(No photograph available)

Lemuel Searle, born 1759, appears to have been the first settler on this farm.  He was a son of Moses Searle and Rebecca (Danks) Searle.  He married Deborah Owen in 1780.  They had three children, the first being Rebecca, born 1782, who married Moses Clapp of the Benjamin Norton Farm.

Pliny Parks, a real estate operator, bought the farm from Lemuel Searle in 1799.

Joab Loomis, in 1800, bought the farm from Parks for $850; and Lemuel Bates bought it from Joab in 1895 for $850.

Walter Bates, son of Lemuel Bates, was the next owner.  He died in 1859 and Luther B. Searle bought in in 1865 (226-94).

Curtis Stoddard bought it from Luther Searle in 1867 and sold it the same year to Lucius Allen (242-78).  Lucius Allen sold to Almon A. Spooner in 1868 (255-13).

Almon A. Spooner, son of Samuel and Sarah (Losee) Spooner, was born 1834, married 1854 Laura W. Loomis.  Almon and Laura Spooner had three children, Arthur, Alice and Eva, but none settled in Southampton.  Almon died in 1878.

Peter Egan bought this farm from Almon Spooner 1877 (333-273).

Michael and Ann Kelly bought from Peter Egan in 1886.  The Kellys came from Granby and they had five daughters and one son.  The son Patrick was killed in a railroad accident in Westfield. One daughter married a Mr. Fogarty and they had a son Harold who was brought up by the Kellys after his mother died.  Another daughter married a Mr. Connelly.  Elizabeth was a trained nurse.  Julia kept house for the family.  Katherine Kelly was a very successful teacher in Southampton for twenty-nine years, twenty-three of them in the Foggintown School, No.4, and six years in the Sheldon School.  She retired in 1936, and the died in 1959.

Rudolph and Katherine Oehler bought the property from Julia Kelly in 1938.

–From “History of Old Houses” by Atherton Parsons

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