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"Obadiah Comes Fourteen"
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I am very lucky to have both the Dunstable, MA
and Nashua, NH libraries to do my research at. I have a worn copy of "A History of the Town
of Dunstable, Massachusetts" written by Rev. Elias Nason
published in 1877. “Fletcher Genealogy: An account of the
descendants of Robert Fletcher of Concord, MA” by Edward Fletcher
of New York, NY. Printed for the author by Alfred Mudge & Sons, 34
School Street, Boston, 1871 was very helpful. IF you go to the Nashua Public Library, visit the Hunt Room and you can read both these books. I have copied most all of the information from these books to my website Fletcher Hill Farm . You might find this reading difficult since it was written over a hundred years ago. People didn't write the same way we do today. Do scroll down the page and read the stories of Mrs. Fletcher, Susannah Fletcher and the "Bruin" that came to dinner. |
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This is the earliest drawing that I have of my house. This drawing was done before 1881. Take a careful look at the outbuildings and land. Notice that there are NO trees on Blanchard Hill behind my house. There are four huge trees in front of the house. There is also a small extension on the left side. | |
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| This is the earliest Photo that I have of the house. The date is unknown to me but is much later that the drawing above. How do I know this? Clue: Look at the trees that you can see of the front yard and the side of the house. This picture does show a back room off the house which you can't see in the drawing. It could have been there earlier but doesn't remain today. What does remain today is a small dry well that would have been under this extension. |  |
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This is a front view of my house currently. When we moved in, there were two huge stumps that I had to dig out to be able to plant my gardens. One must have been the far right tree that you see in the early drawing. The other is stump to the left that you can't see in this picture. It is a sad thing that these huge old trees were lost to time. I have always felt that the stump that I dug out to put my current garden in is the ONE that held the mountain lion (catamount) in 1735. | |
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| Upstairs in my attic is another clue to what my house used to look like. Under the current roof of the shed dormer at the back of the house, is the complete roof of the old house. The wooden shingles from a much earlier time are still there. This is what my house looks like from the back. | ||
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When all the beams of the room were exposed in 1999 remodel, the contractor and I came to some interesting conclusions. It is possible that the original house could have been much smaller than it is today. One of the main carrying beams has many notches that look like the house could have been a small nearly one room structure to begin with. This beam is in front of the huge central fireplace (with five fireplaces) which could have been added within a short time period of the Fletchers building the house. NO pictures survive of this time period. | |
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| Blanchard Hill today. | ||
