The building at 69 Sussex Street housed a carpentry, general store, and undertaker’s business run by Robert Simeon Nelson from about 1859, after Nelson moved his carpentry business from Linton’s Diggings. He had come from Canada to the diggings in 1857. In his workshop at the back of the house, he made home furnishings and coffins. Various members of the Nelson family operated as undertakers here until the firm moved to Williamstown in the 1920s.
The building was then considerably remodelled into a family home with this completely new façade, although local funerals were still catered for from here. The building was derelict when the Shire of Grenville purchased it in 1985 and leased it to the Historical Society, which had been formed five years previously.
Members refurbished it as a Resource Centre in 1986. The centre was renamed in September 2010 in honour of Letty Armstrong who was one of the foundation members of the Society in 1981 and who remained as its Secretary until her death in 2009.
In the old photo you can see James Nelson’s children – Mary, Pearl and Norman.
Over the past decade the Historical Society has done extensive repairs and refurbishments to this building, including repainting it in heritage colours and restoring the original signage.
