The House

Like the barn, the house is also big and old. Depending on who you ask, it was built between 1840 and 1875. I think the original family that built the place was named Shaw, and it remained in their family until 1976, when it was bought by the Seidens. We bought it from the Seidens in December, 2002.

Even if the Shaws were not the original homesteaders on this land, they certainly were here for a long time because when we tell people that we bought the Seiden place, we are met with blank stares. But if we say we bought the old Shaw place, they light up and know exactly what we are talking about.

A neighbor in town who is active in the Peacham Historical Association gave us an article about the Shaws written in 1997. It was an interview with the two remaining Shaw descendents, and the theme of the article was the years from 1925 to 1951 when the family ran the house as a boarding house/B&B, in addition to their dairy operation.

The B&B mostly catered to summer people, plus a few year-round boarders. Peacham has several small lakes, rolling hills, and plenty of fresh air, so for some time now it has been (and still is) a place where people from Hanover, Concord, Boston, and beyond, come for the summer.

My favorite tidbit from the article though, is that a Nobel Prize winner stayed at the farm in 1941. Ms. Emily Greene Balch was a Quaker peace activist during both World Wars. She and Thomas R. Mott shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for their efforts to bring war to an end.

She was born into an old Boston family and began her life as an economics professor. But she was inspired by the outbreak of World War I to devote her life to the advocacy of peace. From her Nobel presentation speech:

"And then came the First World War, putting an end to her university career, for she was dismissed from her post in 1918 because of her pacifist activities. But the war also brought a fresh challenge, giving her life a new goal. Like so many others, she saw the war as a futile interruption to the construction of a better world.

To use her own words: 'My reaction was above all a feeling that this was a tragic break in the work which to me appeared to be the real task of our time: to construct a more satisfying economic order.' But the impact upon her must have been more powerful than she herself cared to admit, for from the outbreak of the war she devoted all her strength to the work for peace. Or, as Professor Simkhovitch of Columbia says: 'I have never met anyone who has, as she has done, for decade after decade given every minute of her life to the work for peace between nations.'"

I guess it goes to show you that even if you set off in one direction, you never really know where you are going to end up in life. Anyway, it is exciting and humbling to be a part of the history of this place.