About the time Parson Smith built his house in the first settled area on River Road, Windham, John and Sarah Trott Swett and their five children came from Newburyport, Massachusetts to New Marblehead (now Windham). They settled on a 100-acre lot which ran between two old boundary lines now known as Swett and Webb Roads in South Windham. Tradition says they lived in a cabin on a hill near where their future house would be built. It’s believed this house was built in the early 1800s, because in 1812, the taxes were $900 – a significant amount for the time. John and Sarah’s son, John Jr., inherited the house. He married, had eight children, served in the Revolutionary War and was at Valley Forge; he and his family are buried in a nearby burial ground, enclosed by stone quarried on the Swett property.
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