Belgrade Legacies — A Series
Summertime in the Belgrades Newspapers
A home where history reigns
Excerpts from the Yeaton family accounts
by Esther Perne
This is a fascinating, short and well-written
account of the history of the Yeaton Farm.
The media has been interested in the Inn.
Some well-written stories can be accessed here:
The Original Paul Yeaton Day Book: 1830–1890s
Purchasing the Old Yeaton Farm Inn
Cat Coyote and his Hosses
Elks Magazine Story
In lieu of money, veteran Paul Yeaton of Somersworth, New Hampshire was awarded a land grant by the fledgling Congress of the United States for his services during the country’s successful 1775–76 bid for independence. It was small recompense—his father had died in that war—but it would enrich the Belgrades for generations to come.
What were the Yeaton origins?
There were three brothers who came from England in the mid-1600s and settled on the Isles of Shoals… off Portsmouth, New Hampshire, wrote Donna L. Yeaton, Paul’s great-granddaughter, in a chronicle she compiled in 1977 at the age of 86. From one of these descended the line that would later establish several proud and prosperous homesteads in the Belgrades.
Armed with his grant for 160 acres, in 1794 the “first” Paul walked through the wilderness from Somersworth to Belgrade. He spent the next two summers here clearing as much land as he could before he dared—in Donna’s words— to bring his wife, Mary Hussey. In a rough house on the property they raised eight children, seven to adulthood.
Their third, Paul junior, was the craftsman who so skillfully framed the family farmhouse in 1826 when he was 23 years old.
“I cannot but wonder how a young man in his early 20s could have had the courage to embark upon such an enterprise with nothing but primitive tools (handmade) to work with, and which first involved going into the forest, hewing out 8’ x 10’ timbers and hauling them out with oxen,” wrote Donna.
A mason did all the brickwork of the six fireplaces in the house—two in parlors, two in master bedrooms, one in the kitchen which included a brick oven, and one below the house in what was once a blacksmith shop—and constructed brick arches in the full cellar to one of the huge chimneys.
As for the woodwork: “throughout the house it is lovingly wrought with “cross and bible” doors and paneled chair rails. All the mantels and framework about the fireplaces are beautifully constructed with hand carvings, a different design on each one.” And “the big central hall has a noble front door, the exterior of which is surmounted by a fan which our father told his father told him took a week to construct.”
As to be expected there was a large pantry off the kitchen, but quite unusual, the bedrooms contained large walk-in closets with windows. Handcrafted furniture, skillfully finished but long gone, carefully completed the decor.
Over the years the original house grew. Bedrooms were added, it was connected to the stable and woodshed, dormers were put in the stable to facilitate hay storage, and a two-story! privy (Gentlemens’ upstairs and Ladies’ downstairs) was constructed there—in use until 1947, when the furnace and electricity were also installed.
Starting with its first occupants, Andrew II and his wife Elizabeth, the Yeaton home embraced almost two centuries of births and deaths, love affairs and losses, growth and decline. In 1843, the second “Paul married, and his children spent lifetimes in the Yeaton home. Of the fourth generation descendents, Stacy (Paul) Yeaton currently lives across the road.
In 1985, the Yeaton homestead was sold out of the family and experienced a period of both renovation and of neglect. But the story has a happy ending.
Today, with the same ambition, courage, and love that went into the original construction of the house, the current owners—Constance Parker and her daughter Connie—are restoring and rediscovering the property’s rich and vibrant past. The woodwork is being refinished, genuine antiques grace the kitchen, parlors and bedrooms, the grounds are being cleared, but the best of all the history is being enthusiastically collected, chronicled, and shared.
As a Bed and Breakfast, the Yeaton Family Inn—one of the oldest houses in Belgrade—is a showplace where history reigns.
