E-4-4
The place known today as the Story Farm is a substantial cellar hole on the north side of Greengate Road and a barn foundation across the road. The place was settled prior to 1774 by Abraham Griffith who bought 100 acres here and had cleared 12 acres and built a log cabin by 1774.
He sold the property to Peter Wheeler in 1776. Wheeler was almost fifty when he and his wife, Mehitable moved here, from Temple, New Hampshire. The couple moved to Packersfield with at least some of their eleven children. They were probably the family that bult the home that stood on the substantial and well-preserved cellar hole there today. In 1790, Peter, then aged sixty, sold the farm to his son, Benjamin (born in Hollis, NH 1763) probably with the idea that he would take over the farm and provide for his parents. Peter died in 1792 and is buried in the village cemetery. Benjamin sold the place in 1792 and moved his family to Langdon. Mehitable moved to back to Temple where she died in 1802.
The Wheeler family was succeeded in ownership by Ezra Smith. Ezra lived at D-3-1 so there may have been a tenant here. The occupant might have been James Kimball who came to Packersfield in the late 1780’s and is thought to have lived with David and Lydia Kimball. He bought the place from Ezra Smith in 1807 and lived there until 1833. Oliver Stone bought the farm in 1835 and sold it to Levi Everet Priest in 1840. Priest lived there for only three years before moving his family to Hancock. Harvey Phillips lived here from 1843 to 1858. He increased the farm to 156 acres before selling to John H. Bent and Joseph Dakin both of Concord, Massachusetts. The farm changed hands a number of times between 1862 and 1876 with absentee owners before Silas Follett, the grandson of William who had lived just to the east at E-4-5. Follett was there for just four years. In 1886 the farm was purchased by Simon and Mindwell Story of Antrim. They lived there until 1895 when Simon died. His widow gave the property to their son, William who with his wife , Ellen, were the last occupants. William died in 1918 and it likely the house was abandoned before then. Newt Tolman (b. 1908) remembers it as a ruin.
