OldHouses.com logo

Listing No. 24977

Museums and Public Spaces in New Hampshire
  Next # 1 of 2

Back to List

New Search

Nearest Listings

From The Archives

Open To The Public

c. 1855 Colonial

29 Hall’s Brook Rd
Hebron, New Hampshire 03241

North Groton house museum

The house: The Pattersons' former home, a four-room cottage, nestles in a depression that slopes downhill from the main road and bridge high above Hall's Brook. The front door is just two steps above the ground, but in the rear the land falls off steeply to the banks of the brook. Below the kitchen window, water flows past low and peaceful in summer, high and roaring in spring run-offs, and sits silent and icy in the dead of winter.

When Mrs. Longyear found this house in 1920, it had long since been moved to an upland field. She had it moved by horse and sledge back to its former site. The house has undergone several major renovations over the years, with an historically correct exterior restoration in 2002. An interior restoration is being planned. In an overgrown, dried-up former sluice at the bottom of the property, researchers have uncovered the rusty remains of a nineteenth-century sawmill, Daniel Patterson's failed venture.
Scroll down below the map for more information

www.longyear.org/historic-houses

Like This Listing?

Contact Information:

29 Hall’s Brook Road
North Groton,03241
View Google Map »
Phone Number

Phone: 800.277.8943, ext. 100

Tell 'em you saw it on OldHouses.com!

Its story:

In the late 1840s in Sanbornton, New Hampshire, the widowed Mary Baker Glover was in chronic ill health and often unable to care for her young son, George. A family acquaintance often looked after the boy. This acquaintance married a man living in North Groton and desired to take George with her. Under the circumstances of Mary’s precarious health, that seemed like the best solution.

In 1853 Mary married Daniel Patterson, a dentist, and looked forward to having “Georgie” live with her. In 1855 Patterson purchased this small house and a sawmill operation, and the Pattersons moved to North Groton.

Stepping across this threshold, you stand in the cottage where the future Mary Baker Eddy came in hopes that her husband would provide a home for her son. But it was not to be. A year after the Pattersons moved to North Groton, the family caring for the boy moved to the far West. Without seeking her permission, they took 11-year-old Georgie with them. He was told his mother had died. She was told that he had wandered away and was lost in the vast open spaces of the frontier.

In five mostly grim years here, Mary’s health declined. She was an often bedridden semi-invalid. But these walls witnessed some intuitions about healing stirring in her thought. Seeking to recover from her ills, she experimented with various systems that promised cures. For health, she looked to Jahr’s Manual of Homeopathic Medicine and other works. But for spiritual sustenance, she looked — as she always had — to her Bible, where she found solace, strength, and hope.

After five years, her husband’s sawmill venture failed. The home and mill were foreclosed. Most of what they owned was lost to creditors. The Pattersons were forced to move on. Yet those intuitions about healing and the hopes inspired by the Bible continued to stir her thinking.
Admission and Additional Visitor Information

$7.00 total suggested donation for tour of this house and the Rumney house. Longyear members and children under 12, free.

Tour is paired with the Mary Baker Eddy Historic House in Rumney, New Hampshire. Meet at the house in Rumney.
Directions

Take I-93 North to Exit 26. Follow Route 25 West for 9 miles. Turn left onto Hall’s Brook Road. The house is 4 miles down the road, on your right. There is a small parking area.

Archived in February, 2016

Comments & Feedback

All information deemed reliable but not guaranteed and should be independently verified. All properties are subject to prior sale, change or withdrawal. OldHouses.com is not responsible for any typographical errors, misinformation, misprints and shall be held totally harmless.

Listing No. 24977

Museums and Public Spaces in New Hampshire
  Next # 1 of 2

Back to List

New Search

Nearest Listings

Like This Listing?

You can't buy it, but you can visit.

Contact Information:

29 Hall’s Brook Road
North Groton,03241
View Google Map »
Phone Number

Phone: 800.277.8943, ext. 100

Tell 'em you saw it on OldHouses.com!

Your Feedback

Help & Support.

Pinterest
[X]