The Chapman-Hall House offers visitors a look at what the average family home looked like from the mid-1700s to the 1820s. In contrast to the majority of historic house museums owned by wealthier families, families of more modest means lived in the Chapman-Hall House. The house was built around 1754 in the same spot it currently sits in.
The Chapman-Hall House Preservation Society, formed in the 1960s to save the building from destruction, originally named the house the “Chapman-Hall House.” At the time, members of the society believed that only two families, the Chapmans and the Halls, owned the house for almost 150 years. More recent research, however, revealed that a number of people once called this house their home.
The Chapman-Hall House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of the oldest homes in Damariscotta. Volunteer docents lead tours throughout the summer, guiding visitors through rooms interpreted to reflect three time periods: 1754, the 1780s, and 1790-1820. In addition to touring the house, visitors learn about the people who lived in the home and the surrounding area.
Revolutionary era living at Chapman-Hall House
Below Ground at the Chapman-Hall House – An Archaeological Interpretation
Early History
Nathaniel Chapman built the Chapman-Hall House. Known as “the father of Main Street, Damariscotta,” Chapman owned a lot of land in the area. He was born in Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1703. Both his father and grandfather were housewrights, and they trained Nathaniel in this skill. In 1725, he was dispatched to York, Maine with his Ipswich militia company. It is unclear exactly how Nathaniel spent the next ten years, but in 1735 he purchased land in York and married Miriam Young. When he later purchased land in Damariscotta, he identified himself as a husbandman (farmer) on the deed.
In 1753, Nathaniel purchased two parcels of land from the Preble family of Damariscotta. One parcel consisted of 150 acres starting at the river (just North of the present bridge), headed East past the house lot, and continuing for “320 rods” (1760 yards). The width of this parcel was “75 rods” (412 ½ yards). The second piece, separated by “25 rods below” (137 ½ yards), contained 200 acres. In the early 1800s, Nathaniel or his heirs divided his 150-acre parcel of land from the house site, North-West to the river and South-East beyond the house. This division justifies his designation as “the father of Main Street.”
Though Nathaniel purchased the land in November of 1753, he likely did not move his family to the area until the spring of 1754 after building the house. At the time, Nathaniel was a man in his fifties starting a new life for himself and his family in an area of the mid-coast ravaged by various conflicts. Records indicate that Miriam and Nathaniel had six children. Historical sources provide the children’ s names and information about their interactions in the area, but in many cases their birth and death dates remain unclear. Nathaniel’s exact date of death is also unknown, but it was sometime before January 26, 1804, as he is referred to in deeds, “as our recently deceased father.” Miriam’s death date is also unclear, but the last time her name appeared on a deed was 1762.
The Halls and Other Owners
In 1812, the Chapman family sold the house. Between 1812 and 1832, the house changed hands six times. Some of these owners likely did not actually live in the house. The frequent changes in ownership reflected the significant economic impact the 1807 Embargo and the War of 1812 had on the area. Sara Williams, one of the owners during this period, was the wife of a British sailor and actually owned the home in her own name. Women did not usually own land in their own names at this time.
Tilden Hall, a blacksmith, purchased the house in 1832. Around this time, Tilden also purchased a blacksmith shop, not far from the house (present-day Water Street). In 1835, he married Elizabeth Palmer Thruston, and they had three children. Their first child died before the age of three; their second, Augustus, died of disease during the Civil War; the third, a daughter, Anna, outlived both her parents and died in 1907. In her will, Anna left the house to the Baptist Church across the street from her front yard. The church sold the house in 1911, and it passed through two more owners before the Chapman-Hall House Preservation Society purchased the property in April of 1960.
Downstairs Rooms
Today, visitors enter the Chapman-Hall House through the Ell. This section of the house was added sometime after the 1850s. In the Ell, woodworking tools used by carpenters and shipwrights and photographs of vessels built in the shipyards of Damariscotta and Newcastle greet guests.
Visitors then enter the main house, starting with the keeping room that transports them back to 1754. Eighteenth century inhabitants of the house called this space a keeping room because it was not only a kitchen but also a family workspace. The keeping room is full of architectural details that provide insight into building construction practices during the colonial period. Off to the side of the keeping room is a small room used for various purposes: an invalid room, hired hand room, and storage.
There is one bedroom downstairs, referred to as “The Yellow Bedroom.” The name reflects the paint color on the room’s pine paneling, discovered during restoration work. The interior details of the room date to the 1780s. The floor boards are original to the house, and many are eighteen inches or more in width. Visible in the southeast corner of this room are the wooden pegs called “trunnel” or “tree nails” that secure the beams and posts.
The other room on the first floor is the parlor. Restoration work revealed the room’s green painted walls. The interior details of the room reflect later upgrades, and provide insight into the fashions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At this time, people reserved parlors for special occasions and Sunday gatherings. Parlors were also sometimes pressed into service for the storage of various household items.
Upstairs Rooms
The staircase to the second floor offers visitors another opportunity to view architectural details. Like many “cape” style houses of the eighteenth century, the primary staircase is in the rear of the building. The joinery that ties together the rafter, post, plate, and tie beam is known as the English tie joint. This type of construction technique was developed in England during the late medieval times, and used in Maine well into the nineteenth century.
After climbing the staircase, visitors can view a bedroom, attic storage space, and the formal exhibit room for the Edbury Hatch wood carvings and antique hooked rugs.
The second-floor bedroom was most likely added sometime in the 1820s. When Nathaniel Chapman built the house, he did not plan for the second floor to be a finished space, so the ceiling in this room is unusually low. When later owners partitioned off this space for a bedroom, they covered and concealed the ceiling beams, a typical practice in the nineteenth century.
The attic space to the left of the narrow hallway leading to the back of the house and the area on the top of the bedroom ceiling serve as storage areas.
A collection of antique rugs adorn the walls of the second upstairs room. Rug hooking, a utilitarian skill and art form that gained popularity in the 1830s, was a popular pastime in mid-coast Maine. Edbury Hatch’s wood carvings are also on display in this space. Edbury Hatch was born in Newcastle in 1839, and was one of the last prominent carvers of figureheads for ships from the area. He carved figureheads only for a short time, however, because vessel designs began to change. He then applied his carving skills to architectural details for houses, gazebos, and numerous decorative pieces for both inside and outside use. Edbury died in 1935.
Later Years
By 1960, the house had deteriorated to such a degree that the owners put it up for sale with the intention that it would be replaced by a gas station. Several local individuals recognized the historic value of the building and its role in Damariscotta’s history, and they formed the Chapman-Hall House Preservation Society to preserve the structure. The trustees of this new society were: William Waters, Dorothy Perkins Freeman, Grevis Melville, Mabel Gay, Edwin S. Metcalf, Edward B. Denny, Jr., Ralph B. Cheney, and Harold W. Castner.
The Preservation Society brought in Abbott Lowell Cummings, a noted architecture historian, to consult on the building’s restoration. Cummings advised restoring the house to three periods of interpretation: 1754, 1780s, and circa 1790s-1810, and the society followed this recommendation. Over the next five years, the Preservation Society worked to restore the house. It opened to the public in 1965.
After almost 50 years of stewardship, the Chapman-Hall House Preservation Society’s membership dwindled. To ensure that this historic site would continue to be available to the public and maintained, the Chapman-Hall House Preservation Society transferred the building to the Lincoln County Historical Association in 2008.
