You don’t have to believe in ghosts to get the feeling that a house is haunted. The Smith-Appleby House in Smithfield is such a place. For over 300 years, the people who lived in the house had familial ties that went back to the original white settlers of Rhode Island.

“When I stand at the hearth, I think of all the conversations these people must have had,” said Jim Ignasher, who has written the history of the house, which is now a museum containing relics from every period of Smithfield’s history. “About the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, right up to the present.”

Ignasher is one of a core of volunteers who keep the Smith-Appleby House going.

The Smith-Appleby House Museum began as a one-room stone-ender with a loft above. It was built around 1696 by Elisha Smith, the grandson of John Smith, the miller and cartographer and a member of Roger William’s original party of six men who left the Massachusetts Bay Colony to settle in Providence. The size of the house was doubled when a two-room building was brought to the site around 1730 and attached to the original house. Other additions and modifications were made over the years to accommodate the family. The last addition was made around 1813, when a new modern kitchen, with a “beehive oven” was added, bringing the house to its present 12 rooms.

“George Washington never slept here,” said Maggie Botelho, another volunteer and mainstay of the museum. “There were no governors that grew up here, no senators. But the fact that it is still here, reflecting where a bride was brought, where they raised their children…That’s what makes the place so special, the lives of they people who lived here.”

Botelho says that Elisha and his wife Experience were very brave to have come to what was still a wilderness when Providence wasn’t a short drive down the road.

The 40 acres of land granted to John Smith by Roger Williams increased to over 700 acres during Elisha’s lifetime. It has dwindled to the present seven acres now owned by the Historical Society of Smithfield. Over the years, the House's farmlands, woodlands and orchards have been the site of a gristmill, a sawmill and a blacksmith shop. This restored and furnished farmhouse features fine cabinetwork and each room houses its own treasury of relics that reflect the history of the people who dwelt in them. The children’s room has old toys and books that have been battered, but unbroken by generations of small hands. The flyleaf of one old calfskin-covered book has a child’s name written repeatedly, an obvious record of his attempt to learn to write legibly. The house is not haunted but reminders like that, of the generations that were born and bred there, seem to create an eerie presence for the people who once called the house their home.

The original portion of the house dates to about 1696 when Elisha Smith moved to the Stillwater area of Smithfield. The town wasn’t named for Elisha or his family.

“The name most likely comes from Smithfield, an area just outside of London, where Roger Williams came from,” said Ignasher.

The house Elisha erected was a single room home with a small loft. The house was a “stone-ender,” meaning one wall was composed entirely of stone and held a large fireplace that provided heat and a place to cook meals.

Elisha was a farmer and he eventually acquired 721 acres of land surrounding the present-day house. In addition to farming, he built two mills on his land. The remains of one of these mills can still be seen today at the rear of the house.

Elisha and Experience Mowry had 10 children: seven boys and three girls. A small room off the main room of the oldest part of the house contains what Ignasher called a “birthing room” with a small narrow bed of a size that reminds you of how small people were.

“The average size of British soldiers in the Revolutionary War was around five feet two or three,” said Botelho. “They were so much smaller than us.”

As the sons got older, the land was subdivided into 100-acre parcels among them. According to available records, the girls did not inherit any of the land. Elisha died in 1766 and was among the first to be buried in the cemetery located on the grounds of the house. The house went to his eldest son, Philip Smith, (1703 to 1792). Philip married Waite Waterman, whose father owned and operated the famous Waterman Tavern in Greenville. Philip and Waite had seven children and were witnesses to the American Revolution.

The next owner was John Smith, (1736 to 1807), the son of Philip and Waite (Waterman) Smith. He married Phoebe Ballou in 1761 and they had three daughters. When Phoebe died, John married Waite Brown and they had two sons. John died in 1807 and is also buried on the grounds. His will left half of the house and a portion of the farm to his wife, and the other half of the house and some land went to his youngest daughter Waite.

John’s daughter, Waite Smith married Thomas Appleby on November 14, 1784 and moved to Wionkheige Hill where they raised five children. When she inherited her portion of the Smith property in 1807 it is presumed that she remained at her home on Wionkheige Hill, while her mother continued to live in Stillwater at the family homestead. Waite (Smith) Appleby passed away on October 15, 1843.

With Waite Appleby’s passing, the house and property went to her eldest son, John Smith Appleby, who was born in 1787. He married Patience Harris on June 18, 1809 and moved to the homestead where he farmed the land and ran grist and saw mills. A blacksmith shop was built later. During this period, the house was also used as a school for the village of Stillwater until a regular schoolhouse was built.

Before 1850, Stillwater Road was located on the other side of the present-day Smith-Appleby house and continued south where the upper end of Georgiaville Pond is today. This means that the rear of the present-day house was once the front and faced the road.

John Smith Appleby died May 17, 1857, at age 70, and is buried on the grounds along with his wife Patience and four daughters.

With John’s passing, the house went to his wife Patience (Harris) Appleby who lived there until her death in 1873. The house was then left to her eldest son, John Smith Appleby Jr., who was born August 25, 1830. John Jr. never married but continued to work the farm for the rest of his life and was active in local politics and sat on the town council and school committee and was a tax assessor and director of The National Exchange Bank in Greenville. John Jr. died Aug. 8, 1904 and is also buried on the grounds.

He left the property to a nephew, Sidney Merton Appleby. Sidney was the youngest son of John’s younger brother Silas Appleby. Sidney married Sarah A. Cozzens of Cenrtredale in 1879. They had one child, Maria C. Appleby who was born in 1888.

When Sidney was married, he moved to Limerock and worked at a dairy farm. Shortly after Maria was born, the family moved to the Angell Farm in Smithfield where Sidney’s father, Silas S. Appleby was living.

Sidney’s wife Sarah died in 1890. In 1905, Sidney and Maria moved to the Smith-Appleby House, along with two of Sidney’s sisters. Sidney died in 1929 and, not surprisingly, is buried on the grounds. The house went to Maria.

Maria Cozzens Appleby was a woman ahead of her time. She was well known for her hard work and outdoor activities, which included dairy farming and golf. In the 1920’s, she built and operated Smithfield’s only golf course, which stood on land now occupied by Route 295. Abbie Sargent was a lifetime friend and companion of Maria. Abbie and Maria lived in the large house together and enjoyed what was often called a “Boston marriage,” a term that dated to the beginnings of the feminist movement and described a deep and passionate friendship between two women, with or without any sexual context.

“That pretty much describes what Maria and Abbie were,” said Botelho.

Ernest Rehill was brought to live on the property as a handyman and grounds keeper and lived in the small outbuilding to the rear of the house. When Maria died in 1959 and was buried along with the rest of the family in the small cemetery on the grounds. Maria’s will provided for Abbie to live in the house for the rest of her life and when she died in 1963, she too was buried on the grounds.

After Abbie Sargent’s passing, the property went to a church group that auctioned off the contents of the home.

“They just abandoned it,” said Ignasher. “They sold all the furniture and anything else of value and what they couldn’t sell, they threw away and just left the house to rot away.”

The property sat neglected for many years afterwards until it was sold to the Historical Society of Smithfield in 1976, whose members brought the house to its present stage of preservation. But Ignasher and Botelho would have been much happier if they still had some of the original furniture.

“I got an e-mail from someone in Texas who said they had some of the original chairs from the house,” said Ignasher. “They offered to give the chairs back to us and said all we had to do was send them the money for shipping. I replied by asking them to send us pictures of the chairs and I never heard from them again. I think now that it was a scam and they probably pull it on historical societies all over the country. You send them the money to ship the furniture and you never hear from them again.”

Well, with Ignasher and Botelho watching over the house, at least we know the property is now in good hands.