The Benjamin James House is a
historic house museum
A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...
at 186 Towle Farm Road in
Hampton, New Hampshire. Built in 1723, it is believed to be the oldest surviving example in New Hampshire of the traditional five-bay Georgian Colonial house, with a possibly older building attached as an ell. Now owned by a local nonprofit organization, it is open selected days between May and October, or by appointment. The house was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2002.
Description and history
The Benjamin James House is located in a rural setting on the south side of Towle Farm Road, just west of
Interstate 95
Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1, US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between M ...
. The house is oriented facing south (away from the street), toward an old road alignment. It is a -story wood-frame structure, with a side-gable roof, central chimney, and clapboarded exterior. A two-story ell projects north from the back of the house. The main house is built with a heavy timber frame consisting of four
bents running front-to-back, joined by horizontal timber beams. Each bent has three posts, which support the roof framing and the
summer beam
A bressummer, breastsummer, summer beam (somier, sommier, sommer, somer, cross-somer, summer, summier, summer-tree, or dorman, dormant tree) is a load-bearing beam in a timber-framed building. The word ''summer'' derived from sumpter or French s ...
s defining the partition between the front and rear chambers. The ell exhibits similar
First Period construction techniques, whose forms are consistent with the idea that it was all or part of the first house built on the property, c. 1707. The main house timbers have been dated by
dendrochronology
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
to 1723.
The land on which the house stands was purchased in 1705 by Benjamin James, a weaver. By 1722 James owned , and had eight children, prompting construction of this larger house the following year. The house remained in the James family until 1931, undergoing a number of alterations, mainly to its interior features and finishes. The largest-scale alterations were the removal of the original central chimney late in the 19th century, at which time the house also received new windows (although at least one of its original window sashes was found in the attic). Vacant and in deteriorating condition, it was purchased in 1995 by the James House Association, a local non-profit dedicated to its preservation.
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See also
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References
External links
The James House
- official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Benjamin, House
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
Colonial architecture in the United States
Houses completed in 1723
Houses in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Museums in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Historic house museums in New Hampshire
National Register of Historic Places in Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Hampton, New Hampshire
1723 establishments in the Thirteen Colonies