Hanover
Friends of Hanover Crew owns the 2.4-acre property north of town that stands near the town-owned Wilson’s Landing boat launch and houses the farmhouse, which assessing records say was built in 1771, and a more recent barn. The group’s secretary, Hanover Selectwoman Nancy Carter, cited financial difficulties and a zoning decision that forbids use of the asbestos-ridden building as reasons to tear it down.
“It desperately needs painting. It desperately needs a new roof,” Carter said on Tuesday, noting that a tree has begun to grow through the porch. “It would be very expensive for us to maintain it for literally no use whatsoever.”
Hanover assessing records show that Friends of Hanover Crew bought the land from Dartmouth College in 2008 for about $500,000. The school, in turn, acquired the property from the Fullingtons, a family of dairy farmers, for about $174,000 in 1999.
When the rowing association acquired the property to afford access to the boat landing, it also became the steward of an aging farmhouse with asbestos in its basement and kitchen, among other places, Carter said.
A town zoning decision from 2011 also forbade use of the Fullington farm for anything other than “outdoor recreation,” which functionally put the house off limits.
Carter said it would be expensive for the crew association to fix up and continually maintain a house it can’t use. Asbestos is a carcinogen, and the demolition alone will require special procedures for hazardous materials that will cost the group “certainly in the many thousands of dollars,” she said.
“We really are a not-for-profit trying to stand on our own two feet, trying to make sensible financial decisions that are a benefit to teenagers,” Carter said.
She noted, however, that the crew group does use the property’s old barn for offseason storage. Friends of Hanover Crew does not plan to build anything in the farmhouse’s stead, she said.
Members of the Hanover Historical Society and the Fullington family on Tuesday could not immediately be reached for comment on the historical significance of the house and its demolition.
Jay Barrett, an architect and historian who grew up near the Fullingtons and now lives in Fairlee, said he remembered receiving milk deliveries from Wilson Fullington, who lived in the old farmhouse and who gave his name to Wilson’s Landing.
“He’d come right into the kitchen and ask my mother if I was going to be home from college on that weekend, and decide how many bottles of milk and cream we’d need,” Barrett said.
Wilson Fullington was one of two brothers who owned farms along Lyme Road and helped run Dartmouth Dairy, which has since folded. Barrett recalled that until the early 1970s, traffic used to stop twice a day for the farmers’ Guernsey cows to cross.
Haslett Fullington, Wilson’s brother, owned another farmhouse on Lyme Road to the southeast. That structure stood on land that now hosts the Dartmouth Organic Farm. Dartmouth College razed the house in 2016, drawing criticism from some surviving members of the family who said they hadn’t been properly notified.
“Progress is inevitable,” Barrett said in response to a question about this newest proposed demolition. As a lifelong area resident, Barrett said, “I don’t lament the olden days. … But it is sad to see old buildings disappear.”
“I realize it’s inevitable,” he added later. “With each passing year, less and less people remember the Fullingtons and have those associations.”
Carter on Tuesday acknowledged that another remnant of Hanover’s farming past could disappear, but said Friends of Hanover Crew didn’t see another option.
“People will say that we’re losing our agricultural history, and I understand what they’re saying, but that’s not what we’re in business for,” she said.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment has scheduled a hearing on the request for 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 25, in the Hanover Town Hall boardroom.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com.