LB2007.1.109555

LB2007.1.109555

Snow, Winter,Farm House, Residence, Belfast, Maine, 1952, Currently No. 38 Old Searsport Ave., Formerly Rt. 1. The "Parsonage" located on Old Searsport Avenue approximately 1 mile from the Belfast Bridge was built in 1797 by the Rev. Ebeneezer Price, a 25 year old Dartmouth graduate who was Belfast's first settled minister. Lot No. 26 had been set aside for this purpose with the reservation that 10 acres at the south end would be set aside for a grave yard, training field and other purposes. Williamson's History of Belfast records that "at the commons on the south end of No. 26 all town meetings were held" until the erection of the East Side Meeting House in 1792. During Mr. Price's six years in Belfast, the house was unpainted and only partially finished inside. Between his departure and 1902, the property was owned by five different parties including Ambrose Strout, the grandfather of Mrs. William Vaughn and owner of the brickyard below her present home. In 1903, the Rev. William Vaughn, a native of Maine who had graduated from Rutgers University and who had been serving as minister of a large Dutch Reformed Church in New York City, bought the house and moved his family there. thus he became the second minister to live in the "Parsonage" Mr. Vaughn and his neighbors were concerned that there was no church in East Belfast, the original meeting house having been used in the construction of the Kelley Axe Factory on Swan lake Avenue. Using the spot where it had stood, and doing the work themselves, the group built the Little Stone Church which served for years as a neighborhood center of worship which eventually became the local home of the Christian Science Society. Since the Rev. Vaughn's death other owners have been Mr. & Mrs. Philip B. Crosby and Mr. & Mrs. Kenneth W. Cox who renamed their home "Hearthside".