9/13/2011

We left early this morning from Camping World and drove to New Ipswich, New Hampshire. This town is where Jim’s Great, Great, Great Grandfather Peter Felt, Jr., had a house and cotton mill factory in 1810. We went to the library and Jim got information on the site. We found it and took pictures of the ruins.

Then he called his sister Judy and found out that Peter Felt, Sr. had a house still standing in the town of Temple, just down the road. We went to Temple and visited the city offices there. They had a book with information and a picture of the house. The ladies were familiar with the house and gave us directions. To get to the house we had to pass the cemetery where Peter Sr. and his wife Lucy are buried. The house is named the Felt-Tobey-Scott House and it was built by Jim’s Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather, Peter Felt Sr., in 1789. After Peter Felt, Sr. died two other Felts owned it. Then a man by the name of Charles W. Tobey bought it in 1903. He was a Governor, U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator. In 1957, Kenneth and Martha Scott bought it. She still owns the house. While we were taking pictures she came out to go to the dentist and invited us back at 3 pm to tour the house.

There were also some monuments in the town square dedicated to Peter Felt, Sr. and other heroes of the American Revolution. We drove to Peterborough and had lunch at a pub. We drove back to the house and Ms. Scott gave us a tour. She was very gracious and enjoyed showing us the historic house that she and her husband had cared for so well. The house is beautiful and still has lots of original features, including the large plank floors and huge fireplaces. The doors have the original hardware. In the kitchen was the old water pump and small sink. The Scotts expanded the house by adding a mud room and a three car garage. It is perfectly matched to the exterior on the original house. When Charles Tobey lived there, he wrote some daily information about the farm on the walls of one the upstairs rooms. It is still there, having never been painted over and dates back to 1939. Charles Tobey added a gazebo to the grounds in 1904 that has a marvelous view of the surrounding hills.

While we were there, Mrs. Scott’s home nurse mentioned that her aunt was a Felt and had a house for sale in town next to the cemetery. So we stopped and took a picture of it also. We had unhooked the trailer and left it at the New Ipswich town offices to keep from having to pull it around the countryside so we went back to pick it up and find a place to spend the night. We drove to Walmart by Nashua, New Hampshire.