Merrill Farm located on top of Mill Hill Palmyra rd St.Albans. Currently the home of Brett and April Patten

This has been our home for the past 24 years. It has changed a lot since this picture was taken. From the small porch on the front of the house left is gone. Just the maine part of the house is left. Across the street there is a metal barn where the lean to is shown the major barn came down in the ice storm of "98". We love our home :~)

My brothers and I (and a few other friends and relatives) spent many hours in the barn and many fields around haying during summers in the late 1970's and '80s. Whenever I smell hay these days, my mind goes back to those hot summer days.

My five siblings and I grew up on this farm. My father, Jesse Albion Merrill Jr. Moved here at the age of 10! He later bought the farm from his parents, Jesse Albion Merrill Sr and Dora Agnes Chubbuck Butters. We had a very happy childhood here and also loved those summer months of haying with the "hay boys"! We always had a great group of young men working for us! Here's to Kool-aid breaks after every load (and sometimes my mom's freshly baked bread!)

We loved our home and our memories so much we haven't been able to part with the land! I would have loved to have been able to have kept the home in the family and wish we could afford to bring all 23 of my parent's grandchildren back every summer! It's a great place to be a kid!

The Pattens have done a great job with the house (I've been back a couple of times and viewed it from across the street) but I still miss the way it used to be! A house is just a house but a home can never be replaced in the mind of a happy child! :)