8 minute read
atHome with History: The Luther Nourse Farm
atHome with History atHome with History
The Luther Nourse Farm
Advertisement
Keene, New Hampshire
By Nancy McGartland Photography by Kelly Fletcher
The Luther Nourse Farm on Beech Hill, one of Keene’s oldest houses, was a self-sufficient farmstead in 1773. It’s self-sufficient again 248 years later in 2021, ready for another century, thanks to owners Mark and Terri Whippie. In 1990 the Whippies – Keene natives – sought farmland. They “dickered for a year” with 90-year-old Mr. Kalb, the longest owner of the house (since 1947) out of its seven 20th-century owners. The Whippies love the house’s history and take pride and joy in restoring it. “The house deserves it, “Mark says. “We love the old ways,” Terri adds, “so quiet and efficient.” The Whippie house on 164 Jordan Road is one of Keene’s few remaining saltbox houses. It extends back from its original footprint with a chain of additions common to New England houses: The original loom room tucked under the saltbox slant, the current kitchen fashioned from the old screened porch, dining room turned sitting room, and finally, the former carriage shed and stable turned into a cozy apartment for Mark’s dad, Mort. Behind the house at the top of the long drive stands the large barn, with a machine shop addition behind it.
THE HISTORY
Jacob Stiles first owned the land. Colonel Abraham Wheeler purchased it, then built the house in 1773. Col. Wheeler, married to Mary Morse of Dublin, was a leading citizen, wealthy, well-educated, and enfranchised. According to Marjorie Whalen Smith in the 1968 book “Historic Homes of Cheshire County,” Wheeler “built his home with a base of heavy oak timbers, a central chimney and facing south as was the custom.” Jordan Road was then called Proprietor’s Road, “for the proprietors of the town to use traveling to and from the ranges of the two 30-acre lots that had been mapped out on Beech Hill in 1763,” according to Smith. She goes on to tell us that another leading citizen, Peleg Sprague, a lawyer active in government, bought the house in 1799, retiring from Main Street to the “healthier” altitude of Beech Hill. His son, Nathaniel, “grew up to become the superintendent of Keene Glass Works.” His sister, Elizabeth, was a “co-partner at Miss Fiske’s School for Girls in Keene.” It’s said she brought the first piano to Keene. Today, the central chimney still stands, massive, perhaps six feet long by four feet deep (photo, above). “Its ample fireplace provided with crane and pot-hooks and its brick oven and ash hole,” according to the 1904 “History of the City of Keene.” If you stick your head in the brick-arched-ceiling bake oven (as I did!), you’ll see its impressively intact curves. On the north side of that sturdy beehive chimney, another fireplace opens onto the former loom room used for spinning and weaving, now divided into an office and a formal dining room. Walls of lath and plaster cover horizontal wide-board sheathing. The Whippies contemplated removing it to expose the wide planking as they have done upstairs. Original batten board doors lead to two bedrooms upTOP: The 200+ year old fireplace at the Luther Nourse Farm. INSET: Mark Whippie with two of the couple’s many chickens. RIGHT: The original home features hand-sawn square rafters.
stairs. In the hall, the Whippies laid wide board pine floors from timber felled on the property. Polished to a satin finish, they’re nailed with salvaged square nails. In the master bedroom, the Whippies discovered behind old wallpaper and crumbling pressboard impressive 20-inchwide vertical chamfered planking. Its soft pink color, popular in Philadelphia at the time, was mixed with white and red lead by “painter-stainers.” Taxes on imported paint were a hated part of the Crown’s “yoke of bondage.” Painted with hog’s hair brushes and then varnished with shellac, the walls have a rich antique patina that transports the room back to colonial Keene. The ceiling’s hand-sawn square rafters are also chamfered.
ADDITIONS OVER THE YEARS
Because of Col. Wheeler’s fine craftsmanship, Mark observes, “What was meant to be plumb is still
FAIRGROUNDS ANTIQUES
A fAvorite hAunt for deAlers And retAil shoppers for more thAn 40 yeArs, fAirgrounds Antiques is A group shop with more thAn 60 deAlers. we’re never the sAme twice, so mAke it your destinAtion. it’s worth the trip! 249 Monadnock HigHway Swanzey, new HaMpSHire open 7 dayS, 11 a.M. to 5 p.M.
Find uS on Facebook! www.Facebook.coM/FairgroundSantiqueS call (603) 352-4420
Companionship,Security,QualityCare
plumb” 248 years later. Well, at least in that part of the house, the Whippies note with good humor. Generations of the Nourses, the first of which purchased the house in 1823, were farmers, not carpenters, the Whippies say. The Nourse family built the kitchen and dining room additions to a standard “that was just good enough.” The carriage shed, and stables were likewise “just good enough” again, really “scabbed together,” Mark says. The newer additions did not display any of the original home’s carefully hand-sawn square rafters but instead feature roughly hewn round rafters. Owing to the “just good enough” construction, the Whippies used to have to put a 2x4 under one side of their refrigerator to level it. Like any old house, it creaks and moans when the wind blows. Smiling mysteriously, Terri says, “That’s Rebecca.” She means Rebecca Nourse, an ancestor of the Nourse’s, hanged as a witch in Salem in 1692. In the dining room, another massive chimney was barely “just good enough,” with “so many flue holes everywhere,” it was leaky. Mark rebuilt that chimney, installing two furnaces, an efficient modern wood boiler, and a wood stove in the room. Now they heat primarily with wood, harvesting it themselves. The mantle over the wood stove is a mighty beam salvaged from the original barn raised in 1775 during the Battle of Bunker Hill. According to the 1904 “History of the City of Keene,” the barn raisers could hear the far-off battle cannons firing. By removing half of the ceiling in the sitting room, the Whippies created an airy space, showing the new chimney rising to the second floor and revealing the attractive water milled beams. Cut probably between 1810 and 1820, at the peak of New Hampshire’s water-powered mills (at either the Beaver Brook Sawmill or a mill on George Street), the watermilling left telltale kerfs on the beams.
Self-Sufficiency Through the Centuries
In 1773, Colonel Wheeler had no other choice; his farm had to be self-sufficient for the family to survive. In 2021, the Whippies also choose self-sufficiency. Coming full circle, the farming methods, chores, and crops the Whippies use tie them to older settlers who sowed pumpkins, squash and beans. Of course, the original farmers on Beech Hill, the Sokoki Abenaki, grew those first. Mark and Terri’s life mirrors the farmers here before them. Centuries filled with sowing, weeding, harvesting, preserving, tending to livestock and cutting wood. We can imagine the former owners of the home being impressed by the crops the Whippies now grow, not to mention the new-fangled tools that bring their self-sufficient farm into the 21st century. The Whippies continue modernizing: From solar panels on the barn to micro-fabrics covering their row crops to inoculating seeds with natural microbes. But, as in colonial times, deer and bears can eat their fill: “Last year, deer chewed the tops off my tomato plants,” remarks Terri. The Whippie’s crop list reads like a seed catalog: rhubarb, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, cukes, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, winter squashes, and more. Their apple orchard includes Macintosh, Winesap,
Pippins, Honeycrisps and Golden Delicious apples. Plus, they grow Concord grapes. They raise both laying and broilers chickens, a few turkeys, and a couple of hogs each year. “We pretty much live off the land, foodwise,” Terri says, reducing their shopping just to paper goods. And how do they preserve all this bounty? They rely on methods the Abenaki and colonists used — drying, pickling, and a cold cellar — but add modern methods such as canning, electric dehydration and freezing. Terri dehydrates basil, parsley, garlic, onions, and even kale, which she powders and sprinkles in smoothies. She freezes all their meat, corn and blueberries. Mark discovered a stand of native highbush blueberries soon after they moved in. Terri “puts up” sauerkraut, pickles, salsa, tomato sauce, jams and jellies, and, naturally, plenty of applesauce. And just like the colonists, the Whippies press their apples for fresh and hard cider. They also have an extensive maple sugaring operation, with 1,200 taps in Cheshire woodlots near Surry Dam and the Wright Estate. Syrup customers are faithful and far-flung: the Whippies ship to Texas, Japan, Alaska and Germany. They even do home delivery to long-time customers. Their farm feeds them and ties them to their community by selling eggs, maple syrup, and veggies. More than once, customers have shown up in their PJs, grabbing eggs for the children’s breakfast or syrup for pancakes on Easter morning. In 30-plus years at the Luther Nourse Farm on Beech Hill, Mark and Terri have evolved into a stable beacon in this pandemic world. Many in the region know the Whippies, their coconut retriever dog Hunter, and their cats, Ruby and George. The Whippies are on a firstname basis with the whole street.Mark says, “We’re the clearinghouse of the neighborhood.”
Achille Agway of Brattlebro
1277 Putney Rd. Brattleboro, VT 05301 US Phone: 802-254-8755
Achille Agway of Hillsboro
191 Henniker St. Hillsboro, NH 03244 US Phone: 603-464-3755
Achille Agway of Milford
351 Elm Street Milford, NH 03055 US Phone: 603-673-1669
Achille Agway of Keene
80 Martell Ct. Keene, NH 03431 US Phone: 603-357-5720
Achille Agway of Walpole Achille Agway of Peterborough
334 Main St. Walpole, NH 03608 US Phone: 603-765-9400 65 Jaffrey Road Peterborough, NH 03458 US Phone: 603-924-6801
