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Gardner Mills built his house at 225 Cherry Brook Road in Canton around 1815 on the site where his father, Amasa Mills, had built an earlier home. Amasa Mills had been a captain in the Continental Army and a colonel in the militia. In 1820, aged 85, he sought a veteran’s pension by testifying that he was unable to work as a blacksmith due to disabilities, lived alone in poverty and was dependent on others. Two neighbors contested this, saying he lived with his son, Gardner Mills, who had ample means to support his father and had received property from him. Amasa argued that the house and farm had been deeded to his son in payment for the father’s debts which Gardner had paid. A heated conflict eventually developed which divided members of the family and the community. Eventually, in 1821, congressman Elisha Phelps defended Amasa Mills’s version of the situation, but Amasa Mills died before receiving a pension. Gardener Mills, Sr. passed the house to his son, Gardner Mills, Jr.

The house was later acquired by Alfred F. Humphrey, whose wife was the daughter of Dr. Chauncey Griswold, inventor of a product called “Griswold’s Salve.” Griswold later came to live with his daughter and after he died, Albert Humphrey continued the business, which was eventually sold to the Sisson Drug Co. of Hartford. Members of the Humphrey family continued to own the house and in 1906, Sylvester Barbour, visiting Canton, met, among others (as related in his Reminiscences of 1908), “Mrs. Alfred F. Humphrey, daughter of that eminently good man, Dr. Chauncey G. Griswold, whose salve has been such a boon to society.” Barbour noted that Mrs. Humphrey was “nearly as sprightly as when I first knew her sixty years ago.”

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Gardner Mills House (1815)
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3 thoughts on “Gardner Mills House (1815)

  • December 21, 2009 at 9:31 pm
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    We have been fascinated about the Gardner Mills house in Canton, CY. Our family follows the Mills and Humphrey Family histories very closely–and this article has much information never known to us. The property has been in our Mills/Humphrey ownership since 1742. Up to last year it was never sold out of the family.

    This article tells us alot about Col. Amasa Mills that we never knew !
    Thank you for having available for one and all !
    Fred Humphrey, Guilford, Vermont

  • December 21, 2009 at 11:01 pm
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    A sign on the house for many years said the house was built by Gardner Mills in 1815, but my father (Samuel Humphrey) claimed it was really 1814.
    Warren Humphrey, Groton MA

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