5978 Highway 201: The John Fletcher Longley House

Architecture Style: Modified Greek Revival

Built: 1870

The Isaac Longley family settled near the Roxbury Road. Isaac divided his property up amongst his three sons – from east to west: David Bent Longley, Fletcher Longley, and Isaac Jr., who lived on the old homestead.  This home, belonging to John Fletcher Longley, sits right on the corner of the route to the abandoned village of Roxbury, once a bustling logging operation and home to some pioneering families.

W.I. Morse in his “Supplement to the Local History of Paradise”, 1938, recalls John Fletcher as a “thrifty bachelor” who lived past 90. He called himself a “poor old shoat” and wondered what was to become of him. But he developed a fine farm, with a large red barn, and when he was over 50, built this imposing house. Perhaps he still hoped to find a wife: farming was a lonely occupation for a single person. He left the upstairs unfinished.

In 1908 Major Harold Graham Longley and his wife Mabel Folsom Longley bought this house and finished it.  Both were descendants of planter Israel Longley. Mabel was one of the sixteen children of “Deacon Joe” Longley, and Harold was the son of  Israel Manning Longley, a highly respected teacher, principal and school inspector. Harold was born in Guysborough while his father was the school inspector there. So though John Fletcher had no descendants, the house stayed in the Longley name. Harold and Mabel knew sorrow in this house. While seven families in Paradise lost sons or brothers in World War II,  only they lost two sons. In 1942, Pilot Officer Louis Longley was killed in a plane crash in St. Anne de Bellevue, while he was instructing.  Capt. Harold Graham Jr was the quartermaster for the North Nova Scotia Highland Regiment and was killed in action on June 7, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy.  Mabel, their daughter, cared for them as they grew older, and was given the home in gratitude.  She married Redford Height, and their children, James, Joan, Willard, Janet, and the twins, Paul and Pearle, grew up here.

Willard and Denise [Laframboise] came home on weekends often, with daughter Suzanne. Willard taught school in the Lower Sackville area, and Denise worked at the Developmental Centre.  After Redford and Mabel’s death, and on retirement, Willard and Denise did a loving restoration of this beautiful family home. They removed the verandah which Harold and Mabel had added and discovered the original line of the front door peak.  They repaired the foundation and raised the house, which then stood straight and proud. John Fletcher would have approved.