NORTH WATERFORD – Thick smoke engulfed the hill Thursday morning where the Jones family has farmed since the Revolutionary War era.

A single firetruck pumped water on hot spots from Wednesday night’s fire that consumed the barn, attached ell and most of the two-story farmhouse of Richard and Frances Jones.

The 300-acre farm, with panoramic views of the White Mountains, has been in the Jones family since 1778, part of an original grant dating back to the Revolutionary War.

“It’s going to take more than a little fire to drive us off this hill,” said their son, Wallace Jones, who also is an owner. He was already busy hooking up a generator to the family’s temporary shelter, a camping trailer parked just down the hill on Jones Road next to their bisons’ winter pasture.

“We’re not going to give up that view that easily,” he said.

The Joneses had no insurance, but plan to rebuild.

The three Belgian horses, Maggie, Perley and Peaches, stood in the snow-covered pasture, all looking toward the gutted house. Their survival seemed a tiny sign of hope in the dismal scene of loss.

The fire started in the barn and was swept through the ell to the house by high-gusting winds. Forty firefighters from Waterford, Stoneham and Norway hoped to push the fire back from the ell, but the wind was too strong.

Waterford Fire Chief Bradley Grover said the barn was so thoroughly burned that an exact cause for the fire cannot be determined. The Joneses called it in at 8:30 p.m., he said, saying they “heard a noise” and went outside to find the barn in flames.

Wallace Jones thinks an electrical problem might have started the fire.

Although they’ve already had several offers of places to stay, the trailer will do just fine for now, said Wallace, 55, who resides on the property and runs part of the operation. The more pressing need, with winter approaching, is to build a shelter as soon as possible for his cattle and horses.

On Thursday, the small living space of the camper was filled with neighbors. Frances Jones, trying to find something positive, commented that at least no one got hurt.

“I still have my dog,” she said, noting a young black Lab. The cattle survived, too, but 20 chickens and several pigs died in the fire.

The Joneses’ youngest daughter, Ruth Ann Halterman of Oxford, said she’ll stay with her parents for a couple of days to offer whatever help she can.

“All the generations of accumulated history, all gone,” she said. The farm has housed seven generations of her family. She grew up there and will still have the memories, but most of the memorabilia was destroyed.

Halterman told Wallace Jones that he was supposed to deliver a load of chicken manure to someone. “Farming goes on, no matter what,” he said, shaking his head.

Hard work and the willingness to change and diversify, added to the love of the land and the lifestyle, have contributed to the successful maintenance as a farm, Frances Jones said in an interview last year.

“Every generation has had to do something different in order to hang onto the place,” she said.

Staff writer Gail Geraghty contributed to this story

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