Squires-Stanton House (1800)

Built as a Federal-style residence around 1800 by Phineas Squires, the house at 322 Main Street in Durham was later transformed (circa 1870) with alterations in the Italianate style. These include projecting eves with brackets, a painted string course connecting the pedimented lintels over the first story windows, and a hip-roofed portico. In 1817, the house was acquired by James Rose, a farmer who died in 1839. It was then sold to Abner Newton, Jr. who sold it in 1840 to Enos Rogers, a wealthy merchant of North Madison and a founder of the Merriam Manufacturing Company. His daughter Dorliska married her first cousin, Simeon S. Scranton. The house passed to the couple upon Rogers death. As described in a biography of their son, Charles Loveland Scranton, in Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1901):

Simeon Sereno Scranton engaged in the business of book publishing at Hartford, Conn., in which subsequently he associated with him his son, Charles L. The firm of S. S. Scranton & Co. did an extensive business as book publishers. Among the works that issued from their press were: J. T. Headley’s History of the Civil War, Richardson’s “Field, Dungeon, and Escape,” Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Life and Epistles of Saint Paul, James Fawcett’s Commentary on the Bible, besides many others equally well known. The elder Mr. Scranton, finally selling his interest in the business, retired and spent his last days in Durham, Conn., where he died in 1892, at the age of sixty-nine years. His wife, whose maiden name was Dorliska Rogers, was born in Madison, Conn., and was a daughter of Enos Rogers. She was the mother of thirteen children, of whom ten grew to maturity.

Charles L. Scranton sold the house to John Southmayd in 1902. It remained in the Southmayd family until 1936, when it passed to the Francis family.