Country Club Purchase

1899

Country Club purchased 1899

Transcription

BANK VILLAGE
THE SOUHEGAN COUNTRY CLUB'S PURCHASE


   The farm owned and occupied by Thomas Leedham since April, 1880, has quite recently been purchased by William A. Preston, John Preston, E. O. Marshall, Ralph E. Parker of New Ipswich, F. W. Ely and Herbert J. Taft of Greenville, S. C. Heald of Wilton and John W. Bemis of Temple, who have organized as the Souhegan Country club. and will lay out golf links. The house was built by Jonas Woolson, who was the second person with his wife to settle in New Ipswich. Mr. Woolson is said to have been here in 1739 and to have worked three summers on his land in company with Benjamin Hoar, Jr., returning to Littleton to spend the winters. It is supposed that Mr. Woolson and Abijah Foster, the first pioneer settler, removed their families here in 1742.

   Mr. Woolson and his descendants occupied the farm for 70 years and afterwards it was the home of William Brooks and family. 

   James Spaulding, one of the volunteer soldiers from New Ipswich in 1812 and also one of the town's historians, succeeded him. Sometime in the late forties, while making repairs on the old part of the house, Mr. Spaulding dis-covered the foundations of a former dwelling, having a large flat hearthstone for a fire place, with a quantity of ashes around it, that must have been in use a century or more before. He also found t accounts in chalk or charcoal on the timbers, registered over 100 years before by some one of the Woolsons, who are supposed to have found their way to town by marked trees, before any road i was built. The house is located on the l old "county road" where the first neighborhood gathered, and which was traversed by the stages running between Boston and Keene before the turnpike was built.

   From the brow of the hill the distant an range of hills and mountains extending of north, west and south with the intervening lands, make up a varied scene that would delight an artist. The observer may look down on the well-kept dwellings in Bank Village just across the Souhegan river, and turning about will get one of the finest views of Waterloom pond. At no great distance beyond the farm buildings Monadnock mountain can be distinctly seen. Mr. Leedham, who vacates the premises, is a native of Stockport, England, He came to America at 18 years of age in a sailing vessel which occupied three months in making the trip. He first lived in Philadelphia, was married in Norton and came to New Ipswich from Suncook, Ν.Η.

Leedham Farm before purchase

Original captioned as NEEDHAM instead of LEEDHAM. I would assume that the newspaper clipping is accurate.

James Roger diary entry

March 11, 1909 (Thursday)

Frost 8 degrees wind NW to West, fine day but gusty, high winds during the night.  David choring round went to mail in forenoon and to Lonie’s in afternoon.  I swept Hall for Grange tonight and went to mail in afternoon.