Step back in time & into the 9 oldest buildings in New Hampshire

Learn about the nine oldest buildings in New Hampshire that are open to the public.

There’s an advantage to living in a state that was one of the 13 original colonies. We have a lot of history and many early buildings that date back to our earliest days – some even predate New Hampshire becoming a royal province. Here are nine of our oldest structures, all of which are open to visitors

1. Jackson House, 1664

7 Meserve Hill Road, Portsmouth

This National Historic Landmark was built on a 25-acre lot in 1664 on the banks of the Piscataqua River. It’s the oldest surviving house and the oldest wood-frame house still standing in the state—predating King Charles II’s establishing New Hampshire as a royal province by 15 years. It was built with sawn lumber by Richard Jackson, a woodworker, farmer, and mariner. Future generations built additions to the house in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Jackson House is now a museum open June through October, the first and third Saturday of the month. Tours are given on the half hour.

Postcard featuring a drawing of the Old Jackson House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. (New York Public Library)

2. Three Chimneys Inn & Sawyer Tavern, 1649

17 Newmarket Road, Durham

Not only can you visit one of the oldest buildings in the state, but you can eat, sleep, and drink in one too. This building, a National Historic Landmark, was part of the original settlement at Oyster River Falls when it was constructed as a homestead in 1649 by mill builder Valentine Hill. According to local accounts, the homestead was used to store munitions captured from the British blockhouses by the colonists in Portsmouth during the Revolutionary War. It stayed standing after the 1694 attack during King William’s War, which resulted in the death of 100 Oyster River residents and the destruction of some nearby garrisons and homes. During the American Revolution, the homestead was used to store munitions captured from the British blockhouses by the colonists. Over the centuries, the house belonged to several prominent local families and underwent additions and some changes. It has been an inn and restaurant for the past 27 years.

3. Damm-Drew Garrison House, 1675

Part of the Woodman Institute Museum, 182 Central Avenue, Dover

The Damm Garrison House is the oldest in Dover and contains galleries displaying local Colonial and Early American history. John Damm built the fortified house with 20-foot logs, jointed on each side of a center chimney with holes carved out for guns to use against invaders during the fraught colonial days of New Hampshire. The garrison and museum are open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April through November.

Items on display at the Damm-Drew Garrison House in Dover. (Stacy Milbouer)

4. Sherburne House, 1695

Strawbery Banke, 14 Hancock Street, Portsmouth 

The Sherburne House, built by mariner John Sherburne, is one of the last three wood-framed houses of 17th-century New Hampshire. According to the museum, the building—a two-story, single-cell, and chimney-bay house with a gable roof and a façade gable – is one of the main reasons Strawbery Banke exists. In 1957, the house was about to be demolished for new development when residents stepped in to save the 267-year-old Sherburne House and other historic buildings in Puddle Dock – now Strawbery Banke. 

5. Colonel Paul Wentworth House, 1701

47 Water Street, Rollinsford

The nonprofit Association for Rollinsford Culture and History maintains this early New Hampshire building, one of the state’s oldest surviving colonial structures. It’s now an educational and cultural center for Rollinsford and the lower Salmon Fall region. According to the association’s website, Paul Wentworth was either “courageous or foolish” when he chose to build the structure away from the relative safety of Portsmouth to Rollinsford “in splendid (and brave) isolation at the edge of the frontier.” The house was constructed during a brief interval between the bloody King William’s and Queen Anne’s Wars when raids were common and frequent. Throughout the centuries, the house was occupied by the Wentworth family until 1924, when several other families bought it, including the Blodgetts, who dismantled and moved the house to Dover, Massachusetts, in 1936.  In 2002, the house was returned to Rollinsford with thousands of pieces renovated and opened to the public in 2005.

The Association for Rollinsford Culture and History hosts living history events, exhibits, hearth-cooked dinners, and demonstrations there. It’s open to visitors on Sundays during the summer season and at other times during the year for special events and activities for children and adults. The building can also be rented for private events. 

6. Gilman Garrison House, 1709

12 Water Street, Exeter

In 1709, the Gilman family built a garrison, or fortified structure, near the banks of the Squamscott River on land that had been the home of the Pennacook people for thousands of years. The Gilmans built lucrative sawmills on the river, which devastated local fish stocks and made navigation of the river difficult for the Indigenous population. The 1709 interior of the building has walls constructed of massive sawn logs and other features designed to protect the family from raids by the Pennacook. The garrison form remained unchanged until the mid-eighteenth century.

Peter Gilman, the second generation to own the site, remodeled the house in the Georgian style. Gilman operated a tavern in the house for many years, and subsequent owners, including several women, opened hat shops, took in boarders, and offered guided tours of the unique property. Today, visitors can explore the house, which was restored by William Dudley, the last owner before Historic New England acquired it in 1966. Dudley created a history museum documenting the lives of the Gilman family and other residents, including many of the myths handed down by its former occupants. The house is open Fridays and Saturdays, May 31-October 15, with tours on the hour from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

Exterior of the Gilman Garrison House, a Historic New England museum in Exeter, New Hampshire.(Magicpiano/CC BY-SA 4.0)

7. Warner House, 1716

150 Daniel Street, Portsmouth

This is an early two-and-a-half-story Georgian brick house built in 1716 for Northern Ireland sea merchant Captain Archibald Macpheadris. It has 15-inch walls, a cupola, old-growth wood paneling, intricate moldings, a center staircase, and four colonial murals, considered the oldest existing murals in the country. According to the house’s trustees, it was the largest mansion in Portsmouth when it was built 308 years ago. Macpheadris married Sarah Wentworth, daughter of New Hampshire’s lieutenant governor, and passed the house down to his family when he died in  1729. Family descendants lived in the house until the early 1930s when, facing demolition, it was purchased by Warner House Association, which has run it as a museum ever since.

The Warner House is open to the public with guided tours from early June through mid-October,  Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Gardens are open even when the museum isn’t.

8. Newington Meeting House, 1713

Old Town Center, Newington

This is considered the oldest church building in New Hampshire. The year it was completed, attendants walked into a cold building without seats or windows. Pews wouldn’t come until a year later, when a resident could pay 12 pounds for a big pew and 10 for a small one. Still, worshippers listened as the first minister, Reverend Joseph Adams, the uncle of John Adams, gave his sermons as he would for the next 68 years. In 1803, when the original church bell from England cracked after it was struck by lightning, the Newington selectmen hauled it down to Boston to be recast by bellmaker Paul Revere, who offered the town $210 and a different bell he’d made for another church in exchange. They took the deal. The building is still home to The Newington Town Church UCC and is presumed to be the oldest Congregational Society in the United States regularly meeting in its original building. Worships are every Sunday at 10 a.m.

9. James House, 1723

Towle Farm Road, Hampton

The date of this house was determined by dendrochronology—using the characteristic patterns of growth rings in timber to determine the age of a building or object. It is believed to be the oldest surviving example of the traditional five-bay Georgian Colonial house in the state. The house was built by weaver Benjamin James between 1720 and 1723 near the salt meadows of Drakeside Road, according to the James House Museum. He lived there with his wife and son, and generations of the James family occupied the home until 1931, when it was sold to farmers. By 1972, the house was vacant and remained vacant until the James House Association was formed, which saved and renovated the historic building. It’s now a museum open on selected days between May and October.

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.