The Hammonds of Old Road

Old Road circa 1910

On a frigid Thursday morning on the last day of January in 1952, Edgar A. Hammond, a man who lived all of his life on his Old Road farm, died at a nursing home in Eliot.  He was a month into his 81st year and with his death came an end to 253 continuous years in which men with the Hammond name would be associated with that part of Joseph Hammond's original Bay Lands estate along the "Old Road".  Edgar was the last of the line as he was unmarried, and all his male cousins had moved away from the ancestral lands.  The Hammond girls married into other local families and also moved away, their Hammond roots becoming intertwined with other old families of Eliot and beyond.

Bay Lands 1699

First Generation (1699 - 1722)

Joseph Hammond (born 1647) acquired these lands in 1699.  Joseph Hammond was an important early figure in the history of Kittery's "Upper Parish".  He was already established in a large estate located where the Eliot Boat Basin is today.  It was his grandsons Joseph Hammond, and George Hammond who were born in 1701 and 1704 who first settled on these lands in the 1720's.  George would settle on the upper portion that included a part of the Great Heathy Marsh, while Joseph settled on the lower portion closest to the Piscataqua River along Old Road.

The house or house site of Joseph Hammond is pictured at the top of this article.  The current address is 152 Old Road.  This house may have been a rebuild of the original.  More research would need to be done to determine this.  But it is likely this was the original site of Joseph Hammond's Old Road homestead.  In 1753 Joseph's father Joseph died and left him the property on which he was currently residing.

Will of Joseph Hammond 1751

1722 - 1779

Joseph Hammond who established the homestead on Old Road married Mary Adams in 1722.  They had a large family of 3 daughters and 5 sons but only two sons lived past childhood, Thomas, born in 1737 and Christopher, born in 1740.  Thomas served as a Lieutenant in the American Revolution in Captain Elisha Shapleigh's Company attached to Colonel Joseph Storer's Regiment that was part of the Saratoga Campaign in 1777.

Surrender of Burgoyne 1777

Joseph Hammond divided his land between Thomas and Christopher in his will of 1772.  Christopher sold his share in 1790 and moved north to Berwick and Thomas kept his half of the  Old Road homestead after his father died in 1779.  William Fogg writes about 1850 that Thomas lived in the house where his grandson Daniel was living in 1850.  This would be the house currently at 162 Old Road.  Thomas married Mary Rogers, the daughter of the Reverend John Rogers in 1763.  They had a small family, a daughter Mary born in 1764 and a son Joseph born in 1768.  Mary married William Jones of Portsmouth in 1784.  Mary and William built a house down the road which is the house at 170 Old Road.

1784 House & Old Acre circa 1910

 1780 - 1820

Mary and William had a son, born in their new Old Road home, named William, but after a few years relocated to Portsmouth.  Their son William would become a successful merchant and have a daughter Elizabeth who married Alexander Hamilton Ladd   and lived in the Moffat-Ladd house in Portsmouth.   Mary and William sold their house to her younger brother Joseph.

Joseph married Mary Staples in 1789. Joseph and Mary had a large family and four of their sons settled on the Old Road homestead.  The oldest son Daniel Rogers, was born in 1791.  Capt. Pierpont Hammond in 1793 died at the age of 42 in 1835, Joseph was born in 1796, and Thomas was born in 1803. 

1820 - 1860

1856 Map of Old Road

Daniel Rogers Hammond

 Daniel R. Hammond married Sally Remick in 1817 and lived in his grandfather's house with his own family.  They had three girls, Mary, Susan, and Eliza, born in 1821, 1824, and 1830. They lived at the house at 162 Old Road.

Joseph Hammond

Joseph Hammond married Sarah Frost in 1820 and lived in the original home of his great grandfather at 152 Old Road.  This home originally was owned by his brother Capt. Pierpont Hammond who died tragically in New Orleans in 1835.  Joseph and Mary had 6 children, three boys and three girls.  All of their children left the family homestead.

Thomas Hammond

Thomas Hammond married Rosanna Goodwin in 1825.  They had 8 children, but only one, Daniel Goodwin Hammond stayed on the Old Road homestead.  They lived in the 1784 Hammond house at 170 Old Road.  Thomas went to California briefly during the 1849 Gold Rush.

1860 - 1952

170 Old Road "1784 House"

Daniel G. Hammond

Daniel Hammond

Daniel Hammond, the son of Thomas and Rosanna built a fourth Hammond house just to the west of his father's house.  He was married twice and in his second marriage had a son, Edgar.  Daniel's father Thomas died in 1871.  Around 1880 he sold his house to Sylvester Staples who had it moved by an oxen team to his property on Beech Road.  Daniel and his family continued to live in the 1784 house at 170 Old Road, and the old cellar hole remains where his house once stood.  Daniel died in 1899, and left the farm to his son Edgar who lived here mostly by himself for the next 53 years.

Mary & Susan Hammond 

162 Old Road "Old Acre"

Mary and Susan Hammond were two daughters of Daniel R. Hammond who continued to live in their father's house at 162 Old Road after their father died in 1872 and their mother in 1881.  They both seem to have remained unmarried and both died in 1904.  Their house came into possession of Marietta Hammond, Edgar's stepsister, who died in 1930 and in her will left the house to the First Congregational Society.  The house became known as "Old Acre" and remained the property of the Congregational Church until 1962.

Joseph & Sarah Hammond

 

152 Old Road

Joseph Hammond and his wife Sarah lived out their days alone in their home, the original homestead.  Joseph died in 1863 and Sarah lived alone for the next two decades until she died in 1885.  The house most likely fell to their son Pierpont Hammond who seems to have sold it to Dr. John L. M. Willis in 1888.  Dr. Willis sold it to his daughter and her husband, Gail and Albert E. Libbey in 1918 and it has stayed in the Willis family ever since.

There is more research to be done, for example I recently discovered that Christopher Hammond sold his home in 1790 and moved north to Berwick, but where was this home?  The Indexbook for the York County Registry offers an interesting clue:

John Fogg is said to have purchased the house which became the home of Dr. John L. M. Willis in 1775 from a "Mr. Dixon".  This story is first recorded in "Old Kittery and Her Families" by Everett Stackpole.  But I find no evidence of a deed from 1775 to John Fogg.  This 1790 deed from Christopher Hammond to John Fogg is the closest I can find.  I am intrigued and will research this further, and provide an update. 

UPDATE:  See my latest update on this research.