The Campbell Farmhouse on Kendall Pond Road in the town of Windham, New Hampshire, is a characteristic example of an Italianate style farmhouse with a shallow pitched roof, L-shaped footprint, and two stories with a shallow pitched roof and bracketed cornice with overhanging eaves. The residence was built by 1868 for its original owner, Deacon Samuel Campbell Sr. (1819-1902) and the farmland backed up to the Beaver Brook behind the residence. When the property was threatened for redevelopment and demolition, the community banded together and voted for the Town of Windham to purchase the property. A feasibility study was conducted in 2015, which resulted in the restoration and sale of the Campbell Farmhouse to private owners and the preservation of the surrounding marsh and farmland into publicly accessible conservation land.
Located in the bucolic town of Princeton, Massachusetts, Goodnow Farm sits at the heart of a landscape that has been farmed for more than two and a half centuries. The farm and road take their name from the Goodnow family who owned the land here for well over 100 years. The farmhouse, which dates to around 1786, was built for Edward Goodnow (1742-1798) and his wife Lois, who married in 1770. Edward was a corporal during the Revolution, serving both at the Lexington alarm on April 19, 1775, and at Dorchester Heights in 1776, before settling in Princeton to spend his remaining years on the farm. The property was inherited by his son, Edward and later by his son, William B. Goodnow (1815-1904), the brother of Edward Augustus Goodnow, a merchant who made his fortune in Worcester and donated the Town Hall and Library to his birthplace. After nearly 150 years of Goodnow family ownership, in 1917 the old farm was sold to industrialist, Charles T. Crocker, Jr. of Fitchburg and became a gentleman’s farm. Crocker used the farm as a summer retreat from the city and hired staff to maintain the working farm aesthetic, though Charles Crocker did not actually do much or any of the agricultural laboring himself. Investing in the old farm to maintain the rural charm, Crocker added a large cow barn and attached dairy and the estate managed livestock and orchards. After the death of his father, in 1956, Mr. Crocker’s son, Charles T. Crocker, III, gave the main part of the farm, in two parcels totaling 636 acres, to the Massachusetts Audubon Society, to be preserved in perpetuity as a wildlife sanctuary. He made an additional gift of 118 acres in 1963. Over the subsequent decades, other parcels were acquired and the site has been operated as the Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, covering roughly 1,100 acres of the oldest farmland in Princeton, with twelve miles of public walking trails and historic stone walls. The site preserves what early Princeton was known for, at a simpler time when families depended on their own gardens, orchards, livestock and labor.
When the town of Princeton was incorporated, vast land holdings were acquired, sold, and subdivided into large farmsteads for families moving westward from Boston. Part of the land in present-day Princeton was owned by William Brattle of Cambridge, but was undeveloped and confiscated by the Government as Brattle was a Loyalist, and sold in 1781. The property was purchased by David Osgood and later inherited by his son, Houghton Osgood (1768-1844), who built this farmhouse around 1794. The farmhouse and surrounding property with small pond, remained in the Osgood family until the mid 20th century.
Captain David Rice (1757-1825) was a resident of Rutland, Massachusetts, upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, where he served as fought in the local militia. After the war, David Rice married Abigail Newton in 1785 and purchased farmland in the western portion of Princeton, Massachusetts. With a property of over 100 acres, David and Abigail Rice had this farmhouse built, which is believed to be the main block of the present house on Old Colony Road. The Rice family farm was impacted in 1825 by the deaths of both Capt. David Rice and his eldest son, David Rice Jr., within four months of each other. The Rice farmland, which at the time of the patriarch’s death, included 121 acres and it underwent a complex division among the heirs, who included the two Rice widows. In 1852, area resident, Simeon Clark, purchased the Rice farmstead and modernized the house in the Greek Revival style, adding a side ell and corner pilasters which remain today. The property was again enlarged and “modernized” in the early 20th century with the present Queen Anne Victorian modifications which include the the paired ridge chimneys, projecting cornice, side ell, bay windows at the facade, pedimented dormers with patterned shingles, and the full-length front porch. The house was renovated from a farmhouse to a country estate, similar to many other area farmhouses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Princeton.
Soon after the town of Princeton, Massachusetts, incorporated in 1759, residents of other towns in the central part of the state flocked to the area to establish homesteads and farm the land. One of the new residents of Princeton at this period was Jonas Beaman (1750-1804) who settled here from Lancaster and built one of the most significant and unique farmhouses in town. Jonas built the stone house around 1780 from stones harvested near Mount Wachusett, and his family maintained the farm here. The basement of the house for a time served as a district school, following a fire that destroyed the previous school building. The Late-Georgian style residence features a hipped roof with center chimney, a center entry with transom, six-over-nine sash windows, and stunning site at the edge of a small pond.
In the summer of 1793, the quiet hill town of Princeton, Massachusetts, was shaken by a brutal murder that people were still discussing long afterward. Samuel Frost (1765-1793) was born in Princeton as one of three children. At 14, Samuel’s mother died after reportedly falling ill, but he blamed his father, who reportedly abused his mother for his entire childhood. On September 23, 1783, at the age of 18, Frost murdered his father while they were digging a ditch. Frost knocked his father over, and repeatedly stabbed him in the head with a handspike until his brains were exposed. Samuel Frost was tried in court for murdering his father but was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Years later, Captain Elisha Allen (1744-1793), a Revolutionary War Veteran and farmer in Princeton, became the guardian of Samuel Frost, providing him housing and a job on his property. On July 16, 1793, during an argument in a field on his employer’s farm, Samuel Frost killed Captain Elisha Allen. In the trial, it was discovered that Frost struck Mr. Allen more than fifteen times with the blade of a hoe and left his body lying on the ground. This time there was no acquittal. At the trial, he was found sane and sentenced to death. He was executed on a hill in Worcester on October 31, 1793. Executions then drew huge crowds and a carnival-like atmosphere. Allen’s grave in Princeton’s old burying ground records that he was “foully murdered by Samuel Frost.” The old farm in Princeton was purchased a year after Elisha’s death by Nehemiah Parker, who built this brick Federal-era farmhouse in 1794. While the home is not tied directly to Captain Elisha Allen, it was upon the fields that he brutally lost his life and is forever tied to the property here.
Built on the once 3,000-acre estate of Ward Nicholas Boylston’s country house in Princeton, Massachusetts, this historic farmhouse was built as the old Villa became a year-round residence. When Ward Nicholas Boylston (1747-1828) died in 1828, his Princeton estate was inherited by his grandson, Dr. Ward Nicholas Boylston (1816-1870), who further developed the property. By 1830, Ward Boylston built this Greek Revival style farmhouse where he operated the property as a gentleman’s farm, with agricultural fields, dairy cows, and out-buildings. The farm was one of the largest in central Massachusetts and was known around the state. When Dr. Boylston died in 1870, his son, Ward Nicholas III, inherited the property but eventually sold it out of the family in 1918. Boylston Villa and the adjacent Boylston Farmhouse are separately owned, but retain their architectural and historical significance thanks to great stewards to maintain the properties.
In 1769, Abijah Harrington (1743-1821) moved from Weston and settled in present day Princeton, Massachusetts, where he purchased land on Pine Hill and built this Georgian farmhouse soon-after. He built a home 38’x30′ and a barn and farmed here with his family upon the outbreak of the Revolution. Harrington enlisted with his fellow Princeton militiamen, where he was appointed Corporal. After the war, Abijah and his wife, Sarah, raised their seven children and maintained their farm, having a happy life until 1786. It is not clear what plagued the farm, but within a month, six of their children, ranging in age from 15 years to one year old, died. Abijah and Sarah paid for ornate gravestones for their six children and buried them in the spring at the Meetinghouse Cemetery in the center of town. Their one surviving son, Benjamin Harrington, would inherit the family farm and remained here until his death in 1851. In the late 19th century, the farm was purchased by brothers, Joseph and Edward Brewer of Milton, who seemingly operated it as a summer retreat and gentleman’s farm. It was known as Pine Hill Farm and today remains a private home.
The enchanting town of Princeton, Massachusetts, was incorporated in 1759, created out of land that was previously part of nearby Rutland. The town was named after Rev. Thomas Prince, a prominent clergyman, scholar and historian. Known as the Parker Farmhouse, this Georgian-era residence in Princeton dates to 1777, when Thomas Parker (1727-1799) of Lexington, purchased farmland here and began constructing the family homestead soon-after. Thomas resided in the home with his wife, Jane, and their only child, Ebenezer Parker (1750-1839). The Parker’s laid out a family cemetery near the homestead, now known as West Sterling Cemetery, where many generations of the family are buried. Thomas and Ebenezer seem to have run the homestead as a tavern by the late 18th century. The farmhouse remained in the family for generations, and maintains much of its original character.
One of the oldest extant homes in Newton, Massachusetts, can be found in the Oak Hill section of town on Dedham Street as a 18th century farmhouse with central chimney. This area was settled by members of the Stone Family as far back as the 1600s. The house is said to date to at least 1788 when it was owned by Ebenezer Stone (1757-1800), but given its form and historic map documentation, it is likely that the home dates to 1724 when the property was owned by Jonathan Stone. The farmhouse remained in the family for generations until it was sold out of Stone family in the 1880s. By 1919, the property was owned by Pietro Volante (1881-1953) a gardener and produce dealer, who built several outbuildings on the property and added porches to the old home. The property was formerly set back farther off the street, but was moved to its current siting and restored in 2017, to allow for a separate dwelling to be built behind. The old Stone Farmhouse was landmarked by the Town of Newton to preserve this important property.
Tucked into the village of Wonalancet at the foot of the Sandwich Range in Tamworth, New Hampshire, Wonalancet Farm began as a modest 1814 farmhouse on roughly 1,300-acres of land land once worked by Theophilus Brown and was updated to its present form as a late 19th century inn and farmhouse. The farm was purchased in 1890 by a young Katherine Sleeper, who set out to convert the historic farmhouse into a proper mountain inn, adding the porches, additions as guest wings that gave the classic New England farmhouse its present form. She hired Arthur Walden, her cousin by marriage and friend, to manage the new Wonalancet Farm and maintain the farm’s crops while she ran the inn. In managing the farm’s large property, Arthur was given the opportunity and means to breed and train sled dogs. These efforts produced the Chinook breed, which is now the official state dog breed of New Hampshire. Katherine would marry Arthur in 1902 and remained business and life partners and together, succeeded in protecting thousands of acres of old-growth forest in the White Mountains. When the Great Depression and summer tourism shifted in New Hampshire, the couple were forced to sell the inn, and moved nearby. In their other home, a fire broke out and trapped Katherine inside. While rescuing her and attempting to extinguish the fire, Arthur died. Katherine was unable to recover from the emotional and physical trauma; she died two years later. After the Sleepers, Wonalancet Farm operated as a dairy, sheep, and hay farm ever-since. Much of the surrounding land is preserved as conservation land, a testament to Katherine Sleeper Walden and her ever-lasting impact on Wonalancet.
Perched on a hill just outside Tamworth Village, the Eastman House stands as a stately Federal period farmhouse that later became a summer residence, a parallel to many similar homes in this community. The house was built around 1792 for William Eastman (1738-1800) a Revolutionary War veteran who settled in Tamworth and became selectman, Deacon of the Congregational Church, and Constable in town. The property functioned as a proper farm with detached barns and other agricultural structures that remain today. By the late 19th and early 20th century, the farm became a summer residence and given the name, Fleetwood Farm by residents.
The Deacon Chesley House sits on Hollow Hill Road just outside the village of Tamworth, New Hampshire, and is a quintessential example of a rural New England farmhouse. The residence was built around 1798 and is associated with owners, James Jewett Chesley (1813-1908) and Eliza (Chapman) Chesley. James was the Deacon of the village church and farmed the land here utilizing the various barns and outbuildings. The Federal style farmhouse is in a cape form with center entrance and chimney and covered with cedar shingles.
This now significantly altered Federal period residence is located in Tamworth, New Hampshire, and is a visual representation of the shift of the community from an agricultural economy to a tourism-based economy. The residence was built in the first half of the 19th century and owned by Henry Alonzo Wiggin (1808-1871) who was listed in the Census as a farmer. The formerly vernacular Federal period farmhouse was converted and expanded into an inn in the late 19th or early 20th century and became known as the Swift River House. When converted to an inn, the house was given the projecting addition on the facade at the second and third floors with the full-length porch, and covered with shingles. The structure served a vital role in the tourism economy when Lakes Region towns saw huge increases in visitors for the summer months. In 1929, Dr. Edwin Remick purchased the property for his son, Dr. Edwin Remick Jr., and his new wife, Marion. The father and son doctors maintained a medical office nearby in the Enoch Remick House, which now alongside this structure, are house museums operated by the Remick Country Doctor Museum & Farm.
The Asa Hill Farmhouse in Billerica, Massachusetts, stands as a rare extant Federal style residence constructed of brick in the community. Asa Hill (1798-1874) was born in Billerica and in 1822, married Susan Lawrence of nearby Concord. The couple purchased land near his childhood home and had this two-story residence built to raise his family and farm the land. The couple raised four children here and operated a small farm until they moved away in their later years. The Asa Hill Farmhouse is constructed of brick laid in common bond and is notable for its center entrance with arched fanlight transom and sidelights.
