Located not far from the American Independence Museum in Exeter, New Hampshire, Gilman Garrison House is a property of Historic New England (HNE). The rightfully paranoid Gilman family built the structure as a garrison, a fort that served as a living space and a tavern. The year of construction, 1709, is known thanks to a test by the Oxford Dendrochronology Laboratory in 2005. The owners of the house were equally eccentric and tragic.
The family feared attacks by the nearby Wabanaki Native Americans and French Canadians because of the Raid on Deerfield at Deerfield, Massachusetts in 1704, which had left 47 colonists dead while another 112 became prisoners of war. These attacks and retaliations were not uncommon, as previous conflicts included King Philip’s War from 1675 to 1678, and a future conflict would be the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763. However, the Gilman Garrison House was never attacked. Later generations of the Gilman family altered the building to make it more home than fort. The house doubled in size during the ownership by Peter Gilman during the late 18th century.
The home was next purchased by Ebenezer Clifford, who assisted in the construction of Governor John Langdon House and Rundlet-May House, two properties in Portsmouth, New Hampshire owned by Historic New England that I visited later in this trip. Clifford was an inventor along with a builder, and he came up with an idea for a diving bell, the precursor to scuba gear. The system consisted of a large wooden barrel to trap air and a wooden swan. The model bird floating on the surface of the water to indicate the location of the bell. If a diver tugged the rope attached to the bird, it acted as a signal to raise the bell.
Clifford willed the house to his daughters, and the property would spend many years under the ownership of independent women. His daughters ordered their entire estate sold at auction upon their deaths, so little can be studied about his architecture. Asenath Harvey Darling bought the house in her own name in 1864 despite being married, an unusual if not scandalous event at the time. Her sister Jane Harvey, who worked as a teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy, led tours of the house with her own version of its history. One highlight of her tours was showing a window desk that she claimed was used by Robert Lincoln, oldest son of Abraham Lincoln, who boarded in the house while attending the academy, although this was highly unlikely.
The final residents of the house were members of the Dudley family, descendents of the Gilmans. The mother, Frances Perry Dudley, took one of Jane Harvey’s tours, and purchased the property in 1912. Her son, wealthy architect William Perry Dudley, helped in restoring the house in a romanticized style, at least when he was not repairing a French castle, hobnobbing with the Rockefellers, or having dalliances with several women. This steady stream of new lovers was his downfall, and the story of the house took another shockingly dark turn. In 1966, Dudley was in the process of divorcing his current wife, Marika Cassapoglou, while at the courthouse in Exeter. He attempted to murder Cassapoglou with a rifle but was unsuccessful. He then went to the Gilman Garrison House and turned the weapon on himself.
Due to the buildings historic and architectural value, along with the fact that most people are unwilling to live in a house associated with a death by suicide, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (the lengthy original name for HNE) purchased the property soon after. The building was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 as part of the Bicentennial.
Besides an unusual history, the house has several unusual features. The walls of the original section of the building are incredibly thick. A pulley above the front door once connected to a portcullis, a post-medieval style door that would drop down to keep out enemies. A little model of the portcullis was on the second floor. Of course, the inside of this house looks little like its original form. The romanticized interior design style of Dudley is set in a fantasy of the American Revolutionary War period with federal-style furniture and tiles around the fireplace.
With a cast of unconventional residents and a blueprint to match, Gilman Garrison House is unlike any house you will ever tour. I was fortunate to be on a tour of one with a highly knowledgeable and dryly humorous guide. Tours take place on Fridays and Saturdays from opening day in early June through closing day in mid October. Tours are on the hour from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Admission is standard HNE small house pricing: $10 for adults, $9 seniors, $5 students and children, and $0 for HNE members and library pass holders (like me!).
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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/