This undated photo from around the 1880s shows members of the Miller family in front of the house built between 1791 and 1795 (accounts vary) by Robert Miller for Clark Chandler, who arrived in Colrain in 1790 at the age of 20, and promptly married 17-year-old Nancy Lyons. The couple lived with her parents in the former Pennill Tavern at the top of Colrain mountain while Chandler started a store there. Boards from the recently dismantled first meetinghouse nearby are believed to have been used to build the house, as well as the new store building between it and the tavern. Chandler became a wealthy man and a leading citizen of Colrain.
In 1840, Miller’s grandson purchased the property from the Chandlers. Only the house remains where the Chandlers produced 21 children, not all of whom survived childhood. Today the sixth generation of Miller/Apt descendants occupy the house, the home of David Nims.
Colrain Historical Society archive photo.
