Zephaniah Brown House

I was built in 1798 by Zephaniah Brown in anticipation of his marriage the following year. When he died in 1857, I went on to be called home by six generations of Brown family members!  In fact, when two generations of the Brown family lived here at the same time, I was divided into a duplex-style home to accommodate all the relatives. I still have a beautiful center staircase, and several large fireplaces.  Family members kept busy working together – outside – on the farm – and inside – dying wool strips for rug hooking in large kettles hanging in the fireplace.
I survived a lightning strike which traveled through my electrical wiring, resulting in the burning of some wallpaper. No one was home at the time because family members were outside frantically trying to get the hay in the barn before it got soaked in the storm. I also survived a chimney fire when flames in my largest fireplace burned too hot. And here’s one more happy story of survival – and it has to do with a cat that had fallen into the cistern in my basement and was unable to scale the wet brick walls. A cistern is a structure for storing water - very common in rural communities and farms. My owners heard cries coming from the basement, and Forrest Brown, a descendent of my original owners, went right to work with a long-handled farm tool and rescued the cat.