Ellis Store Site Colrain

 An account book of a pre-Revolutionary retail store and potash works (?)  is in the archives of the Colrain Historical Society.  Ellis Store ledge  CHS #3583

The old ledger records sales of retail goods like "broadcloth" in exchange for work,and in many cases for wood ashes.  The owner, Richard Ellis, probably processed ashes into potash.

The ledger covers 12 years of sales from 1765 to 1777. 
The ledger is described in the 1888 Ellis family history:

OK..... but where was this store?   The accession card at CHS (below) says "on the west side of the road between Apte [Nims 2025] and the old Hale home [Hale Johnson in 2000s].

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There is an old cellar hole on the west side of Greenfield Road, at the south end of the Nims property, within eyesight of the "Hale Johnson" house.
The photo below shows it April 10, overgrown with nasty briars.  Over the last few weeks, with the landowners permission, we have been trimming the brush to make the site more visible. It is a sizeable foundation, perhaps 20'x20' with features suggesting a building 24' x 30' or larger.

The map below depicts the approx location:

Note that the foundation is off the present road - by at least 200'.   It is unlikely that a large building would have been built so far off the main road, so there was probably a roadway passing much closer, especially so if the site was a retail store
Colrain was settled ca 1740, and the land was gridded into lots for sale, with north-south strips of land (aka range roads) reserved for roads.  Original deeds have  calls upon "a town way 5 rods wide".  This foundation, and the Nims house to the north, appear to adjoin one of those range roads.  (note that the Nims house is also a bit away from the modern road).
The map below, a tracing of a  ca 1755 lotting plan, has  a handwritten addition "G.W. Miller house" (Nims) tight to the old north-south range road.   Whoever wrote that "GW Miller" had local knowledge which I am inclined to respect.
"M. House" just above that is the old meeting house whose site is next to the Cemetery (see USGS map above).



Greenfield Road as now travelled was also, generally, the route of the main road in 1796, per the County road layout which has good math. The 1796 LO does not go by our foundation, suggesting no retail store then.

Notwithstanding the road's alignment, this site was still in use in 1858, per the county wall map. It was part of the GW Miller farm.
Here are maps of 1858, 1871  and 1894. The 1871 map has a dot which may indicate a house (? maybe) but no name, and the dot is a bit misplaced if so.  (the "203" on the 1871 map is the road segment distance in rods (16 1/2'=1 rd).  The 1894 USGS map shows no building.




That's it for now, April 24, 2025.   D. Allen

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