Gould Family on the Front Porch

Thomas Goodale Casey, the sixth-generation owner, probably added the front porch with its rustic, tree-trunk posts sometime after 1845. His grand-nephew, Edward Pearce Casey, is seated in profile on the floor.

Thomas and Sadie Gould (probably the couple to the left of the door in the photograph) were the resident tenant farmers for two decades after the Civil War. The Goulds raised four daughters on the farm. Their eldest daughter Idella (possibly sitting to the right of the door) was legally blind and this person is wearing glasses. That may be her walking stick leaning against the door molding. The youngest sister Sarah, age twelve, is sitting to the left of her parents. Not pictured is their second daughter Mary, listed in the 1900 census as a “farm worker.” Also not in the photograph is their third daughter, Susan Anna, who became a school teacher and then a bookkeeper and business partner with her cousins at the Saunders House Hotel, ferry business, and boatyard and supported her sisters after their parents retired.

Harry Weir Casey (1861-1880), photographer, c. 1878
Saunderstown, Rhode Island