portsmouthhistorynotes

Painting of early Glen mill found in the attic of the “Durfee Tea House.”

Courier and Ives view of picnicking in the Glen in the 1850’s

At the historical cemetery, the Cundall family stones led us to uncover another tragedy during what would become the Glen mill days. The Glen’s first settlers, the Cooke family, gradually moved away and sold their land, but many of the Cooke daughters married into local families. It is hard to trace all the ownership of what is now the town owned Glen land, but we did discover information on some of those landowners. In 1720 John Cooke sells a portion of his land to James Sisson. By 1745 Sisson had a water powered grist mill to grind corn on the brook in the Glen. Revolutionary War era maps show the location of that mill as just east of Glen Farm Road and the barn…