E-4-5
This cellar hole, the remains of a house built by Jeremiah Barrett in about 1775 is on the side of Green Gate Road, a private road today.
Jeremiah Barrett, from Ashburnham, Massachusetts, bought the land here late in 1774 and probably built the house in 1775. He was here before moving to D-1-1 in 1778. He sold the place to William Follett. William Follett was an early settler who first settled and cleared land near Peletiah Day in the northeast quarter in 1774. Prior to coming he had served in the French and Indian Wat. He and his wife, Rebecca, brought four children with them to Packersfield. . The couple were to have six more children He bought this place in 1778. The Folletts were charter members when the church was organized in Packersfield in 1781.
Their ninth child, Abigail, married Levi Priest of Westmoreland, New Hampshire sand moved with him to Brownsville, Vermont. In 1808 William Follet sold his 68-acre Packersfield farm to his son-in-law for $800 and a life lease for himself and the couple and their family moved home to live with Abigail’s ageing parents. Rebecca died in 1816 at the age of 78 and William in 1833 aged 92. Both are buried in the village cemetery.
Levi added to the farm – 122 acres by the time of his father-in-law’s death. In 1834 he chose his own successor. He began to buy land with his son, Levi Everett Priest and gradually sold pieces of the home farm to him. Rather than live with his parents, Levi E and his wife bought the adjacent farm at E-4-4 and lived there until they moved to Hancock a few years later. Levi and Abigail continued to live on the place until their deaths in 1857 and 1856. They are buried in the village cemetery. The house was probably abandoned then.
