newspaper editor was relieved to be able to report that the houses of D. A. Peabody and three others in the Village would provide good accommodations for those attending the grand-jury court session held in town that May.)  An example of a boarder who stayed in this house was the 24-year-old daughter of the minister of the Bulfinch Street Church in Boston, hoping the “pure air” here would cure her consumption but over two months in 1878 she gradually wasted away and died here. Another early summer boarder was an experienced art teacher named Miss Sophronia P. Oakes. It may have been her example that inspired Miss Margaret B. Peabody (1837-1893) to become an artist and art teacher. In 1876, Margaret was granted the use of a room in the Spring street school house, Nashua, for her class in that city and she had “the entire charge” of the drawing department at McGaw Institute, Reed’s Ferry; in 1880 and 1882 she had a studio for pupils and orders in Milford center during spring and fall. Sadly, the older sister, Miss Lydia E. Peabody (1829-1886) died of pulmonary consumption at age 57.     

      Daniel decided to travel west to Colorado, where his brother David had recently located. Margaret intended to accompany him, but suffered hemorrhage of the lungs while visiting in Massachusetts in July 1887, putting an end to her trip and delaying his. Daniel arrived in Colorado in January 1888. He staked his own claim there until a severe attack of rheumatic fever in March 1889 forced his retreat to his brother’s in Denver for better nursing. Next thing his surprised friends knew, he had returned to New Hampshire to fetch a bride. In April 1890 in her hometown of Greenfield, N.H., at age 48, Daniel wed Miss Emma Robertson, a 39-year-old teacher who had taught in Amherst among other nearby towns. However, “their surroundings in Denver were not congenial for a permanent residence” (as her obituary would later explain), so after about two years they returned to the Peabody homestead in Amherst. And soon after that, in 1893, sister Margaret died at 56. A few years later, the health of Daniel’s wife Emma declined as she suffered from debilitating rheumatism that restricted her to home. Her mother lived with them for a while, providing care and housekeeping, and for the 1902/3 winter, the Peasbodys stayed with her brother in Greenfield so that her sister-in-law and mother could care for her. Emma’s mother died at age 90 in March 1806 at Greenfield and Emma died aged 57 in Oct. 1906 at home in Amherst.

What to do in that spacious house all alone?  Daniel kept his room but rented the place 1907-1911 to his wife’s sister & husband, Mr. & Mrs. Fred W. Barnes with their five teen children, who ran the place again as a summer boardinghouse while Fred commuted to work in Milford.

New House, New Home

      In 1912, Daniel sold the house built by his father, and built himself a smaller one around the corner. Work for the new bungalow at 7 Lyndeborough Road began in October 1912 and it was ready for occupation in April 1913. When he sold it in Nov. 1918 to move to the Soldiers’ Home in Tilton, N.H., he auctioned off 12 hens and an “extra good driving horse, safe in every spot and place” and his “2 seated open surry.” 

      Daniel had ongoing problems with his legs. In Nov. 1901, when he was 59, he had received treatment at Saint Luke’s hospital in New York city that enabled him to walk again without the aid of crutches or cane and with less pain. In 1904 he was a patient at the hospital in Manchester. And in 1907, having “suffered with varicose ulcers on his ankles for the past three years,” Daniel received a series of operations at Massachusetts General hospital in Boston, where he stayed from early August to mid November. In 1918, he would undergo a successful operation at St. Josephs Hospital in Nashua.  At the Soldiers’ Home, Peabody was bed-ridden with bad ankles from February