This is the griddle that belonged
to Jane's grandmother Ida Rachel Butterfield James' own
great-grandmother Thankful Colburn Hills of Hancock, NH. She was born in 1776, had eight children and lived to
age 91.
Before Thankful, there were five earlier generations of the mother line who lived in northeastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, with the oldest one having immigrated from London, England about 1638.
Thankful Hills' daughter Rachel Hills Taylor, born in 1811, moved to Dunstable, MA when she married. They lived in a house near the center of the town, then moved to a brick farmhouse on a hill.
Rachel Taylor's daughter Mary Ella Taylor Butterfield, born 1844 also lived in Dunstable. When first married she lived in nearby Lowell, then she and her family moved to the brick house on the hill.
Mary Ella Butterfield's daughter was Ida Rachel Butterfield James, who was the grandmother of Jane and Ben English, Jr., Heather's father. She was born in 1875. She married Walter H James in 1899. They lived inWaltham, MA until 1905, then in Portsmouth, NH, and then moved back to Waltham, MA in 1919, then to Topsfield, MA in 1948.
Ida Rachel James' daughter was Ruth Butterfield James English, Jane's mother and Heather's grandma. She was born in 1906 in Portsmouth, NH. She married Benjamin W. English in 1938. Most of her married life she lived in Topsfield, MA, then Tamworth, NH.
Ruth James English's children are Jane Butterfield English born 1942, and Benjamin Worth English, Jr. born 1940. Jane lives in Vermont.
Looking at that griddle, wondering about all the houses it has lived in, all the food that has been cooked on it and all the different kinds of stoves or fires it has sat on, Jane was inspired to tell the story of the griddle.