Apple Ridge Farm

 house, agriculture

Note: The database entry of "Salisbury" is inaccurate. While this property is at the far northern end of Boscawen, it *is* in Boscawen, not Salisbury. The Salisbury town line lies approx. .85 miles to the north along US 4.

The main farm house was built in 1782. This was a working apple farm for many years, and many of the original apple trees were still alive and producing fruit throughout the surrounding forest when I lived there from 1969-1980. There were two barns, now both gone -- A very old one for livestock (which we called "The Big Barn") and one built later for processing apples before taking them to market ("The Apple Barn"). The Big Barn had an outhouse behind it, which we had to use one winter when our pipes froze. The two ponds visible were both man-made and created as a water supply for the apple packing operation.

The attached drawing shows roughly what the house looked like c. 1971. The carriage shed had been closed off in the front and the space converted into a gifts and antiques shop called "Chris-Bar Shop," named after the owners' daughters (Christine & Barbara). The shop was run by Evelyn Bassett, who served as the town secretary and then for several years as the town auditor with neighbor Alice Keneval. The porch was closed in by the Bassetts shortly after this. As you can see, in those days the lot was very heavily wooded, with giant old elm trees, birch, a red maple, and other trees now all gone. The southern-most pond was almost entirely surrounded by old growth trees at this time as well. The two small spruce trees in the drawing remain, now the rather gigantic spruce trees you see in the photo. The two spruce trees were planted from cuttings by Howard Bassett in 1970. They represent the two daughters, Christine and Barbara. The cuttings came from the house in Alexandria that they moved from in 1969, where Mr. Bassett had also planted two spruce trees in the same orientation, with the same symbolism.

Know previous owners:
Flagg (1950's -- A fire gutted much of the upstairs and rear portion of the house during this time. The original timbers endured, however, and still bear the scorching from this fire.)
Olaf and Blanch Wells (1960's)
Bernell (late '60's)
Howard and Evelyn Bassett (1969-1982)