Historic New England: Marrett House

To close out my whirlwind tour of old houses in southern Maine back in 2022, I visited Marrett House in Standish, ME, which is operated by Historic New England (HNE). This sprawling home, now on the National Register of Historic Places, was named for its second set of residents, the Marrett family. The father, Daniel Marrett, became the underpaid minister of the local church in 1796 and had better luck managing an apple orchard. When he was not giving sermons or grafting trees, Daniel raised six children with his first wife, Mary. After she died young, he remarried to Dorcas Hastings and had another eight children. The house must have been crowded.

A white picket fence along an English garden at Marrett House.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
Photo album showing eight members of the Marrett family from the late 19th or early 20th century.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett

Remarkably, considering the number of people involved, the house passed smoothly from one generation to the next. Daniel and Dorcas’ third son, Avery, inherited the house and orchard, turning the operation into a profitable business. The orchard’s specialty was Baldwin apples, an American heritage fruit popularized by Loammi Baldwin, second cousin to better known apple promoter Johnny Appleseed. With the money made off this apple and other varieties, Avery greatly expanded the family homestead, something he likely wished had happened during his childhood. When he married Elizabeth Weston in 1847, he used the parlor of the updated home for the ceremony. Except for nearly unnoticeable repairs to the corner of the room after the house was struck by a car in 2012, the room has never been redecorated and remains in pristine condition.

The never updated parlor at Marrett House: A mid-19th century parlor with yellow damask wallpaper, oil paintings, and wooden furniture with red upholstery and tablecloths.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
Couch in the Sitting Room at Marrett House.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
Canopy bed in a bedroom at Marrett House
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett

This preservation is thanks in part to Avery’s daughters. Caroline Marrett managed the house and orchard, using her membership with the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, the precursor to HNE, to organize and preserve the house. Helen and Frances entered the field of education. Helen became Precepter of Gorham Academy, now a campus of University of Southern Maine. Frances taught at Perkins School for the Blind with her best friend Sarah Lilley at the same time Helen Keller was a student. In 1930, another sister, Mary, moved back into the house. By 1944, all four Marrett sisters had passed away. The Marrett House became an HNE museum, with Sarah acting as caretaker and tour guide.

Writing desk with a lady’s chair in the Sitting Room at Marrett House.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
A writing desk in a bedroom at Marrett House.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett
A panorama of the full Marrett House. The main house is on the right, then an attached smaller house, then a hall, and then a barn.
PHOTOGRAPH BY Abigail Epplett

This house is open less often than some other HNE properties, with tours on the first and third Saturdays starting with HNE’s open house in June and closing in mid October. Tours are on the hour from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Tickets are standard HNE pricing: $15 for adults, $13 for seniors, $7 for students, $6 for children, and $0 for HNE members and library pass holders. The house is not accessible by wheelchair, and the stairs might be too steep for people with low mobility. Marrett House does not have an online virtual tour at this time.

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Abigail Epplett

Abigail Epplett leads a dual life as a freelance digital marketing consultant for small humanities-focused organizations and as a customer experience design creative specialist at lab equipment manufacturer Waters Corporation. She holds an MA in Museum Education from Tufts University, where she researched the history of New England from Plymouth to the Civil War. To learn more about her adventures with museums, visit her current blog at abbyeppletthistorian.blogspot.com.

Abigail is Historian-In-Residence at the National Museum of Mental Health Project: https://www.nmmhproject.org/