The following explanations on the naming of the Featherstone Cottage come from Dave Linn, owner of the Featherstone Cottage as of November 2012. I prefer the first story of the two.

I have two versions of where the name came from. The first came from Margo and Dave Schall whom I purchased the cottage from in Aug. 2008 . They told us it was given the name Featherstone due to the high profile of the stone slab roof which made it look like the feathers of a bird sitting in the woods. In the appraisal documents for our purchase done by Carter Appraisal Service, it states, “Subject is a historic home called “Featherstone Cottage” named for the unique pattern to the stone slab roof”. While this is a nice romantic sounding story I have more faith that the second version is closer to the truth.

This version first came to me from Mr. William K. Bowen who I met while he and others were taking pictures of the River Ridge properties so as to develop an lasting historical record. He claimed he had lived in the cottage in the 1960’s and also remembers using it as a hunting camp. His story is confirmed by Mr. John Stiglitz who I recently met while he was working on the River Ridge properties. He has lived in the Franklin area his whole life and also remembers Featherstone as a hunting camp.

Their story is that as the cottage fell into disrepair, vandals got in and in a raucous pillow fight which sent feathers from the pillows every where. Hunting camp resident and possibly the vandals themselves then began referring to it as Featherstone. I hope to have further discussion with both of these gentleman and others to further confirm this story. Both versions have their own uniqueness.

My wife and I had purchased the Featherstone Cottage you show on the River Ridge Farm website within 6 hours of it being on the market [in 2008]. While the Schall’s, who we bought it from, had a good eye for the remodel, their contractor had no idea on how to do things right. As a contractor myself, I have been slowly remodeling his mistakes. The most notable change came about when an oil rig drove down the road and his rig hooked the wires pulling the utility poles right out of the ground and further destroying the staircase. I worked out an agreement between all parties and now all the wiring is underground, taking all the ugly poles and wires away from the view of the cottage. I am now trying to work on funding to rebuild the stone staircase. See the staircase in the Winter image found below.

About two months ago a storm rolled through doing damage to several trees near the cottage. Half of a large cherry tree was left suspended over the valley in front of the cottage. The other half was leaning towards the cottage. After a serious assessment of the situation I brought in a crane and a bucket truck and took down any thing that was leaning toward the cottage and within range of striking it. While the crane was there I got the [next two] pictures from the top of the crane.