The Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion is the former home of New Hampshire's first royal governor, Benning Wentworth. The rambling, forty-room mansion which overlooks Little Harbor is one of the most outstanding homes remaining from the Colonial era. Its stateliness and impressive interior and furnishings reflect aristocratic life in Portsmouth in the 1700s.
The site offers tours and exhibits.
Writer Sarah Orne Jewett spent much of her life in this stately Georgian residence, owned by her family since 1819. The view from her desk in the second-floor hall surveys the town's major intersection and provided her with material for her books, such as The Country of the Pointed Firs, which describe the character of the Maine countryside and seacoast with accuracy and affection. In decorating the house for their own use, Miss Jewett and her sister expressed both a pride in their family's past and their own independent, sophisticated tastes. The result is an eclectic blend of 18th-century architecture, antiques, and old wallpapers with furnishings showing the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement.
The house offers tours and educational and recreational programs.
The New Hampshire Antiquarian Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Hopkinton, NH. To this end, the society operates a museum of local history.
The society offers exhibits, school tours, a historical and genealogical research library, and research services. Appointments are appreciated for library use. A fee is charged for research conducted on request.
The Mount Desert Island Historical Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Mount Desert Island, ME from 1761 to present. To this end, the society operates the 1892 Old School House and Museum, the Farm Stand at the Old School House, the Somesville Historical Museum and Gardens, and the Selectman's Building and Bridge. The Farm Stand presents transportation, craft, and agricultural artifacts. The Somesville Historical Museum grounds contain an heirloom garden. The Selectman's Building, erected in the 1780s, now houses displays on cobbling.
The society offers exhibits, period rooms, gardens, an 1894 school day program for third and fourth grade students, and children's activities. Guests wishing to see the Old School House and Museum in June should call ahead to verify that the site will be open when they plan to visit. The Selectman's Building is open July through September.
The Eagle Island State Historic Site preserves the summer home of Admiral Robert Peary (1856-1920), who after his 1909 expedition, claimed to be the first man to reach the geographic North Pole. The grounds contain gardens originally tended by Peary's wife, Josephine.
The site offers house tours, a hiking trail, gardens, and picnicking opportunities. The site is entirely inaccessible by wheelchair.
The Salem Witch Museum commemorates the men and women who were put on trial and executed during the Salem Witch hunts of 1692. These witch hunts were the product of unexplained sickness and hysterics of some of the village girls and resulted in the death of at least 19 townspeople and a period of terror in Puritan Massachusetts.
Group tours of the museum are offered for school groups.
The Fryeburg Historical Society Museum presents the history of Fryeburg, Maine. The museum is located within a 19th century Greek Revival structure.
The museum offers exhibits.
With its diamond-paned casement windows, clapboards weathered nearly black, and hewn overhangs, the Buttolph-Williams House harks back to the Puritan pioneering of New England during the 1600s. Although actually built around 1711, the house reflects the continuing popularity of traditional architecture. As a result it is considered the most faithful restoration of a 17th-century-style Connecticut Valley house. An array of colonial-era furnishings is on display. Highlights include a room designed and decorated by Katherine Prentiss Murphy, one of the 20th century's most renowned antiques collectors, and a kitchen with an enormous open hearth and an assortment of Colonial-era cooking implements.
The house offers exhibits and tours.
The Bostonian Society seeks to preserve and share the history of Boston, Massachusetts. To this end, the society operates the Old State House Museum. The museum presents information on the Old State House itself, the Boston Massacre, Boston and the Revolutionary War, staff favorite artifacts, and architectural conservation and preservation, among other topics. The Old State House itself was built in 1713 to house local government offices.
The society offers interactive and traditional exhibits, a multimedia presentation, guided student tours, self-guided student tours, an educational program for students, self-guided group tours, guided group tours, wayside historical markers, research library access, research assistance, and teacher workshops. Groups of 10 or more are required to make reservations at least three weeks in advance. The library is open by appointment only. Non-member library use requires payment of a fee, and is limited to two-hour sessions. The museum is not wheelchair accessible. The website offers virtual exhibits, lesson plans, primary documents, pre- and post-visit activities, a scavenger hunt and self-guided tour for use on site, and an online Boston Massacre game.
Beauport, the 19071934 summer home of the collector and interior designer Henry Davis Sleeper, is a fantasy house built on the rocks overlooking Gloucester Harbor. Crowned by towers, dormers, and dovecotes, the structure encloses a labyrinth of rooms decorated to evoke different historical and literary themes. Every nook and alcove holds a composition of curiosities, folk art, china, or colored glass. The settings—playful variations on subjects like the early American kitchen, an English cottage, or the sea captain's retreat—are arranged to amuse and to stimulate the imagination.
The site offers tours and educational and recreational programs.