Cellar Hole Nelson Farmstead about 1756

Nathaniel Nelson (1701 - 1783) Nathaniel Nelson was born on April 22, 1701. He married Deborah, the daughter of Capt. Seth Chapin, on April 15, 1725. The marriage was certified by her grandfather, Josiah Chapin, Esq. He was listed as a weaver in deeds and other legal instruments. He was chosen as a deacon of the First Church in Mendon and then a ruling elder. He inherited one-third of his father's real estate. Part of this land was the untamed wilderness along the eastern shore of Lake Maspenock. Nathaniel and Deborah Nelson had four sons and three daughters. The Nelson family were very pious people. Nathaniel's son and grandson would follow in his footsteps and become deacons of the church. Deborah Chapin Nelson died on July 21, 1777, at the age of nearly 73. Seth Nelson (1735 - 1811) Seth Nelson was born on June 22, 1735. He married Silence Cheney on Oct. 28, 1756. Seth and Silence Nelson had seven sons and five daughters. According to historian Rev. Adin Ballou, who wrote the book, History of the town of Milford, Worcester county, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1881. "Seth Nelson always resided on our territory; was a deacon of the church and a worthy citizen. His family homestead is understood to have been in the vicinity of Bungay, perhaps the Partridge place, so called. In fact, the Nelson homestead was close to "Bungay", but not the "Partridge Place" that Ballou spoke of. I have found this homestead and it is just over the town boundary line in Hopkinton at the end of what we now call the Old Town Road. The foundation and well for the old Nelson Farmstead can be found at the following coordinates: 42°11'14.3"N 71°32'53.4"W.

Nelson Farmstead Well

John Nelson (1761 -18?? ) John Nelson was born on Aug. 27, 1761. He married Betty Brown on Nov. 28, 1782. Betty Brown, lived in Newport, Rhode Island, until she was sixteen years of age when the family moved to Milford. Her father was a soldier in the Revolutionary Army. During his absence, while the family was on a visit to Newport, a British fleet came to take possession of the Island. Betty and her mother, "with a married sister with a little child and another daughter quite young, fled with the frightened people across Howland's Ferry to the mainland, leaving everything in their house, even a dinner in process of cooking, and made their way to Milford on foot." John and Betty Nelson lived at the farmstead at the end of Old Town Road until April 1799, when John left, "taking all of his cattle and goods and the next day settled on a farm in the north part of Worcester. John Nelson Jr. (1786-1871)
Like his father and grandfather, John Nelson Jr. went into the ministry and would becoome pastor of the First Church and Society in Leicester, Massachusetts, where he served a long and illustrious career. "John Nelson graduated from Williams College in 1807, being one of three to be honored with an English Oration. In scholarship, said one of his class, he had no superior. He had struggled hard for his education, his course had been interrupted by teaching, he was diffident and depressed in spirit. He gave his father's note for his college bills, and had five dollars in his pocket, which he had borrowed."

1809 Deed Seth Nelson to Zenus Ball

In 1809, John's father, Seth, sold the farmstead to Zenus Ball and in that deed he mentions that the farm was "formally owned by John Nelson". Since John had taken a loan to send John Jr. to college, it seems the farm would be of no use and they sold the land to pay off the loan. In 1833, the remaining Nelson children deeded their mother Silence's interests in the land and sold it to John Parkhurst who purchased much of the land on the eastern shoreline from Clark Fisk. ← The Chapin Family --- The Ball Family →