D-4-26
Approximate location of the second home of Jonas Davis. Remnants obscured when the current hose was built in1882.
Jonas Davis was one of three brothers to come to Packersfield from Rutland, Massachusetts after the Revolution. He purchased 100 acres of land from his father, John Davis, in 1779 and added another 50 soon after. He married Hannah Woods in 1783, moved to Packersfield, built a house at D-4-4. Soon he had four children. Jonas sold small pieces of land adjoining the brook that empties White Pond to and to Levi Whitcomb and Henry Melvin. Whitcomb built a blacksmith shop and Melvin, a gristmill.
In 1797 he built a new home here. Jonas died in 1812 and the home seems to have been inherited by his wife, Hanna, and son, Jonas JR. In any case Jonas Davis sold the place to his brother-in-law, Samuel Holt Jr in 1823. Samuel and Charlotte Davis Holt lived there until just before her mother’s death moving to the Samuel Holt homestead at C-4-6. They were succeeded by Francis Thompson, Asa Spaulding, Adams Robbins, Ira Robbins before Jacob Seabury bought the place to serve as his headquarters and residence in Nelson as he developed his mining interests here. The place may have fallen into disuse with the folding of the Seabury interests in Nelson following Jacob Seabury’s death in 1864 and the Panic of 1873. Charles Atwood acquired many of the Seabury interests including this place. It is shown on the 1877 county map. At that point it was replaced by another house: D-4-28
