Hey hey USA - 6th October - the Kancamagus Highway, Lower Falls and an old homestead

We walked from the covered bridge a little upstream to the Lower Falls area of the Swift River. It was such a wonderful, blue sky day that unsurprisingly this was busy with people. So again I concentrated on snapping the people rather than the landscape. Although, I maybe should have kept my distance, as the cough I was desperately trying to deny was getting worse.

Back in the car and along the highway we came upon a preserved homestead and went to look around. It was also a handy place for lunch. The Russell-Colbath homestead was built in the early 1930's by Thomas Russell and his son Amzi. Thomas operated a local sawmill and there is a little copse we walked around where some of the trees that would have been used for lumber were still standing. Not far from the house, which was not open to the public at the time we were there, was a wonderful barn. This had been built recently to be used for events. There was also a tiny cemetery for the small population that had lived here.

There is any interesting story attached to the house. 

Amzi accrued large amounts of logging land around the area but when he died in 1879 his widow Eliza was left with mortgages and unpaid taxes on the land. So she sold all but for the 100 acres surrounding the house. In 1887 Eliza transferred the property to her daughter Ruth and her husband although she carried on living in the house until her death in 1905.

The house was designated a post office in the early 1890's and Ruth became the post mistress. In the autumn of 1891 Ruth's husband Thomas told her he was going out for a while. Ruth never saw him again but kept a lamp burning in the window in case he returned. After travelling extensively Thomas came back to the house 42 years later in 1933, after Ruth had died. The house had changed hands so Thomas just left again.

At the end of the 19th century the Bartlett and Albany Railroad arrived in Passaconaway and later the Swift River railroad (1906-1916) was built following the Kancamagus Highway. This transport was used to get the timber out of Passaconaway which became the centre for logging operations in the area.