Then and Now: The two-story house at Goshen Corner

Pictured here is one of several houses Ebenezer Haselton owned during his many decades in Goshen. His first abode, a one-story cape, was growing a little crowded by the 1830s. Except for the oldest of his children, all those who lived to adulthood were girls, and that made for a lot of young male visitors in so isolated a spot as Goshen Corner. Aged residents of that district in the 1950s remembered that the second floor of Ebenezer’s “two-story house” was wide-open, and that it was a frequent dance venue. I can’t vouch for that, but a handful of eligible young women might account for it. After his family thinned out he sold the place, and for many years the house and the acreage that went with it went through many hands.

The house welcomed its longest-lasting residents in January of 1912. George Grames, who had grown up on the other side of the corner, bought it from Emerson Cook and moved in with his bride, the former Katherine Wakefield. It was a handy location, but Katherine may have especially coveted the house because her mother was Ebenezer Haselton’s daughter, Clarinda, and had grown up there. George was then working as a teamster at a sawmill, and the nearest sawmill of any size was a little over two miles away at the foot of Conway Lake.