The First Facts
On 22 November 2025 volunteer Bill Adams opened a study of the stone foundation on the south side of Abbott road near address 75. Also participating were Vanessa: researcher; Shaun Searah: metal detectorist; Gibson: assistant. It is attributed to “Royal Scales” by Lyford as item #35 on page 467 “for whom the house was built.” The 1858 Walling Map also attributes it to “R. Scales”. It does not appear on the 1892 Hurd Atlas, nor on Lyford’s 1911 map.
We were able to identify the site as being part of the 40 acre Home Lot #156, originally granted to Edward Evans in 1727, but not marked on the ground until 1731.
A modern designation of the site in the town tax records: Map 239 Lot 7.
The Age of the House
We pursued this data with determination because of the abundance of information available to allow us to report on the age with considerable accuracy. However, because our deed research was done mostly for the purpose of locating the site in relation to Abbott Road, the results are not a complete or a legally valid finding. For those wishing to pursue other ownership aspects of the site, we suggest examining at MCRD Volume 87/ Page 178, which appears to convey to Scales two tracts totaling 16 acres with house and barn in 1847. And Volume 100/ Page 190 which conveys an additional 10 acres in 1850.
The age is further supported by MCRD 180/474 of 1866 when Scales’ son Cornelius and his wife, and Scales wife Roxanna, convey two tracts totalling 26 acres to Sylvanus Moore, who was living across the road in the house of John and Hannah Moore, his grandparents. The Scales may have sold the property because they moved to a new location. The buildings may have burned, may have been dismantled, or just fallen down. The decrepit condition of the foundation prevented us from gathering evidence to clarify the disappearance of the buildings. This 1866 deed makes no mention of buildings, which is in close agreement with our next two paragraphs.
Our usual logic would surmise that Roxanna and Royal were married around 1826 and about that time settled in the house, even though he seems to have acquired title to the place in 1847 as noted above. By the end of the 60’s family members had died or were married and away from Canterbury, raising children in distant locations. The 1870 Federal Census reports that Royal was living in Wilmot, thus we speculate that by 1870 the house was vacant or gone.
Furthermore, we offer the observation that the huge, rotted tree now standing inside the foundation of the “barn” (photo below) which is over 3 feet in diameter, and has collapsed to the height of only 11 feet, has probably been dead for 75 years, and it was at least 80 years before that when it began growing. Following this scenario, the barn, and the house must have disappeared over 155 years ago. Which would have been about 1871. Congruent with the end of occupancy date determined above. Thus it had been occupied for at most, only 45 years.
WARNING:There is a bountiful crop of Poison Ivy around the foundation.
What we Found at the Site
Our first impression was a foundation completely filled in, with little evidence of there ever having been a building there. The area within 60 feet of Abbott Road included a tangle of vines, other brush, trees up to 8 inches in diameter, with a few flat or rounded stones visible, as well as broken bottle glass, various rusted metal or painted objects, and mechanical parts of farm vehicles and equipment. Just to the south of that is a well defined foundation with stacked stones on three sides that was apparently the site of a small barn. Possibly connected to the house.
Upon removing the surface plant matter, our second impression was formed when we discovered a large number of modern artifacts on the surface which we describe as “trash”. We also found significant evidence of earth moving activity which had resulted in the foundation being so disturbed as to make identification of the extent of what may have been a small root cellar, and what may have been a crawl space, initially impossible. Also revealed were a few more large, flat stones that seemed randomly situated throughout the area of the foundation.
We came to realize that other than the trash which was dumped just before, or during the earth moving activity, there appears to have been no intentional vandalization. Whatever evidence of a cellar hole had been there was extensively altered during the process of filling the hole and leveling the area.
The Details
Upon excavating three test pits, the largest almost 2 cubic feet, and by additional vigorous raking we exposed several flat, foot square stones that were aligned and apparently in an original position that lead to us being able to estimate the approximate size of the foundation. With the long axis perpendicular to the road, the foundation was 24 X 20 feet, with the 10 or so feet closest the road being a root cellar and the remainder a crawl space, which may have transitioned to a shed spanning the 6 feet to the barn foundation. Please note the tentative nature of our characterization of the properties of the buildings due to the disturbance noted above.
Absent from the site were a mound of bricks typical of fireplaces, and cut granite stones typical of the sills supporting the wooden structure above. Also not found were a front door step, hearth stones, period artifacts.
Present were Day Lilies.
The barn
In contrast with the poor condition of the house foundation, the small, 14 X 18 foot barn, also orientated north/south, was mostly intact. The stacked stones retain the west, north, and east walls of the foundation, with the south open for ground level access to the interior.
It appears that during the filling-in of the adjacent house foundation, some additional stones were added along the east and west walls without disturbing the footprint. But near the south opening were a number of large rocks in disarray.
It is possible that a ramp from the house could have given access to the second floor for the storage of hay or other feed for the few livestock that could have been quartered below. There was no obvious entry to the lower level from the house. Curiously, there was one 30 inch long cut granite stone near the north/west corner of the barn, apparently still in position.
The interior of the foundation was about 40% filled with modern trash, and organic matter from the collapse of the huge, rotting tree within the walls. We estimate this foundation to have been about two feet tall.
The 4 corners of the complete foundation are marked with white flags. The view east.
Again the complete foundation with 4 white flags. The view south. The barn beyond in the trees.
Between the white and orange flags. The barn is viewed to the east.
Close up of the barn and the huge, rotten tree. Viewed to the east.
Meet The Family
Using the 1860 Federal Census information below, we calculate that Royal was born in 1801. In fact, throughout Lyford Volume I we find several entries for Royal Scales, such as on page 259,notice that he voted in 1844 to abolish capital punishment, and on page 276 that he served in the infantry between Sept 1861 and Nov 1862 at age 61, and mustered out with an unspecified disability. Interestingly, son[?] Bernice (age 19) is credited as serving in the First Regiment of the United States Volunteer Sharpshooters from August 1862, was wounded once and was killed in battle 27 May 1864.
The Lyford Genealogies Volume 2 page 305 names 7 children born of Roxanna and Royal from 1828 until 1843, Bernice being the youngest. We make note of him because of the unusual name. Furthermore, we were fortunate to have found a file in the Canterbury Historical Society Archives in a box labeled “Various People Mc-Z, Box E-19-5”. That file box included a folder containing several documents, such as a copy of the 1860 Federal Census for Canterbury, which lists the members of the household that year:
| Royal Scales | 59 | M | Farmer |
| Roxanna | 56 | F | |
| Milinda D | 32 | F | |
| Roxanna | 22 | F | |
| Bernice | 17 | M |
Also in that folder are several more documents that appear to have been collected and recently written by a family member, which includes a one page document referring to Bernice as “her”.
The balance of the documents are military records pertaining to Bernice, including enlistment physical and psychological/character exams, all referring to “him”.
The Artifacts
As noted above, within the area of the foundation, no artifacts were discovered other than farm and household trash from the first half of the 20th Century. However, in the adjoining hayfield, Shaun recovered several artifacts.
Photo #1. Top to bottom: a very unusual tapered-end cut nail; an interior view of a fragment of a cast iron pot; a metal button with text. Possibly early to mid 18th Century.
Photo #2. Close-up of the metal button with text.
Photo #3: part of a brass buckle with silver plate; brass end protector on a fabric belt; a United States 1819 One Cent Coronet Head copper coin; a small bakelite covered jack knife; an empty metal lipstick case.
By Bill Adams, for the Canterbury Historical Society.
It is possible that other, as yet undiscovered evidence may exist that would amend or completely contradict our findings.
For the deeply curious: Author’s Privilege; Chasing our Theory
In the process of documenting this site we soon came to believe that the dwelling on our site had the characteristics of what we have come to call tenant housing. A small footprint, small or nonexistent out buildings, and no obvious water supply. We believed the occupants were in the service of a family in a “Big House”. And the existing, and well maintained, dwelling across the road to the north could fit the definition of the Big House.
It was owned by a branch of the prosperous Moore family. In this case John Moore and Hannah Morrill, who were married in 1786, began a family, and ultimately had 7 children. Lyford writes that they also began this farm on Hackleboro Road, but it actually extended along Abbott Road as well. Only 2 offspring seem to have remained in the house, as reported in the 1870 census. First born Harriet A, unmarried, who died in 1907, and Sarah F.
The first son, Sylvanus C., was born about 1826, raised two children with Caroline Small, but not in Canterbury. He bought the Scales place in 1866 but does not seem to have moved back to Canterbury. Possibly the Scales family had already abandoned the home, or sold it about the time the last of the family left.
In the tenant family scenario I proposed, the foundation we were documenting would have been built by the Moore family as housing for their farm hands. In fact, Lyford states on page 467 “for whom the house was built.” But as we began chasing that conclusion, we discovered that actually the Scales family owned the land under and around their dwelling. Not the Moore family to the north. But the Moores still could have had it built for Scales.
Well, maybe they owned the home, but they were still in a service relationship to the Moore family. We had evidence that was true. The Scales place dated from around 1826, while the Moore homestead was settled around 40 years earlier. Was it true that as the Moore family became prosperous they were able to engage the Scales to build near-by and become employees? In fact, by the time the Scales’ last-born was 8 years old, as reported by the 1850 Federal Census, the Moore family was already shrinking, because 3 of their children had already departed. Meanwhile, only one of the Scales’ offspring was gone, and their new, small farm was not valued much below that of the much older, and possibly deteriorating Moore place.
Of special note, and may possibly be important to our theory, the 1850 Census also reports that an Elizabeth C. Moore (born 1839) from the Matthias Moore family was living with the Abiel Moore family. Had they taken a boarder to help around the house? That could have been the case, because by 1860 only three people were living in the Abiel Moore house, grandmother Hannah and two grandchildren, Harriet, who had never left home, and Sarah F (born 1839) and had returned. Clearly the home was in decline. While there was still a family of 5 in the Scales family across the road. Do you believe the Scales were employed by the Moores?
More History
To begin with a deep look at the history of this lot, we note that generations of the original settlers occupied this land for 11,500 or so years. Because this land was not much favored for growing crops or settling in villages, we believe that while the hunting may have been very productive here, little other activity took place this far from the fertile intervale land. Thus for the first hundred years of European settlement here in the Western World, little changed in these hills for the indigenous people. However, through disease, warfare, and treaties the area became “open” to the new settlers as the British royal owners began laying out towns further and further from the Atlantic Coast.
The early history of this site is documented on page 1 in “History of the Town of Canterbury” by James Otis Lyford, 1912. So here we go, back to Lyford’s rendering of the original 20 May 1727 charter of the town given by the representative of King George I, when Royal Lieutenant Governor John Wentworth and several other officials meet in the Royal Mansion to draft and sign the charter.
On 31 October that year 199 men were designated to be the original Proprietors (owners) of the town. That was about it for the next 4 years. Then finally, on 27 May 1731 at the meeting house at Oyster River Falls in the town of Durham, they all met again. By the end of that meeting these men learned which of the 121 square miles of this frontier town, later known as Canterbury, Loudon, and Northfield, belonged to them, when they “drew lots”.
That meant that the numbers 1 thru 199 were placed in a container and each man drew a number, which became his lot. In this case a “40 acre Home Lot”. The record shows that by then, the survey and division of the prime land of the town had been completed. However, while the team that surveyed and marked out the lots on the ground were charged with making the lots to be 40 acres, in fact many lots are larger than 40 acres. So while we believe we do know who the first Proprietor was for your lot, we can state with no certainty the actual size of the lot. That is because the surveyors had the authority to make the lots larger when they encountered steep, rocky, or swampy land within that lot.
Our old town has created and witnessed 299 years of history.
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Incredible work, Bill. This is a gift to the town of Canterbury. Thank you.