Family history:

Maxcy’s great-great-great-great grandfather, Thomas Fisher sailed from Cambridge, England arriving in Dedham, Massachusetts in 1637.  Thomas’ grandson,  (Capt.) Ebenezer Fisher (1670-1726) purchased a house lot in what was to become the town of Franklin sometime around the turn of the century, and he and his wife Abigail raised ten children in a small cape house very similar to the one Maxcy grew up in.

One of Ebenezer and Abigail’s children was Jabez Fisher (Maxcy’s grandfather) born in Franklin in 1717.  Jabez had a long, successful career in public life and was no doubt a wealthy man.  According to Blake’s history of Franklin,  Jabez was chosen as “one of the council of twenty-eight which acted as the executive during the opening Revolution, and of which were John and Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine, and John Hancock.  He was considered the special watchman of the country part of Suffolk County, then including Franklin, and brought its forces into action. He was delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1788”.

He also served as a member of the Governor’s Council, as State Representative, and State Senator.  Clearly, he knew some of the most prominent Americans of the time.  Even when he retired from public affairs at the age of 82, he continued to serve his community as justice of the peace and deacon of his church until his death in 1806.

Jabez’s daughter, Susa, (1753-1842) married Maxcy’s father, Joseph Fisher (1741-1819) when she was twenty.  So, yes, her married name was Susa Fisher Fisher and yes, Joseph was probably of a distantly related branch of the Fisher family.

Joseph and Susa live in turbulent times, witnessing the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War.  While Joseph was a private in Capt. Elijah Pond’s company that marched to the Lexington and Concord alarm of April 19^th, 1775, it doesn’t appear from any records that he served for any length of time in the army.

The Fishers were a wealthy and distinguished family within the Franklin community.  Joseph was a housewright by trade and it was probably he that expanded the original 3/4 cape to accommodate his family.  By the time he and Susa deeded the house to their son, Maxcy, in 1810, the house included the ell which is now the master bedroom and bath.

Willis, Maxcy’s older brother, settled in Franklin and was a prominent member of the community.  George, Maxcy’s younger brother, was clearly the ambitious son, graduating from Brown University, becoming a lawyer and settling in New York City where he became president of an insurance company. 

Maxcy (listed as a shoemaker by trade) married Persis Metcalf in 1811 and settled down in the family homestead with his parents.  He and Persis would have eleven children, only six of whom would survive to adulthood.  After her death Maxcy remarried a woman by the name of Abigail.  We don’t know anything about her, but we do know that Maxcy died in 1865.  His son, Herman Maxcy Fisher, inherited the family homestead but by 1898 the house had left family hands.  It was dismantled in 1997 and our company purchased it in the summer of 2004 before beginning to rebuild it in 2005 in Hollis, NH.