We had a fire and needed a home

Greetings Canterbury history enthusiasts,

After the devastating fire that destroyed their almost completely built home, the Greenleaf family still had 85 acres of land. So they started again. Moving just 200 feet north of the first site, but now on the north side of Hackleboro Road. And squeezed into a very narrow sliver of land almost touching the north line of their Lot #37. In fact, there was no room for the barn, so they bought about an acre and a half from their new neighbor Joseph Brown who owned land on the other side of the lot line, in Lot #51.

In this third issue of the Cellar Hole Committee newsletter we tell the story of both the purpose and goals of our work, and the results of the documentation of an actual cellar hole. We do this work because we expect our results will give Canterbury residents and others interested in history an easily accessible record of hope fulfilled, and sometimes dashed.

Recall from the May Newsletter that Ichabod Chesley was the first owner of Lot #37 after the town was granted by King George in 1727. And now we report that while this new Greenleaf home did not change hands frequently, by around 1914 the building was gone and the cellar hole had been open to the sky for over 110 years.

After receiving authorization from the owners of the site we began our documentation with the simple step of attempting to view it. We say attempt because we found the site almost impossible to see until we were 15 feet from it because it had been overgrown by Bittersweet vines, some the size of small trees.

By the end of our second day of documentation we could make out the typical features of a large Canterbury cellar hole: stacked stone foundation walls, the mounded ruin of the fireplace and chimney foundations, broken bricks scattered around, and the hole partly filled with trash. Gosh, those cellar holes make such a great place to dump stuff!

As we suggested last month, the bricks and foundation stones from the first house were probably taken to the site of this house. And yet again, most of the bricks are gone, but surprisingly, most of the sill stones are in place. In fact, overall, clearly the foundation was very well built and as a result, is in very good condition. Even the entrance wall opening and ramp to the outside entrance of the large cellar ware in excellent condition.

On the other hand, we found no definitive evidence on the ground in the South-West quadrant for the existence of a crawl space foundation. As the actual outlines of the fireplaces were not distinct, it appeared that they were up against an outside, west wall. Never seen before. However, when the known size of the north wall was projected into the South-West quadrant “void”, we discovered a couple of foundation stones that defined the corner, and put the fireplaces inside where they belong.

Unfortunately the trash was so deep, up to three feet in some places, we were unable to examine the floor of the cellar to search for window glass, melted or not, nails, ceramics, charred wood, or other artifacts that could give evidence of how the building disappeared. Something for the next generation of historians to examine.

While no well was found within the usual 20 or 25 feet of the house, neighbors pointed out a fully intact well in a tangle of brush up a slope about 90 feet NNW of the cellar hole. What would you think?

The one and a half acres north of the house that was bought to contain a barn has some evidence of two stone foundations. In our opinion they are either much disrupted and one was a barn and the other an animal enclosure, or the barn site is somewhere far removed from the house, and undiscovered. More work for the next generation of historians. However, we did document the remains of a blacksmith shop situated in the area occupied by the two foundations. The report of that work will be available (Greenleaf 2-C) when our website is fully functioning.

What happened in this neighborhood?

There were seven homesteads within just a few hundred acres of not very productive land in this neighborhood. By the late 1900’s the wildly profitable sheep boom was over, the soil was worn out, and the factories and cities called people away with hopes of a better life. To this day, only four survive. But not as farms. They exist because of the care given by owners who love their homes.

Next Up: We traveled to the extreme east end of Canterbury to document a site which more logically belongs to Gilmanton. They are another 1727 town and if they get wind of our report will probably claim it IS in Gilmanton.

We will respond to suggestions and questions addressed to our email which is: cellarholesurveys@gmail.com

Bill Adams for the Cellar Hole Committee