East Orford Family Histories

Chase

Simeon Chase  was born in 1787 in Haverhill, Massachusetts  and came to Orford in the early 1800’s. He married Nancy Savage (her parents: Thomas Savage Sr. And Ruth Ayer’s) in 1810 in Orford and they had eight children : Sarah H. Born 1810, James Madison Born 1810, George B. Born 1811, Caroline Born 1814, John Born 1817, Mary Born 1819, John Baxter Born 1828 and Hepsibeth A. B 1835

Sarah H. Chase married John Mitchell Jr. of Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1835, James Madison Chase married Eliza Whipple of Rutland, Vermont in 1837, George B. Chase married, Caroline Chase married William Johnson of Massachusetts in 1835, John Chase (1st) died when he was 13 in 1829, Mary Chase married S.J Nichols and died at the age of 22, John Baxter Chase married Anna E. Flanders of Wentworth, New Hampshire, Hespsibeth  A. Chase died at age 22 in 1857 

John Baxter Chase lived in East Orford all of his life as a blacksmith and carpenter by trade. Living in the family home on 25A John was always fixings chains and making things, being hired by the local neighbors. He and Anna E. (Flanders) Chase had two boys. John Wesley Chase born 1876, and Warren Simeon Chase born 1878.

Besides her own domestic work and raising her two boys Annie would stay busy attending neighbors when they were sickly and in need. Her union with John was not a happy one and their separation was amicable. Later in life, after the boys were grown, she became a housekeeper for Daniel Simpson. After Dan passed away, he provided a comfortable life for Annie in her old age. 

John W. Chase Jr. married Alma (Day) McDuffee from Haverhill, New Hampshire in 1902. They had two children George F. Chase born 1903 and Fredrick W. McDuffee from Alma’s previous marriage. 

John lived a short life working as a blacksmith and carpenter with his father. After a cannon misfire on the 4th of July and being severely injured, he died the following day, the 5th of July, from shock and loss of blood. He would have been 35 on the 6th of July. 

Warren Simeon Chase married Edith May Simpson from East Orford in 1902. They had five children. Guy Warren Chase 1902-1964, Rufus Eugene Chase 1903-1950, Marion Idella Chase 1906-1974, Maurice Allen Chase 1909-1974, and Stanley Richard Chase 1914-1995. They were all born in East Orford at home. 

Sources:

1. Family Bible
2. NH State Birth Certificate
3. NH State Marriage Certificate
4. NH State Death Certificate
5. Gravestone 
6. Federal Census
7. John Chase Diaries
8. Deeds
9. Wills

The family story has always been that Grandfather, Edward L. Thorndike, purchased the farm in 1929 for $1000 from Warren Chase who had purchased it, fixed it up and then resold it.  However, there is an unsigned copy of a deed saying that my grandmother, Mamo, Elizabeth Moulton Thorndike (EMT), purchased the property from John G. Winant of Concord, NH in 1929. No price is given. The farm was originally one of the largest dairy farms in East Orford. It was known as the Horace Clough farm. The house was probably built around 1860. In 1929 the land was cleared all the way down to the lake and up to the neighboring farm to the north. There were originally 5 barns up by the house and at least one large hay barn down close to Prettyman Road. I’ve never been able to find the foundation for it. The small barn that remains was a smithy. The foundation to the left of the house was a carriage shed. Foundations for the other barns are clearly visible just behind it in the woods. The original road came down from farm above to the house, through the field and over the brook where there is now a footbridge. You can see the old bridge abutments if you look under the footbridge. 

Another family story is that Grandfather came only once, had terrible hay fever, and never came again. After that Mamo came with my father, Alan Moulton Thorndike (AMT) and his next oldest brother Robert Ladd Thorndike, my Uncle Bob. My cousin Edward, Edward Thorndike, came often as a young man and built a small addition with a bedroom and bathroom with running water off the back of the wood shop. AMT had that addition torn off in the 1970’s.

Mamo sold/gave the farm to AMT in 1947 for $1. I assume it was because he used it the most but I don’t really know why he got it.

In 1970 AMT purchased 20 acres on the other side of Prettyman Road from Albert and Mildred Merboth. Most of the land in both parcels is in the town of Orford. However, there are small pieces that are in the town of Piermont. As a result real estate taxes are paid to both towns. The town line is marked with orange blazes. You can see it easily along the road going up the hill on the other side of the twin bridges.

In 1988 AMT sold 2.18 acres on Prettyman Road to Quentin and Joyce Mack who built a house on it. Tom and Gail Steketee live there now.

Around 1910-15 Henry McGinnis was living in the farm just to the north (Sally Tomlinson’s place now). He was a New Hope school painter and painted many landscapes of the farm and the surrounding area. At some point he purchased a small piece of land and built the house just down the road. This house was later owned by Milton Freedman, the well-known economist, Ginny and Gil Kilpack and then Phil McGovern and his wife. McGinnis eventually moved to Fairlee and married his model, Jane, and continued painting. There is a photo of one of his paintings of the farm in a frame that my brother, Alan, made. My cousin Edward’s wife, Liz Thorndike, went to one of the camps on Lake Morey in Fairlee. She remembers Jane and Mac coming to the camp. At some point she acquired a couple of small paintings and some “fantasies” that she gave me.

AMT married Mary Louise Van Dyke (MLT) in 1942. They came to the farm for their honeymoon. They took the train to Fairlee where Warren Chase picked them up and drove them over to the farm. At that time there was a store at the end of what is now Upper Baker Pond Road where they could get milk, eggs and a few other things. The house was quite primitive. There was no refrigerator or any running water. Things that needed to be kept cold were put in a bucket and lowered down into the well. A hand pump at the kitchen sink was the only source of water. The only heat was from a wood stove in the kitchen and a Franklin stove in the living room. 

My earliest memories date from about 1951 when there was a bathroom with running cold water in the addition that cousin Edward had built. The water for the bathroom came from a well located north of the house near the path up to the Tomlinson’s. There was no fridge and the only water in the kitchen was from the pump at the sink. My brother, Karl, recalls great satisfaction at getting the pump primed and pulling water. It could be a struggle because the leather seal would be so dried out. After getting it started, the first thing you did was to fill two white enamel pitchers so you wouldn’t have to go back out to the well to get water to start it the next time. My sister, Jean, remembers having mostly Spam for dinner while we were there.

As a child my family went up to the farm most summers for a week or so. Mostly we went hiking either up Mts. Cube or Moosilauke. One summer we took the Cog Railroad up to the top of Mt. Washington and hiked over to Lake of the Clouds and spent the night. It was raining and freezing cold. I think I was about 8 and my younger brother, Karl, was about 6. We also swam in the ponds, both Upper and Lower Baker. Eventually we got a canoe but that wasn’t until the 1970s. When we were there my father spent much of the time mowing around the house and in the field out front and sawing and splitting firewood. We kids loved climbing around on the rocks, especially the big rock in the field towards Cube that we called Plymouth Rock.

One of my earliest memories is of being in my bed at night and hearing the mice running through the walls. I think I was about 4. I was terrified to put my feet on the floor until it was light enough to see. I was sure the mice would bite my feet if I put them down. The place always smelled of mouse nests and there were mouse droppings everywhere when we arrived each year.

Chase Family

For many years different members of the Chase family have looked after the farm for us. Generations of Chases have lived on Route 25A in a grey cape on the north side of the road just a little bit before you get to East Cemetery Road. Initially it was Warren Chase who looked after the farm for Mamo. When I was growing up Warren’s son, Stanley Chase, and his wife Eleanor kept an eye on things. Stanley mowed the field with an old tractor that was always breaking down and cut down some of the trees that were blocking the view. Eleanor did the laundry for us. Even as an adult I can remember stopping by to drop off the laundry on our way back home. Stanley and Eleanor had 2 children, Tim and Shirley. Tim did some logging for AMT on the south side of Prettyman Road and on the other side of the twin bridges. That old logging road has always been called Tim’s road. Tim eventually married Mary Chase and built a house behind Stanley’s house. They have 3 daughters who all live locally. Shirley married Alton DeBlois. When Stanley died Alton and Shirley moved into the original Chase house. Alton continued to keep and eye on things for us and mowed around the house until about 2020.

Logging

When Mamo acquired the property it was all open fields. Over the next 50 years forests grew up on all but a small field in front of the house. My father said they used to grow wheat in that field because it was the best soil on the property. In the late 70’s my parents decided it would be nice to open up the view towards Cube while leaving a wedge of mostly pine trees out front. They spent the next several years cutting down trees and hauling the branches into the woods. My husband, Karl, and I and our kids, Chris and Eric, helped when we could. Eventually they took down all the trees in the wedge except for one large maple that is still standing today. They had one of the pine trees sawn up into boards that AMT made into 2 tables. Those tables are still at the farm.

In the 1980’s AMT began working with David Thompson, a forester from No. Woodstock, NH, and started undertaking forest improvement projects. This involved quite a bit of thinning to create space for the higher quality trees to grow. The logging was done in 3 stages. First, on the north side of Prettyman Road and then on south side. Finally in 1988 a section to the northeast was clearcut and white pine and cherry trees were planted. The cherry trees didn’t do very well so now it is mostly white pine. The idea at the time was that the white pine would be a good cash crop.

Some time in the early 1990’s my parents decided it would be nice to have a view of Upper Baker Pond so they had the trees down in front clearcut. A few years latter they had the view widened. About that time they also had John O’Brien of Orford dig out the stumps and rocks in the front field to make the field easier to mow. They left a few of their favorite big rocks for sentimental reasons. We’ve had the field mowed at least once a year since then to keep the field from growing back up. In 2001/2 they decided to cut a view towards Cube. In 2014 I had the original view towards Upper Baker Pond clearcut again.

Conservation Easement

In 1992 AMT gave The Society for the Protection for New Hampshire Forests (SPHNF) a conservation easement on most of the property. He held out about 30 acres of land around the house to allow for the possibility that someone in the family might want to build a second house on the property. The boundaries of that 30 acre piece are marked with yellow blazes. The conservation easement allows for logging, farming and recreational activities but does not allow any subdivision of the property. 

Repairs

By the late 1960’s the farm was in disrepair and the field overgrown. AMT thought he either had to tear it down and build something new or fix it up. He decided to fix it up. There were originally 2 rooms in the front with a large closet between them. There was a Franklin stove in the room closest to the kitchen. AMT decided in the early 70’s to open up the front rooms and create one large living space with a fireplace where the closet had been. He tore off cousin Edward’s addition and put a modern bathroom with hot and cold running water in one of the small bedrooms. He insulated both the living room and the kitchen and had modern cupboards installed in the kitchen. He had a heatalator fireplace and electric heat installed in the living room and bathroom. Later, in the 80’s he had the attic insulated and finished off as additional sleeping space. In the mid 90’s he had a metal roof put on the house and then a few years later on the barn. About this time he discovered that the woodstove in the kitchen was badly cracked. My husband, Karl, and I found a replacement stove in, of all places, Thorndike, ME. It was exactly the same size so we were able to keep the original top.

In 2006 I had the sheet rock in the 2 downstairs bedrooms torn out, insulated the exterior walls and then re-sheet rocked and painted everything.

Mack Right of Way

In 1972 AMT gave a right of way to Ralph Wright so he could access his land. In 1983 Ralph Wright sold his land to Quentin and Joyce Mack. In 2001/02 Quentin rebuilt the bridge and improved the road out to his land. I believe that he and AMT shared the cost of rebuilding the bridge but I can’t find any documentation to that effect. By that time the right of way had moved slightly from it’s original location. In 2008 Quentin was advised by his lawyer to formalize the location of the right of way. After a lot of negotiating, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests and I signed off on the current location. 

Succession of Ownership

In 1996 AMT transferred the farm property to a trust designed to maintain the property for the use of MLT and their children. After the death of MLT in 2017 the surviving children decided to transfer the property to my sister, Jean Thorndike Gould, who then transferred it to her son Gregory Gould. We hope it will stay in the Thorndike/Gould family for generations to come.

Final Thoughts

Over the years the farm has served as a gathering place for Thorndike family events. It has been our “special” place. We celebrated AMT & MLT’s 50thanniversary there in 1992 and MLT’s 90th birthday in 2012 even though she was in the hospital and couldn’t attend. My cousin Betty Cope Brunette’s daughter, Mary Brunette, married Mark Feigl in the field out front. The family gathered at the farm for memorial celebrations for AMT in 2006 and for MLT in 2017. Their ashes were spread around the big rock in the field towards Cube and around the old foundation on Tim’s (Tim Chase, grandson of Warren Chase) road on the other side of the twin bridges. The blue spruce in the field towards Cube was planted in AMT’s memory while the white birch was planted in MLT’s memory.