Cressy spent his early years on the farm of his grandfather, General Lucas Pond. The house was built between 1823 and 1825, was enlarged over many years later. It contained twenty rooms and five fireplaces. Virgil Pond, Cressy’s Uncle, in 1900 donated the house to the King’s Daughters and Sons of Norfolk County. The house with its eight acres of land became the Pond Home for the Aged, which opened in 1902 and operated until 1931.
The house is gone today and all you see is wooded area with the road, and directly across the road sits the Cressy Memorial Chapel [left], now a private home. Harriet Cressy, daughter of Lucas, built the Chapel in 1909 for the Home for the Aged to honor their son Oliver Sawyer Cressy, Jr.
In a nearby little red schoolhouse where his great-uncle Enoch Pond (1791-1882) once studied Cressy too began his education. The area where the school stood is not far from his grandfather’s house. Though the schoolhouse is long gone, the property sits back in the woods where the school once stood. The road that runs along the property is now Valley Street.