John Bond Swasey home part of canal builder’s legacy

MEREDITH — John Bond Swasey, a major force in the town's growth two centuries ago, died at age 46 in 1828 while his home at 109 Main Street was under construction.

Now, 192 years later, his great, great, great grandson lives and works there.  

The Laconia Daily Sun is doing articles this month about the oldest homes in local communities.

A few other homes in Meredith are as old or even a few decades older, but the Swasey home is notable not only for its age, but because of the man who built it and the fact that it has stayed in his family all these years.

Swasey is known for re-engineering Lake Waukewan's outlet to Lake Winnipesaukee, creating a 40-foot waterfall and harnessing water power for a series of mills that attracted residents and businesses.

That waterfall, now the centerpiece for the Mill Falls Inn and Marketplace, has a plaque that bears his name and story.  

Present owner

Paul Eldridge, a real estate agent and broker, took ownership of his ancestor’s home after his parents died 35 years ago.

“Not much was done with it until my wife and I started fiddling with it,” he said. “Fortunately there had been a decent roof on it. As long as you have a roof, you can save it.”

When the house was built, there was no indoor plumbing or electricity, and it contained precious little in terms of insulation. The outhouse was in the barn.

Some features were added over the years, but the home still lacked real insulation when Eldridge took ownership, and this ended up working in his favor.

He was able to put an electrical subpanel in the attic and drop wire through the open area in the walls before adding insulation. The previous insulation consisted of corn husks and newspapers.

Property description

The house has nine windows across the front, a central entrance, twin chimneys and a two-story side porch that is unusual for the area.

A barn is attached to the house and a carriage house is attached to the barn.

Those buildings once contained sleighs, a two-wheel buggy, a four-wheel buggy and a buckboard.

“The two-wheel vehicle was my grandmother’s,” Eldridge said. “She called it her ‘go cart.’ It is on loan to the Meredith Farm Museum.”

The home was built with a hearth or fireplace in each room for heat. 

Good bones

It’s clear that the materials used on the project were from a different era. A powder room on the first floor, which once was a closet, features old-growth pine with 25-inch-wide boards.

“It is post and beam construction,” Eldridge said. “Structurally, it has needed only one minor repair in a vent in the right entry, which I did myself. It has a stone basement, with stones that would have been collected from right here.”

The home sits below an area of ledge that provides some protection from the elements. The lay of the land allows water to drain around the structure. 

Eldridge said he used to get a small amount of water in the basement that was easily handled by a sump pump. Then a neighbor blasted the ledge to build a swimming pool, and now his basement stays dry. 

The property once was part of an 80-acre parcel that took in waterfront land on both lakes. His descendants gave 7 acres of that land to the town in 1976 for a park that runs along the shores of Lake Waukewan and the Swasey Canal.

First homes

John Hopper, of Center Harbor, a retired banker who is an author and historian with a doctorate from Yale University, said the first settlers came to the area after the French and Indian War ended in 1763 and more arrived in the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War.

Swasey and dam-builder Daniel Avery are known for improving the canal between the two lakes and bringing its water power under a single entity. They bought out others who owned property in the project area.   

"Swasey was an entrepreneur,” Hopper said. “He obviously caught the attention of Avery, who owned land. Swasey built his store and those two hatched the plot to buy up the outlet from Waukewan to Winnipesaukee. 

"He was a remarkable guy to do what he did. In terms of the people in Meredith, the individuals in that day, he did really stand out and the concentration of ownership set the stage for Meredith to take off.”

The project was highly leveraged and Swasey ultimately took on more debt to buy out Avery. 

After Swasey died of complications from appendicitis, his estate sold off much of his land holdings.

He is buried in the Swasey Cemetery on Lang Street.