 109, to George W. Munsey and Bildad Jones of Pittsfield, 14 acres.  Bildad Jones is seen as a resident of Epsom until about 1810.  Munsey sold the 14 acres to Jonathan Perkins in 1808.

 

Meanwhile, Levi Brown sold 90 acres of the lot in 1806, to Peter Hook of Chichester, still with the provision that his mother Elizabeth have the right to improve the land during her widowhood. Peter Hook sold 30 acres of the lot to Willard Emery in 1808, and the balance to Mary Perkins of Chichester, now 'spintress' in 1810. She eventually sells her Epsom land, part to Anthony and William Emery Jr. of Hampton, and to Amasa Kelley of Chichester. Heir Anthony Emery sells 45 acres, know as the Emery pasture, to Lemuel B. Towle of Epsom.

 

Levi Brown throughout occupied a house on New Orchard Road in lot 109, as seen in the 1858 map. By deed it is known his wife was Sally, and that he committed suicide in Epsom in 1859. It would appear by the census of 1810 that they had one son, likely David, who occupied a house to the south and on the opposite side of the road. Nothing more is known of Sally.

 

David Brown was born about 1814, and at an unknown date, married Mehitable Jones, daughter of Bildad Jones, and whose sister Mary, married Addison Davis and lived next to the site of the Free Will Baptist Church. David and Mehitable occupied the property until David died in 1875. His widow Mehitable sold the property the next month to Samuel T. Page.  Page sold the property in 1885 to Christopher Welch of Pittsfield, with the deed stating there were no buildings. The land passed to Samuel L. Clark, and one tract was deeded to Alice Clark, with a live lease for Samuel. The land became part of the Kimball Farm.

 



1858 Then they came to the Constantine Wood place, another of the Colonial style houses, on the west side of the highway, with a stone wall between the highway and the door-yard, a gateway and short driveway led to the house, which stood on a slight elevation.


1892 The next place some distance above the school house on the Sherburne road is the farm of Lucas S. Clark, almost one mile distance. Here lived Lucas S. Clark his wife Olive M. and their two daughters: Lizzie E., Sadie O., and a son John S. Clark.


The Clark home was the former Constantine Woods farm, a large colonial style house on the west side of the road.

 

Joseph Sherburne was born in Portsmouth October 29, 1745 to Nathaniel and Sarah (Sherburne) Sherburne, and married at an unknown date. Olive Pitman, daughter of Ezekiel and Elizabeth (Perverly) Pitman. He bought land in Epsom in 1772 being of Portsmouth, and additional land in 1777, being then of Epsom. He moved to New Orchard Road buying property there in 1783, part of lot 105, and part of land in lot 106 in 1789.

 

Joseph was a soldier of the Revolution, and with his wife Olive reared a large family which whose record of births appear in the old Epsom Town records. They include: William, born 1769, married Margaret Libbey and removed to Stanstead, Canada; Joseph, born 1770, married Dorcas Hall and died in Epsom, July of 1837, at least three children; Olive, born 1773, married James Wood of Epsom; Elizabeth, first child of the family born in Epsom, married in Epsom in 1794, Elizha Eaton; Sally, born 1777, married in 1801, John Dolbeer; John, born 1780, died unmarried in 1822; Daniel, born 1782, married Abigail Morrill at Chichester in 1807, and on the death of his father owned one half of the homestead; Lucy, born 1784, married Benjamin Green of Pittsfield; Mary Pitman, born 1786, married Moses Sanborn of Kensington and died in 1809;  Lydia, born 1788, married after the death of her sister Mary, her husband, Moses Sanborn;  James, born 1789, married Sally Prescott, and with his brother Daniel, inherited the homestead; Abigail,  born 1792, married in 1816, Philip C. Kelly, and died in 1838 (family Bible gives 1828); and Ruhamah, born 1795, married David Green.

 

In his will of 1805, Joseph deeded the homestead to his wife Olive, and on her death to sons Daniel and James. He died September 11, 1807, and was buried in a family lot not far from the family home. The cemetery was also used by the family of his brother William who lived across the road. Buried with Joseph are his wife Olive, who died in 1832; her mother Olive Pitman, who died in 1817, age 99; son John who died in 1822. These four graves are nicely carved fieldstones.

 

Daniel deeded his portion of the homestead farm, less 25 acres, to his brother James in 1821 and moved eventually to Canaan where he died and is buried.

 

James Sherburne married Sally Prescott, daughter of Jesse and Abigail (Towle) Prescott, July 11, 1822. Their children were: a child born and died in 1823; Emeline Rebecca, born 1824, married Jacob S. Hall; Alvah Jason, born 1826, died 1842, unmarried; Abbie Maria, born 1828, died in Ohio, nothing more known; Oliver J., born 1830, died 1875 in San Francisco, CA., drowning in the harbor; Henry French, born 1832, married Sarah Chesley, died at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin; Orlando Prescott, born 1834, resided in Wisconsin, died at Leadville, CO.; Sarah Lake Leavitt, born 1836, married John Gould, died in 1891 in Nebraska; Joseph Tilton, born 1838, died either in Pittsfield in 1863, or, Appleton, Wisconsin, according to a family Bible. James Sherburne died in 1851, his wife Sally, in 1852, leaving minor children. His estate was sold through various guardians of his children in 1854; Joseph J. Moses for Sarah and Joseph; Benjamin L. Locke for Orlando; John S. Cate for Oliver. Son Henry sold on his own behalf and Jacob Hall and his wife Emeline on her behalf. All sold the property to Joseph C. Greenough of Chichester and Lemuel B. Towle of Epsom. Both Greenough and Towle sold the James Sherburne farm to Constantine Wood of Epsom in 1854.

 

Constantine  Wood was born in Epsom about 1813, and married Sally Burns of Chichester, and was one of seven children of Joseph and Abigail (Bickford) Wood. The 1860 US Census shows two children: Mark Eugene, born about 1852, married first Sally Burns, and second Carrie Clark (Town Records); and John, born about 1854, about which nothing more is known.

 

Constantine mortgaged the property to John Wood in 1888, probably his son. In December of that year, Daniel S. Chesley was his guardian and sold the 50 acre farm to Samuel L. Clark of Epsom. Constantine's wife Sally died in 1886, and he died September 4, 1892, and was buried in the home cemetery, for which the location is unknown.

 

Samuel Lucas Clark was born July 20, 1861 to Samuel J. and Susan (Alden) Clark and married in 1886, Olive Pichette, daughter of Mitchell and Julia (Duprey) Pichette. Their children included: Lizzie E., born 1887 and married Myron B. Kimball, son of Rufus F. and Annette A. (Hartford) Kimball; Sadie Olive, born 1890, married Harry Fred Kimball, brother to Myron; John Samuel, born 1892, married in 1927, Altie L. Dodge; Leon Lucas, born 1899, married in 1927, Joseph May Couch; Susie J., born 1902, married in 1919, Avery Mason Kimball, brother to Myron and Harry; Ernest Fres, born 1905, married in 1939, Esther B. Hutchinson; and a child born and died in 1908. Samuel's wife Olive died in 1917, and he married second, Alice Daniels and had two daughters; Hazel, born in 1921; and Doris Edna, born in 1923. Samuel deeded his property to his wife Alice in 1934, and he died in 1935. Alice sold the land and buildings to Lloyd Kimball in 1941, he being the son of Myron B. and Lizzie E. (Clark) Kimball who owned the adjoining property. The house was abandoned, fell into disrepair and tumbled down.

 

1858 Just beyond (the Wood residence) and on the same side was the W. B. Perkins home, then a short distance, but on the other side of the highway, was the D. (David) Sherburne place.


1892 The next place, a farm, was where Daniel N. Lewis now lived, this was the original D. Sherburne place, with the house on the east side of the road and the barn on the west side with land on both sides of the road.

 

The Sherburne's that settled on New Orchard Road are from the family of Nathaniel and Sarah (Sherburne) of Portsmouth. Of four of their sons, two moved to Epsom, Major Joseph (1745-1807) and William (1746-1808). A third son, Nathaniel, resided in Portsmouth with his wife Jane Nutter, and his son Nathaniel settled in Epsom on what was later the Stanley farm. A fourth son, Daniel and wife Polly resided in Goshen, New Hampshire. A fifth brother, David, died at sea during the Revolution, and a sister Ruth rounded out the family.

 

William Sherburne married in Portsmouth March 19, 1772, Sarah Muchmore. He bought land in lot 110, 70 acres from John Stevenson of Durham in 1774. His brother Joseph signed the Association Test in Epsom in 1776, but William does not appear.

 

Lot 110 was the original right of Joseph Hill of Greenland, who sold his right of Epsom land to Mark Jewell of Greenland in 1749. Mark Jewell sells the 70 acres, being of Epsom, to John Stevenson of Durham in 1768, being 'the lot I now improve' and would indicate he was resident at the time of the sale.

 

William and his wife Sarah had children: Polly (Mary) born in 1773, married Thomas Leavitt of Chichester in Epsom 1797; Abigail, born 1775, married at Epsom in 1799, James Munroe Locke, son of Moses and Mary (Organ) Locke of Center Hill and removed to Stanstead, Canada; Sarah, born 1776, married in Epsom in 1800, Thomas Rand of Chichester, son of Edmund and Abigail Rand; Jane, born 1779, probably in Epsom, married in Epsom, 1804, James Blake of Epsom, son of Samuel and Sarah (Bickford) Blake, resided in Chichester; David, born 1780, married Betsey Sherburne Moses; Ruth, born about 1782, married in Epsom in 1832, Benjamin Shaw of Chichester as his second wife; Ann, born 1786, married about 1811, Thomas Cass, son of Simeon and Elizabeth (Locke) Cass and removed to Stanstead, Canada and died in Indiana;  William, born 1791, died unmarried in 1829; Betsey, born 1793 and married in Epsom, 1815, a Samuel Drake;  and Nathaniel, born 1798, married in Loudon in 1813, a Jane Piper, nothing more known of this couple, though a Nathaniel appears in the 1850 census in the home of David Sherburne of Epsom, perhaps his brother.

 

William Sherburne died in 1808, his wife Sarah in 1829. The family home was inherited by his son David, who added additional real estate. Forty acres were purchased in 1811 from John McClary and 23 acres from Levi Locke in 1825. David raised his family with his wife Betsey Sherburne (Moses) daughter of James and Elizabeth  (Sherburne) Moses, whom he married in 1807 in Epsom. Their family included: William, born in 1808 and died unmarried in 1822; Capt. James Moses, born 1811, who married at Chichester in 1837, Betsey Chesley (Blake) daughter of James and Jane (Sherburne) Blake and resided on the Sherburne Road; Eliza, born 1813, married in 1834, Jonathan Stickney Cass, son of Levi and Mehitable (Osgood) Cass; David, born 1815, married in 1841, Mary Cate, daughter of Samuel and Abigail (Prescott) Cate of New Orchard Road, resided Lowell, MA; Sarah, born 1818, died 1826;  Jane Moses, born 1821, married in 1841, John Sherburne Cate, brother to Mary Cate who married her brother David;  William, born 1823, married Sarah Jane Prescott, he died in 1855 and she married second Greenleaf Osgood;  Mary Ann, born 1827 and was living with her bro

 

David Sherburne died in 1856, his wife Betsey in 1869. The family is buried in the Sherburne Cemetery in what was known as the Kimball field, the same cemetery shared with his brother Joseph and family. The homestead was inherited by son David and his wife Mary, who sold 90 acres with buildings to Samuel True Page of Epsom in November of 1870.

 

Samuel True Page cannot be identified or placed with any Page family. By deeds, it is known his wife was Almira, and the couple can be found in 1860 living in the home of Moses and Nancy Dame of Pittsfield, her parents. Her father deeded his home to his daughter in 1862, and the couple sold the Dame homestead to Nathaniel Batchelder in October of 1870. Census records for 1870 list four children, Victor, Hartley, Isabella and Irving E. (also seen as Irvin/Erwin). Nothing is known of Isabella and Irving; Victor S., died in Lowell, MA., March 28, 1895, having married at least twice; Hartley T.. died August 21, 1918, having been born in Epsom. His wife, Ella J. Gray, died in 1948, and both are buried in Floral Park cemetery, Pittsfield. The death record for Victor gives his birth as in Maine. Samuel T. Page sold 'land all that this grantor now owns of what was formerly his homestead farm in Epsom' to Daniel N. Lewis of Chichester, December 22, 1888. Four days later, Samuel T. Page bought the Chichester home of Daniel B. Lewis. Almira J. Page died June 12, 1885 and is buried with her parents in a family plot in the Sabattus Heights cemetery in Loudon. NH. Samuel True Page died March 8, 1914 in Boscawen, with no details or burial given on his death record.

 

Daniel N. Lewis was from Ellsworth, Maine, and married Elizabeth C. Cole, and resided in Barnstead, NH where their first few children were born. They moved to Chichester, NH in 1866. Children of the couple included Audere Elinor; Sherman W.; Daniel E.; Irene J.; Frank W.; and Bertha E. Lewis. Daniel and Elizabeth divorced and he married second, Anna S. Jenness, her third marriage, in Concord in 1889. She died in Brockton, MA, in 1907, and given as the wife of Joseph M. Andrews. They may have divorced as well as he married in 1890 at Epsom, Josephine S. Bruce. The house burned and in 1896 the couple sold the homestead to Charles E. Morrell, and bought a home near Windymere Drive, north of the Epsom Traffic Circle. Daniel N. Lewis, a Civil War veteran, died in 1908, his wife Josephine the year prior, and both are buried in the McClary Cemetery in Epsom.

 

Charles E. Morrell 3rd, was born in 1873 and married April 10, 1896 in Chichester, Rachel E. Blood, daughter of Edwin and Ella (Knowles) Blood of Chichester. Rachel's mother, Ella Delora Knowles, was the daughter of Francis Locke and Sarah W. (Locke) Knowles of Epsom. Larry Berkson in hs book on Church Cemeteries in Pittsfield, has a sketch on the Morrell family.  He states 'when they moved to Epsom there was only a barn on the property they purchased on New Orchard Road. The old house had burned. They lived in the barn while a new one was being built. It was placed on a new foundation because Rachel believed that it was unlucky to build on the old one. Mr. Morrell was an accomplished musician and played trumpet in the Epsom Town Band.'

 

Charles and Rachel had one son, Charles E. Morrell 4th who was born in 1906. His father died when he was only age 6 in 1912. He and his mother moved north for a time before returning to Epsom. Rachel lived until 1967, and she and her husband Charles are buried in the Quaker Cemetery in Pittsfield.

 

Charles E. Morrill 4th married Alice M. McDowell of New Kensington, Pennsylvania in 1932. They lived at the New Orchard Road homestead, deeded to them in 1951, where they had three children: Ena Rachel, born 1933; Ethlyn, born 1935; and Charles E. Morrell 5th. Daughter Ena married first Horace A. Jarest, and second, Frederick Carlson, who were deeded the homestead in 1970.

 

1858 Next to the D. Sherburne home was the J. Page farm, but this was on the west side of the road. [also seen Paige]


1892 Now we come to the Silas B. Page farm situated on the west side of the road.

The Paige family at this time consisted of Silas B., his wife Emma A. (Glines) Page, their four daughters, Grace E., Myrtie H., Eva M. and Bulah Adelaid, and a son Harry L. Page.

 

This farm was formerly known as the J. Page farm, as shown on a map of Epsom published in the year 1858.

 

This farm at the date of this writing is the farm and home of Lloyd E. Kimball and his wife Ruth H. (Yeaton) Kimball, and family.

 

The Josiah Page family of Chichester is poorly documented with few vital records to support any verifiable genealogy. There is only one Page family in Chichester in the census of 1800, that of Joseph with a wife, one male under age 10, 3 females under 10, and one female 10 through 15. Joseph is already of Chichester when he buys land, part of lot 59 from Simeon Hilliard in 1796. He mortgages this property to Peter Hook in 1801, and sells a portion to Moses Lane in 1802. A Josiah Page sells two and a half acres of lot 59,  to Sally Eaton and Catherine and Rhoda Page, land bounded on land he sold to his sisters Sally Eaton and Rhoda Page in 1826. This deeds connects Josiah to three sisters, and connects them as children of Joseph through lot 59. Joseph appears in Chichester through the census of 1840, and he and his wife are mentioned in a 1839 notice forbidding anyone supporting them. The town of Epsom paid Josiah for support of Mehitable Page in 1843 and 1844,

 

which would indicate that this is his mother. The family of Joseph Page would appear to be as follows: Joseph Page, died shortly after 1840 had wife Mehitable who died in Epsom, March 17, 1846, having had children Carherine R., born about 1791, still living with her sister Rhoda in 1860; Sally, born about 1795, married January 13, 1814, Amasa Eaton; Rhoda, born about 1798, still living in 1860; and Josiah, born about 1799, married at Pittsfield, NH September 7, 1822. Hannah Marston, daughter of Joseph and Hannah (Brown) Marston.

 

Josiah Page of Chichester bought land from Philip C. Kelly of Chichester in 1828, part of lot 109 in the fourth range. Philip had married Abigail Sherburne in 1816, a daughter of Joseph and Olive (Pitman) Sherburne. Joseph and Hannah had the following known children: True M., married first a Marie E. (Unknown) and second in 1853, Ann M. Mason; Josiah H., born about 1826, married in 1854, Julia A. French; Jemima, born in 1827, married Dearborn M. Marston; Joann, born about 1831, died 1834; Sarah A., born 1838, married in 1864, Dexter H. Locke, son of Simeon Prescott and Sarah Blake (Cass) Locke; Silas B., born 1839, married Emma A. Glines at Epsom; Ursula, born 1844, died 1892, unmarried; Nellie/Ellen, born about 1846, nothing more known; and Augusta N., born about 1852, married Orrin P. Green.

 

Josiah and Hannah deeded the homestead farm to their son Silas B. Page in 1867, and in turn he is to care for his parents and their 38 acres, land and buildings. Silas is found living in the home of his parents in the census years of 1860 and 1880. He married at Epsom in 1879, Emma A. Glines of Iowa. In 1880 he is age 40, his wife Emma, 25, in the home of his father Josiah. Hannah died in 1871, Josiah in 1887, and are buried in the Marston family cemetery in Pittsfield. Silas and Emma had known children: Grace E.,  born 1882; Helen M., born 1884; Harry, born 1889, and Bulah Adelaide, 1893. On the marriage record of daughter Helen, Silas is living in Epsom, his wife Emma in Portsmouth. Silas died in 1909 and is buried at Floral Park Cemetery in Pittsfield. He sold the family farm of 80 years to Myron B. Kimball of Epsom in 1907.

 

Myron B. Kimball was born in 1883 in Deerfield, NH, to Rufus F. and Annette A. Hartford. He married there in 1907, Lizzie E. Clark, daughter of Samuel Lucas and Olive (Pichette) Clark of Epsom. The Clarks lived on the lot just south of the old Page homestead. Myron and Lizzie had children: Myron Wesley, born 1908 and married in 1936, Gladys Welch; Ira Fred, born 1911, married in 1926, Gladys Frost; Lloyd Elwin, born 1916, married Ruth H. Yeaton in 1939; and Edward Curtis, married in 1945, Reta Canfield.

 

Known as the Kimball farm, ownership passed to Lloyd E. and his wife Ruth, and remains in the family.

 

LOCKE’S HILL ROAD


The Grant Farm


1858 The group now retraced their way to where the Locke Hill road leaves the New Orchard Rd. Starting up the Locke Hill road, they crossed the Odiorne Pond brook, then up the hill to the home of Daniel Buzzell, he lived on the east side of the road, as you came to the top of the hill.


1892 As I started up the Locke Hill road, the first family on the road was the family of Mr. and Mrs. William T. Grant, (a Civil War Veteran) and a brother of Mrs. Perley C. Giles.

Mr. and Mrs. Grant did not have anyone living with them at this time.

Mr. Grant had a large fruit orchard and did some farming. In the winter months he would drive a large pair of oxen for his neighbor Albion Locke.

 

The Grant farm was at the foot of Locke’s Hill with the buildings on the east side of the road.

 

Daniel Buzzell appears in Epsom in the 1840 census being between the age of 50 to 60 with a son and daughter under the age of five, two females between 5 and 15, plus his wife. He died on either August 14, 1841 (Dolbeer records of deaths in Epsom, or August 24, 1842, transcript from family Bible. His son Daniel appears paying poll tax by 1846 for one cow and a building, but no land. His brother William appears with him by 1848. When Jonathan A. Knowles sells his homestead to John Langley in 1854, there is an exception of  'one acre of land situated on the northwest side of said premises bounded at a point on the east side of said Locke Road six rods north of the house now occupied by Daniel Bussell (Buzzell) thence southerly by said road, thence easterly at right angle with said road thence northerly on a line parallel with said road, thence westerly to the first mentioned bound.' The description seems to include the one acre with the house, occupied, as opposed to owned, by Daniel Buzzell, and remained separate from the rest of the Knowles estate. US census data shows this same lot occupied by the widow Joanna Buzzell from 1850 through 1880. There are no Buzzell deeds showing any buying or selling of property. His widow Joanna applied for a pension from Daniel's service in the War of 1812, and as a document in support of her claim, a deposition was made by Jacob A. Potter giving the marriage date and birth of the children 'from an exact copy kept in a family Bible'. The information included the following: Daniel Buzzell and Joanna Pettingill were married (probably at Pittsfield by Reverend Knowlton) August 24, 1822, children: Daniel 25th February 1822; Aaron 12th December 1823; Sarah 4th January 1827; William 26th January 1828; Mary Jane 4th March 1829; Emeline 30th August 1833; Clara 15th January 1827; Martha Ann 4th February 1839; John 26th August 1840; Lucy 26th July 1841.

 

The Bible also gives the following death dates: Daniel died August 24th 1842; Lucy Maria died Dec. 18th 1842.

 

The parentage of Daniel remains unknown, and he was born about 1785, and married first in Epsom 1816, Sally Pettingill. She died in 1820, perhaps having one child born 1820 and died in 1826, and Daniel married second, Joanna Pettingill. It is unclear whether the Pettingills were daughters of Elijah or Jethro Pettingill, sons of Ephraim of Epsom. John Mark Moses gives Elijah, but Pettingill genealogy suggests Jethro. Of Daniel and Joanna's children, Daniel B. died unmarried in Epsom in 1883; Aaron married Sarah Hall and died in Plymouth in 1883; Sarah married Ephraim Downing; William married Huldah J. Locke, resided in Chichester where he died in 1910 and is buried in the Pineground Cemetery; Mary Jane married True Brown Marston; Emeline, of which nothing more is known; Clarissa, of whom nothing more is known; Martha Ann who married a Briggs; John T., a soldier in the Civil War, died in Deerfield, unmarried November 7, 1887, buried in the McClary Cemetery; and Lucy who died young.

 

Joanna Buzzell died in Chichester on January 10, 1884, and her home on Locke Road does not appear in 1892.

 

Just above the Buzzell home on Locke Road was the residence of William T. Grant. The Grant house does not appear on the county map of 1858, and the Buzzell house is gone by the map of 1892, but census data shows both homes occupied from 1860 through 1880. The Grant farm was part of the Knowles farm and the 40 acres of it was sold to John S. Cate by John Langley in 1856. The next year it was bought by William T. Grant. Grant built a home on the lot shortly after he purchased it, taking a mortgage on it as late as 1886. William died in 1895, and his widow sold the property to Orrin Eastman in 1897. When Eastman sold the property is unknown, but it was in the hands of John C. Yeaton in 1907 when he sold half of it to Charles S. Hall. Known in deeds as the William T. Grant farm, half of the property was owned by George H. Yeaton that same year, he buying Charles S. Hall's half in 1910. John Crockett Yeaton died in 1909, and the heirs sold their half, and George H. Yeaton his half, to Herbert S. Little of Epsom in April of 1910. Herbert S. Little died in 1921, and his wife and heirs sold the land and buildings to Carroll P. Clark of Pittsfield. The Clarks owned the property until 1959 when it was sold to John T. and Elizabeth Newton of Melrose, Massachusetts.

 

William T. Grant was the son of George Wells and Sally (Foss) Grant and was raised in that part of Epsom known as New Portsmouth. He married in 1856, Sarah A. Twombly. They had at least two daughters, Eunice H.born in 1857 and Mary A. born in 1858.

 

John Crockett Yeaton was the son of James A. and Annie Rebecca (Crockett) Yeaton of New Orchard Road, born in 1875. He married Nellie B. Perkins in 1897, who died in 1905. He married second, in Manchester May 4, 1907, Elizabeth Hall Yeaton, daughter of James Cochran and Hannah Drake (Towle) Yeaton of Epsom.

 

Herbert S. Little was the son of George S. and Abby A. (Goss) Little. He married Ada Florence Marden, daughter of Cyrus and Angie M. (Marden) Marden in 1904. After his death in 1921, she married second a Mr. MacKay. Herbert and Ada had three children: Mildred Ethel, born 1905; Frank Marden, born 1907; and George Percival, born 1912.

 

1858 Now a long climb to the original Locke homestead, built on the west side of the highway, here lived Deacon David Locke and his son-in-law Albion Locke.


1892 It was a long climb to the Albion Locke homestead, here lived Albion Locke, his wife Mary Anna Locke and their married daughter Ada L. (Locke) Cilley, her husband's name, Charles E. Cilley.

 

The Locke home was on the west side of the road, large and well kept buildings. There was a large fruit orchard on this farm, one of the largest in Epsom at this time. Albion Locke and his son-in-law Charles E. Cilley did a great deal of farming, shipping their milk on the train each morning from the Epsom Depot.

 

It was a wonderful view from Locke’s Hill (and still is in 1963) No children at this home at this time but a daughter, Helen Marie Cilley, was born May 21, 1896.

 

The Lockes settled on lot 102, the original right of Ebenezer Berry. The lot had many owners, and eventually was bought by Peter Garland of Rye in 1778, and sold to David Locke Jr. of Rye in 1792. The lot and some adjoining land totaled 180 acres being southerly of land of Josiah Knowles. The following spring he sold 23 acres to his brother Levi and 75 acres to his brother Simeon. Simeon was already in Epsom by 1783 and moved to the Locke's Hill lot. Simeon also sold 60 square rods to his brother David on the east side of Garland's Hill, where his (David's) house and barn stand.' He lost an eye while working when he was young when shoeing an ox, having to turn the ox on its side and its throwing back its horn. Simeon and his family moved from Epsom to East Concord with his wife Abigail and eleven children: Anna, Samuel Blake; David; Simeon; John; Josiah Knowles; James; Sally Blake; Reuben; Joseph and Abigail.

 

Known as Deacon David Locke, he had married in 1789, Anna Towle, daughter of Abraham Perkins and Abigail (Moulton) Towle. They had children: David, born 1790 and married in 1819 at Canaan, NH, Polly Carleton; Abigail, born 1796, married Jonathan Green, son of Jabez and Anna (Smith) Green of Epsom; Nancy, born 1801, married at Chichester in 1826, Ebenezer Gove of Kensington; and John, born and died in 1807. In 1848, Deacon David deeded half of some of the property to his son David, which included the farm formerly owned by Simeon Locke which had been deeded to brother Levi and by him sold to David in 1820.  Deacon David died in 1856, his wife in 1839 and are buried in the Locke Cemetery on the property near the house. His son David inherited the homestead with his wife and three daughters: Mary Anna, born 1821 and married in 1848, Albion Locke, son of William and Esther (Knowles) Locke; Elizabeth P. Locke, born 1823, married in 1846, James D. Page of Ryegate, Vermont; and Sarah D. who married John C. Kellum in 1849.

 

David Locke died in 1872, property to son-in-law Albion Locke who married his daughter Mary M. Locke in 1848.

 

David Locke deeded his homestead to his son-in-law Albion Locke, who married his daughter Mary Anna at Epsom in 1848, with the covenant that he could use the property during his natural life. Albion died in 1901, his wife Mary Anna in 1906. The couple had two daughters: Flora Esther, who married in 1875, Edward O. Sanderson and resided Pittsfield; and Ada Eldora, who was born in 1862 and married in Pittsfield in 1884, Charles E. Cilley, son of George D. and Emmo O. (Hoitt) Cilley. Albion deeded the homestead to his son-in-law Charles Cilley in 1892. Charles Cilley's wife Ada died in 1917, and he married second in 1919, Edith F. Maxfield. Charles E. Cilley died in 1942. After the death of Ada, he sold her family home to Charles A. and Lillian A. Reid of Battle Creek Michigan and Epsom. In 1937 they deeded the property to son Neil and his wife Rachel B. Reid.

 

ALBION LOCKE OF LOCKE’S HILL - Geo. H. Yeaton


Albion Locke was born in Lyman, April 28, 1822, died in Epsom September 4, 1901. He was the son of Doctor William Locke and his wife Esther (Knowles) Locke. Dr. Locke was a physician in Lyman until 1824, he then went to Irasburg, Vermont, where he died March 3, 1841. He was born in Rye April 9, 1776, married Esther Knowles of Epsom, daughter of Simeon Knowles of Pembroke. Esther Knowles was born November 29, 1781 and died January 3, 1874. 

Albion Locke came to Locke’s Hill in the year 1848 and on June 15, 1848 married Mary Ann Locke, the daughter of Deacon David Locke and his wife Mary or Polly (Carleton) Locke. Mary Ann Locke was born May 10, 1821, died March 10, 1906. Born and died in Epsom, Locke’s Hill, her father Deacon David Locke died January 29, 1872. 


After the death of Deacon Locke, Albion Locke devoted all of his time in the operation of the farm. Previous to this he had owned and operated the mills at Epsom, “Slab City”, at that time there was a sawmill on one side of the road and a gristmill on the other side, using the same water to run both mills. I suppose that the dam was at the same place that the one was in later years. As there were long stacks and piles of slabs at the sides of the road, this part of Epsom became known as “Slab City”.


The present gristmill was built about the year 1880 by Henry S. Knowles, who bought the store in 1876 and a little later bought the mills. There was a large orchard on the Locke's Hill farm which Albion Locke improved and enlarged by setting out many young fruit trees and grafting the older ones, and at that date, was the largest and best fruit orchard in this vicinity.


The old gristmill built and operated by Henry S. Knowles about 1880 was torn down about the middle of October 1966.


ALBION LOCKE and his ROAD PROJECT


In the years 1896 and 1897, Albion Locke, one of the large land owners and farm operators in Epsom, tried to interest the town of Epsom and went to much expense himself, to have a new road built which would connect the New Orchard Road with Epsom Depot and the village of Gossville, making it a much shorter distance to these places and at the same time eliminating eight hills, all on the New Orchard Road from the schoolhouse to the end of the road at the turnpike. The proposed road would have had only three its entire length.


There were at this time several winter roads which led to the depot and were much in use in the winter months.


Mr. Locke was one of those who made much use of the winter road from the New Orchard Road schoolhouse to Gossville Village and Epsom Depot. He shipped his milk on the train from the Epsom Station, he hauled much wood and lumber over this winter road. A man of good judgment, not content to continue on in the same old ruts and practices, perhaps a little visionary. At first he proposed that a road be built from the junction of the Locke and Sherburne roads with the New Orchard Road at the schoolhouse following the winter road to Epsom R.R. Station, having a connecting road leaving the New Orchard Road on the west side between the Perly Giles place and the James Yeaton farm buildings. As he could not get much support on this project, he then hired a surveyor and laid out a road from the end of the Range Road near the buildings of Joseph P. Locke (now owned by Mrs. Grace A. MacKay 1962). This survey left the New Orchard Road on the west, running south-westerly through the pasture of Samuel W. Bickford and joined the turnpike, now known as Route 4-9-202, at the foot of “Gray’s Hill” later called “Holmes Hill”. This was an ideal route for a road to be built, one small brook to cross and one cattle pass to build. 


A road with no hills, level ground or a slight downgrade all the way from the Range Road to the turnpike, but the selectmen and others went against Mr. Locke and his proposed road, they could only see a small increase in their taxes and failed to see the advantages of this road. One of the Selectmen even said “If I was to go up the New Orchard Road from Gossville, I would go the long way around and climb the long steep hill rather than go by way of the proposed road, even if it was a shorter way and no hills to climb”. Why are people so against progress?

 



1858 Just before they came to this home, which was another of the colonial style houses, they saw, on the easterly side of the road, the well and foundations of another set of buildings, this was where one of the three Locke Brothers lived at one time. A short distance beyond and on the west side of the highway was the home of Simeon Prescott Locke, son of Levi.


1892 The next farm was the home of Alden M. Tilton, the grandson of Levi Locke, who was one of the original three brothers to settle Locke’s Hill in the years, 1798 to 1800. The Albion Locke farm being another of the Locke Brothers' homes.

 

The third of the Locke brothers built his house just north of Deacon David. Levi was born in 1770 at Rye and married in Hampton 1796, Hannah Prescott, daughter of Deacon James and Abigail (Lane) Prescott. Their children included: Simeon Prescott, born in Rye in 1799, married at Epsom in 1835, Sarah Blake (Cass) daughter of Samuel and Mary (Chesley) Cass; General Benjamin Lovering, born at Epsom in 1802, married Hannah Parker (Moses) daughter of James and Betsy (Chesley) Moses,  built and owned what was later Knowles' Store at Slab City; and infant, born and died in 1804; Lucy Marie, born 1805 and died young; Lucy Maria (2), married Daniel Tilton of Deerfield in 1830; Major Thomas D. Merrill, born 1808 and married Eliza J. Cass, parents unknown; Betsey, born 1811, married in 1831, Jacob Tilton; Almira, born 1814, married in 1847, John B. Johnson; and Reverend Joseph, born 1816, married Sarah Webster and died in 1870. Levi was described as a short gent with the enterprise and industry of a man 40. Levi died in 1850, his wife Hannah in 1845, and are buried in the Locke Family Cemetery. His son Simeon Prescott inherited the family home.

 

Simeon and his wife Sarah had children: Mandana C., born 1835 and married in 1855, John W. Page, and married second after 1870, Samuel Stanley of New Orchard Road; Dexter H., born 1838, married in 1864, Sarah A. Page, daughter of Josiah H. and Hannah (Marston) Page of New Orchard Road; Horace M., born 1840, was killed by a falling wagon in 1866, unmarried; Joseph Prescott, born 1842, married at Pittsfield in 1862, Lydia Meader Thompson, daughter of Lewis and Elizabeth (Locke Thompson, and resided on New Orchard Road; and Orilla H., born 1845, married in 1863, Henry Warren Bickford, son of William and Polly (Rand) Bickford, also resided on New Orchard Road for a time. Simeon Locke deeded the homestead to Albion Locke, but was later owned by his sister Lucy Maria who had married Daniel Tilton.

 

Daniel and Maria had children: Daniel P., born 1831; Anna M., born 1833; Alden Murray, born 1838; Angela F., born 1840; Joan F., born 1842; and Josephine S., born 1844.  Lucy M. Tilton of Boston sold the property to her son Alden M. in 1890, and six years later, he sold the property to his sister, Josephine S. of Boston. Through her will, it next belonged to Ceres E. Hadcock/Bradshaw by 1923, and in 1940, Ceres H. Bradshaw deeded the property to Ceres Hadcock Gaskins of Washington, D.C. It next passed in 1958 to Robert and Alice Burrows of Lexington, Massachusetts. The house was still standing in the mid 1950s, and the property was next owned by Ellen Burrows as of 1976. The house has since been taken down and a newer house built on the lot.

 

Locke’s Hill derived its name from the three brothers that settled on this hill. They were Simeon, David and Levi Locke. Locke’s Hill in Epsom, NH, elevation 600 feet is in the third range of lots, about the center of Lot numbers 102-103-104, extending to the range way on the east. The first Locke to settle on Locke’s Hill was Simeon Locke, born in Rye, NH March 21, 1760, married in Epsom, January 29, 1784, Abigail Blake of Epsom, the daughter of Samuel Blake and his wife Esther (Bickford) Blake. Abigail Blake was born February 23, 1766, died July 13, 1839.


Simeon Locke and his brother Reuben Locke enlisted in Captain Parson’s Company July 4, 1777 and served in the Revolutionary War. In the early days it was customary to cast oxen on their side when shoeing them. Helping in this work when quite young he lost an eye by an ox throwing back his horn, but in spite of this handicap he became an excellent marksman. At the close of the war in 1783 he came to Epsom. At that time bridle paths and blazed trees were the means of reaching many parts of the town. Simeon Locke first settled in a clearing located about half a mile west of the Sherburne road in the north part of the town. A few years later he bought and moved upon the farm on the top of Locke’s Hill where he was joined in June 1792 by his brother David, who settled on the next farm, south and in 1799 or 1800 by his brother Levi who settled on the next farm north. The three brothers at this time owned all the beautiful round topped hill and much of the land in the adjoining valley. To the south of them stretched the valleys of the Suncook and the Merrimack.


The road over Locke’s Hill was laid out in 1784. In the same year a William Ordeon sometimes spelt Odiorne, had a house at or near what was later know as the Ames place – but he lived mostly in Durham. Arthur C. Locke had in the year 1960 the original brass door knockers from the home of his great grandfather Levi Locke which had the date 1799 on it. In his younger days Simeon P. Locke, son of Levi, was “Choir Master” at the Congregational Church in Epsom. This was the church building that was built in the year 1845 and torn down in 1909. It was at this site of the present Knowles house, now occupied by Gilbert H. Knowles (1962). In those early days the church service consisted of two, hour-long sermons, with one-hour intermissions. It is said that Simeon P. Locke would at the time of the one-hour intermission, go to his home on Locke’s Hill, feed forty head of cattle and return in time to lead the singing of the first hymn at the second service. He did not have the means of travel we now have (1952) but went on foot, he was a fast walker and ran much of the way, especially down the hills (as told by his son Joseph P. Locke when I was a boy) Geo. H. Yeaton.


After the death of Levi Locke in the year 1850, the farm was kept by his family or some of his descendants until the year 195? when it was sold to other parties having been in the Locke family for more than one hundred and fifty years.


The original Locke homestead was kept by the descendants of the David Locke family until the year 1915, it was then sold to Charles A. Reid. It is still owned by a member of that family, Neil G. Reid. It is quite evident that after Simeon Locke moved to the intervals of East Concord, that David Locke moved to the original homestead on Locke’s Hill. As all that remains of his home is some of the old foundations and a well to mark its location. It was in the year 1818 that Simeon Locke moved to East Concord, where he died August 12, 1839.

I believe that the view from Locke’s Hill is the most beautiful to be found from any home for many miles. “Locke’s Hill” (the name)  is only a memory now as the Reid family having lived there nearly fifty years, it is naturally and properly called Reid’s Hill.

 

1892 It was some distance to the home of Henry C. Ames where he, his wife Ella O. and his mother Harriet O. Ames, (the widow of Charles Ames) lived. Charles Ames had died in the year 1887.

It was at this home where Mayland P. Ames, the boy previously mentioned, wearing the felt boots and carrying the round dinner pail lived, being the son of Henry C. and Ella O. Ames. This farm where the Ames family lived was the original William Odiorne farm.


In later years Mayland P. Ames lived at this farm with his last wife, Ada C. (Wheeler) Ames, and their children. Mayland P. Ames, died at his old home, July 16, 1950, age 70 yrs. 10 mo. 3d. Mayland P. and Ada Caroline Wheeler, the daughter of Frank P. and his wife Lillian C. (Hilliard) Wheeler, were married in Chichester September 3, 1932. They were the parents of four children. Three daughters and one son. Mrs. Ada C. Ames, lives in Concord, N.H. (1963)


I am now leaving the Ames farm with its maple sugar orchard, the memory of going fishing at Odiorne Pond with Mayland, seventy years ago, the maple sugar he gave me one day at the New Orchard Rd. school, taking it from his odd shaped dinner pail.

 

No further information.

 

NATURAL DEATHS & ODD CIRCUMSTANCES


Was it just a coincidence or is it dangerous to take a bath in the winter? Charles Ames, who lived on the Locke's Hill Road in Epsom, had some business to transact in the village of Pittsfield, so directly after taking a bath he went to Pittsfield. The next day he was stricken with Pneumonia and died February 4, 1887 at the age of 70 years, 2 months and 20 days. His family believes that the bath he had taken just before leaving for Pittsfield village caused him to have pneumonia.


According to John Mark Moses, William Odiorne was in Epsom by 1776, an is one of two residents who refused to sign the Association Test. In 1784 he apparently had a home on Locke's Road, as when that road was extended it passed 'southwest of Mr. Odiorne's house.' 


Charles Ames bought his property from Benjamin L. Locke in 1857 on the easterly side of the Locke Hill Road, and it contained 120 acres, passing through Odiorne Pond. He was the son of Amos and Susannah (Moses) Ames, born in 1816. Charles married in Epsom in 1854, Harriet O. Hill, daughter of Joseph and Lydia (Blaisdell) Hill of Nottingham, where the couple resided prior to moving to Epsom. Their two sons were probably born in Nottingham, the first being Henry C. in 1852, who married in Pittsfield in 1879, Ella Ora Winslow, daughter fo Charles E. and Hannah B. (Watson) Winslow; and Charles A., born in 1856.


Charles Ames died in 1887, and his son Henry deeded the home farm to his mother Harriet a few months later. Henry continued to reside at the homestead. Harriet deeded 80 acres, her homestead farm, to her grandson Mayland P. Ames, son of Henry C. and Ella, in 1908. The deed included the right of his father to occupy two rooms in the westerly end of the house during his natural life. Harriet died within a month of the deed. Mayland Parker Ames was born September 13, 1879, and married Martha A. Staniels of Chichester October of 1900.


Mayland married second December 2, 1922, Mildred Ethel Little, born 1905 to Herbert S. and Ada Florence (Marden) Little. They had adopted daughter, Harriet. Ethel married second in 1932, Edmund C. Gravlin. Mayland married a third time at Chichester in 1932, Ada Caroline Wheeler, daughter of Frank P. and Lillian C. (Hiliard) Parker. Mayland and Ada had children: Barabra Vernona, born 1932; Dorothy Harriot, born 1934; Marjorie Pauline, born 1936 and Robert Henry in 1937.


Mayland Parker Ames died in Epsom in 1950, his wife Ada C. at Merrimack, NH, 1994.


The property, 115 acres with buildings, taxed to Mayland P. Ames, was bought at tax sale by the town of Epsom, September 25, 1937.

 

REMINISCENCE

Winter roads of Epsom, New Hampshire


Winter roads were in use many years ago and some were used as late as the year 1920, although not as much at that date. There were many such roads in Epsom, some of considerable length, but at this writing I will only tell of the one of which I was most familiar. This was the one which commenced at the New Orchard Road schoolhouse. This schoolhouse was at the junction of the Locke Hill road with the Sherburne and New Orchard Roads.


The ox and horse teams of those early days left the highway at the corner of the school yard keeping on the north side of the Odiorne Pond brook for a long distance. The first land one crossed was the land of Frank Holt, later Cyrus Lewis, later owners Woodbury, Western and others until at this present date (1963) the first land crossed is owned by Walter B. Chase. Except for a small strip of land which Lewis sold to James O. Fiske, that his cattle and sheep could come to the brook for water. The next land was the large field of Henry C. Dotey, from there into the field of James Yeaton. When the road left his field it crossed the pasture of Samuel B. Stanley (now Yeaton’s). Next they came to the William Goss meadow crossing it at its lower end and at one place very near to the book, as one left the meadow there was a stone culvert, for at this place a small brook crossed the road entering the Odiorne Pond brook close by.


After leaving the Goss pasture the road crossed the land of Albert D. Sherburne. At this point the brook ran to the east or in a southerly direction and the road more to the west – it was some distance across the Sherburne pasture into the old “mill field,” across this field, still on land of Sherburne and on into more pasture land of Sherburne continuing all the way to the yard of Albert D. Sherburne. As one crossed his dooryard one entered the town highway which lead to the Epsom R.R. Station, where in those days vast quantities of wood and lumber were shipped by freight trains.


This was a busy place in those days as teams came from all parts of Epsom, from Chichester, Deerfield and Northwood, with loads of wood and lumber. Much freight and express came in on the trains for Epsom as it did for Deerfield and Northwood, as the last named towns had no railroad in their town.


Besides loading wood and lumber direct from the sleds, there was a great deal of wood and lumber stacked and piled on the land near the railroad. This would be loaded on the cars later.


One day I counted twenty-five horses and mules at the depot wharf at the same time, all had brought loads of lumber. This was in the summer time and the reason there was one horse more than twelve pair was that Will Breen was using a three horse team that day. Some of the teams would load up with freight express and grain to take back to Northwood with them for the stores in that town. 


Now, not all who came over this winter road from the New Orchard, Sherburne and Locke's Hill roads unloaded their loads at the depot, as many of the teams continued on to the sawmill of George H. Burnham. Mr. Burnham, besides doing custom sawing of lumber and shingles, bought large quantities of logs, which he manufactured. As at that time he, Mr. Burnham, operated a box shop in addition to his sawmill and other sidelines such as clapboards, laths, etc. Others who used this winter road would take their milk and eggs to the train, or some might sell wood in Gossville village. Some of the ones who used this road were Albion Locke, Charles E. Cilley, William T. Grant, who drove an ox team for Albion Locke; Henry C. Ames, Horace Locke, Mayland P. Ames, S. Lucas Clark, Silas B. Paige and others from South Pittsfield. Other men who did not live on the Sherburne, Locke's Hill or New Orchard roads made much use of this road.


Large amounts of wood, logs, sawed lumber as well as hemlock bark came from this section of the town. One day I saw a team with a casket loaded on their sled on their way to the cemetery at Gossville. The body in the casket was one of those who died of spotted fever (the winter of 1905) when an epidemic of this disease struck in South Pittsfield.


Hay from the Goss meadow was hauled over this road each summer for many years.

This road from the New Orchard Road schoolhouse to the home of Albert D. Sherburne was quite level and a little down grade most of the way. On its entire length there was only one short hill to go over and the horses, as well as their drivers, knew when they were about to come to this rise in the road, and how the horses would quicken their pace to get a good start, when they reached this place in the road.


In later years when I became old enough to own and drive a pair of horses, I would use this road when I came home after a day's work with my horses hauling lumber from Northwood, and I have carried my milk to the Epsom depot by this old road. I would leave the regular path in my father's field, cross the bridge by the old Cate mill site, and come through the pasture a short ways to my barn. There was another way which I sometimes used through the Stanley pasture. Will tell about that later.


I remember going on wheels to the R.R. Station where Silver and Young were unloading cars of grain and getting a two-horse load of grain, going and coming by way of this winter road. One winter, Charles S. Hall, who had a lot of wood cut between the Range Road and the Locke Hill Road, used this old winter road in hauling the wood. He had one or more teams of his own, hiring others to help haul, but this was not all who made much use of this winter road, for a lot of teaming was done by the Barton brothers - David Barton, Albert Barton and Lewis Barton. Others from the upper end of the Range Road – David M. Philbrick, his sons Henry and Augustus, others from that same section of Epsom were Frank Wheeler, Warren Hilliard and others from the upper end of the Range Road and some from South Pittsfield.


Now when they came down the Range Road and reached a place near the foot of a hill, they would cross the pasture of Samuel B. Stanley (at this date 1962) of George F. Dowst, coming a short distance across his field onto the New Orchard road, to the Stanley dooryard then turning to the right, go a few rods and turn into a path directly in front of the Perley C. Giles house (now the Chase home 1962). After a short distance in this pasture which belonged to Samuel B. Stanley, they would cross a brook and join the road which came up from the New Orchard Road schoolhouse, then continue on the same road to the depot or Gossville village. Thus from where these two roads came together there was double the travel from there to the depot. The junction of these roads was in the Stanley pasture just below the James Yeaton field. Now a short cut from our house to this same path was from the dooryard by the barn and on into the Stanley pasture across the brook and there you had three roads coming together at the same place. There was for many years a bridge across the brook in the Stanley pasture. In later years I built one, as the original bridge had become of no use.


There was another winter road which came down through the valley, starting at this end of Odiorne Pond in the Albion Locke, or the Philbrick pasture after leaving the Locke pasture then continued southerly through the wood lot (now Bartons), then across the Holt or Lewis pasture (now Walter B. Chase 1962) into the pasture of Henry E. Dotey, next into the wood and timber lot of James Yeaton on into the Stanley pasture where it joined the road which came from the Range Road. One could now continue in this winter road to the New Orchard Road and so on to the Epsom depot, by taking the winter road which was directly in front of the Giles house.

Another winter road joining the other three making four all convening into one route to the Epsom depot.


The beauty of the horse teams was the bells which were attached to each horse, some teamsters had two bells on each horse, these bells, many of them were deep toned and could be heard from a long distance, and when several teams were traveling this road at the same time, no one but those who have heard their musical tones ringing in the cold winter air can appreciate their beauty.


But this era is past and gone. Now when I am out in my yard or driveway on a winter's day, what do I hear? Not the sweet music of bells but the sound of an automobile horn, the squealing of tires, or the screeching of brakes. Oh well, we are now living in modern times and an old man, like myself (79) can not be expected to appreciate the beauty of these times. The blare of the automobile horn, the squealing of tires and the screeching of brakes.


More about the winter roads of long ago. There was another old winter road which came from the west side of Odiorne Pond. One could enter the road about half way between the Ames farm buildings and the Levi Locke homestead as its course was parallel with the town highway and came quite close to it, as this point at the foot of a steep hill. It was on the east side of the highway and after it left the Ames pasture it crossed the Albion Locke land and a section of the Levi Locke first land. Now someone had done much work on this road in the days long gone. There was quite a long stretch of this road on a side hill and someone had made a road on the side hill by cutting down the high side and building up the low side until they had a nice wide roadway, there were other places that had been improved to make the road much better. Of course this work was done when the ground was not frozen. It was down grade most of the way from where one entered the road, not very steep at any place.


As one left the big woods they came into the Albion Locke field at its lower end near the meadow. At this place it joined the road, which came from the east, the one previous mentioned which came from the Range Road or not far from it. The road from this point continued on across the fields of Albion Locke and William T. Grant. As they left the Grant field near his house, the winter road joined the Locke's Hill road, then on to the New Orchard Road schoolhouse and started for Gossville by way of the of winter highway which left the town highway at this place.


We now have eight branch roads, which were all merged into one before it reached the Goss meadow.

It was the custom of the empty teams when meeting loaded teams to turn completely out of the road, if it were possible.


The Locke field is now the Reid field, Grant field now the Carroll Clark field.


As a boy living on the New Orchard Road, I would look out of the living room window many times, watching the teams in the winter season, hauling the loads of logs and wood across my fathers back field. Most of the teams were two horse teams, but Albion Locke always had a team of oxen (big ones). If I was out of doors I could hear the bells of the horse teams, sometimes before they came in sight, and although one could not see the teams which left the main road just before my father's field turned to come out at the Perley Giles place, one could hear the bells from these teams.


When teams from this main winter highway as well as those which came from the seven branch roads, came to the Albert D. Sherburne buildings, they passed right through the dooryard and very close to the house. There is one member of the Sherburne family left, who as a young girl saw the string of teams passing to and from the Epsom depot. This is Miss Nellie F. Sherburne, and although not quite as old as myself, she tells me that she can well remember when this road was used by all these teams going to and from the depot or village from morning until night over this winter highway. I can think of no one else other than Miss Sherburne and myself who is left of those which saw the teams passing to and from over this winter road, and can remember the music of the bells on the horses. I can remember of George V. Pike telling me that as a young man, he worked for David Barton, driving a four ox team hauling wood to the Epsom depot over the winter road. 


That was a long time ago as George V. Pike was born in the year 1864 or 1865. It is now the year 1962. I have been told that my father and older brother used some of these winter highways before I was born (I was born in the year 1883). Most of the men who drove the horse teams took great pride in the looks of their horses and the harnesses trimmed with red, white and blue ringed tassels on the horse's bridles, the brass on the harnesses polished until it glistened in the sun. The horses were clean and well groomed, some with ribbons braided in their manes and forelocks.


I now live in the village of Gossville and many times have looked at the Sherburne house and buildings including the stretch of road which passed the house and thought of the men who drove their teams over this stretch of road in the winter (years ago). There are not many of those left, none of the older ones, and very few of the ones who made the last use of old winter roads. At this writing I can think of only two, Myron B. Kimball and myself. It is now the month of January 1962. I left the New Orchard Road in the year 1936 and my son John and myself made some use of the old road from the farm to my home in the village of Gossville, but after a few years we gave up this way of travel between the two homes as most of our traveling was done by the use of automobiles and trucks. From where I live I only need to look out my kitchen window to see a part of this road and the Sherburne buildings. I am not certain but I think that the part of this road which I can see from my home here in Gossville was at one time what was once the old “Canterbury Road” as “going over the hill north of Gossville”, and today January 1962, one could not get through the old winter highway that saw so much traffic in the old days, except on foot, and they tell me that trees and bushes are commencing to obliterate the road in many places.