Around 1835, Benjamin Sweetser, deciding that he would prefer to live nearer the well-established main road, bought the old Parson Anderson place, and built, where the former house had been, what was then a new idea, a duplex house with an efficient apartment on each side.
He and his wife Dolly took up residence on the south side, while his newlywed son, Rufus, lived with his wife in the northern side. In 1848, Rufus had moved to support his wife’s family, so his young sister Elizabeth and her new husband, Capt. David Wilson, moved into his apartment.
Thirty years later, the northern side passed to their son William’s family, and, later, their daughter Elizabeth, before it was rented out to various tenants. In 1906, the house burned, and Maude Merrill, Capt. Wilson’s niece, acquired the land. She eventually donated it for the site of Prince Memorial Library.
