10293 Highway 1: The Ritson E. Marshall House

Architecture Style: Greek Revival

Built: 1906

Charles and Clarence Durling, father and son, were entrepreneurs. They were descended from the Dorlandts, Dutch loyalists who moved to Nova Scotia from New York and made their way to Wilmot Township by 1783. Charles and Clarence bought and sold land, built and ran hotels and blacksmith shops, and generally had an eye out for a good investment.  In 1902 they bought a piece of land from William and Ellen James, the Bermuda aristocrats who built “Ellenhurst”. The Durlings divided it, and sold the eastern portion of the land, with hotel and blacksmith shop,  to the Burkes.  Ritson  Marshall bought the western portion the next year, in 1906.

Ritson was the great-grandson of planter Isaac Marshall. The Marshalls owned rich farmland in Clarence, but Hiram, Ritson’s father, sold their farm on the Leonard Road, and Ritson came to Paradise at 62; it was a great place for the farmers of Clarence or West Paradise to retire. Later, Ritson and Sophie [Chute] moved to New Hampshire.

In 1913 it became the Daniels home when Milledge Daniels and his wife Annie [Remson] bought it.  Their son Ernest died as a boy of 13, and it was their daughter Gladys who inherited the house. She married Frank Balcom, a descendant of planter Henry Balcom.  Frank was one of the eight children of  Ernest and Clara [Dunn] Balcom. Gladys taught both the Elementary and the Advanced level at the Paradise School in the 1920s. She was much-loved by her students, and it is said that her 1918 wedding packed the church, as none of the students would miss it. They had five children –  Lorris, Gordon, Frances, Ronald, and Marilyn. In 1935 this became their home. Frank worked in the trucking industry, and Gladys stayed home with her family. For a time she ran a Tea Room here and sold her own lovely handicrafts, as well as home baking.

In 1980 James and Valerie [Jodrey] Richards bought this house and raised their three daughters: Kelly, and twins Leah and Amy, here. Valerie’s father, Stewart, lived with them later in his life, and he enjoyed the front verandah under the picturesque bargeboard of another time. They added the east wing to the house.