This is a Grantham property known as the Fisher Lot (aka the Lucius Smith lot), a conserved property maintained by the Grantham Conservation Commission (GCC) for public benefit. The known history of this property dates back to the 1800’s when, according to the 1850 U.S. Census, Nathaniel Fisher, a 49-year-old farmer and his wife Anna J. Fisher (nee Johnson), age 55, lived here. They lived on the property and farmed it from the 1830s until their deaths in the mid 1860s. A 1847 document notes that Nathaniel owned 2 oxen, 3 cows, and 40 sheep, during a period that would have coincided with the end of the “Great Sheep Boom” in New England (1810s through 1840s), a period of time when sheep farms dominated the landscape resulting in a period of significant deforestation and the constructing of the thousands of stone walls that cross the region. One of two geocaches is near a cellar hole where their home was located above Miller Pond Road. The second geocache is located near the family cemetery on the crest of a nearby hill.
A few interesting facts about the house, family, and property:
1). The 1850 US Census lists the residents of Nathaniel’s and Anna’s house as their daughters (Juliett Henderson Fisher age 15, Mary Delano Fisher age 13, Lorana Johnson Fisher age 11), Nathaniel’s sister-in-law (Betsey Ann Stevens age 24), Nathaniel’s aged mother-in-law (Rebecca Jacobs age 73) and an infant relative of Nathaniel’s wife (Edwin Russell). The little house therefore held 9 persons.
2). Anna was the daughter of Abner Johnson and Anna Delano of Grantham. Abner had been a private in the Revolutionary War in the company of Captain Parker of Tolland, CT.
3). The water well for the house is only a few feet away from the cellar hole. It is surrounded by fencing.
4). The Fisher’s evidently valued education for their children. They sent their daughters to the Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, NH, a college preparatory high school with boarding facilities. For the girls, however, it was only about 5 miles by foot over the hills using the Mountain Road, no doubt. The curriculum included Latin, Greek, theology, physics, mathematics, music and art (a teacher of penmanship was hired in 1853 and a teacher of crayoning was hired in 1871).
5). Sadly, Mary Fisher died in 1857 at age 20, and her sister Juliett died in 1861 at age 27. Both were buried on their parents’ farm. Their sister Lorana married H. L. Burpee of Grantham and became a school teacher for twenty terms.
6). Nathaniel Fisher, died March 13, 1865 by suicide. Two years later Anna sold the property to a man named Peabody. On January 10, 1877 Lucius B. Smith bought the property from Peabody including the “house on the land of Annie J. Fisher”. The property was later acquired by the Town of Grantham in lieu of taxes.
This property was conserved in 2009 by efforts of the GCC, and the easement is held by the Upper Valley Land Trust that refers to the property as the “Lucius Smith Lot”. Subsequently, the GCC had a hillside portion of the lot clear cut before planting several trees on a portion of the lower lot near Miller Pond Road, including several disease resistant American chestnuts and apple trees. The Conservation Commission has also tried to preserve the open hillside by planting wildflowers, grass and clover. As you walk about the lot, please try to respect the work of the volunteers on the Conservation Commission by helping out to pick up any trash left on the property. Thank you!