In a small white house on North Main Street is one of Hanover's most fascinating museums - the Daniel Webster Cottage. The cottage, built in 1780 for Eleazar Wheelock's daughter Abigail at the time of her marriage to Reverend Slyvannus Ripley, contains many artifacts of early New England life.
Also on display are many furnishings and personal possessions that have links to College history, including belongings of former resident Daniel Webster, class of 1801
The Ripleys lived in the cottage until 1786 when they moved to Choate House. In 1787, after her husband death Abigail moved back to the cottage and took in student boarders.
One of the most interesting objects on display is a black leather bucket engraved with the words D. Webster.
Buckets were issued to every student at matriculation and were filled with sand and kept next to the fireplace, museum volunteer Joanne Pomeroy said.
If dumping sand on an out-of-control fire didn't work, students and Hanover residents would form bucket chains and carry water from the river.
Also on display are the desk and chair that Webster used during his Washington years as Secretary of State, his dispatch box and traveling box containing his personal supply of gin and wine.
The museum also contains many artifacts typical of early New England life.
Upstairs in a low-ceilinged bedroom is a seventeenth-century rope bed. According to museum volunteer Sylvia Nelson, the ropes had to be tightened before sleeping, leading to the expression sleep tight.
Also in the room are Shaker furniture made in the first quarter of the century in nearby Endfield, NH, turn-of-the century wooden roller-skates and a wooden baseball bat made in a Hanover woodshop circa 1920.
The College bought the cottage in 1901 and rented to French professor Prescott Orde Skinner.
Skinner's wife Alice Van Leer Carrick wrote two books about living in the cottage. Collector's Luck, published in 1919 and The Next to Nothing House in 1921.
Originally a farmhouse that stood near the present-day Silsby Hall, today the cottage is located on North Main St. between Gamma Delta Chi fraternity and Cutter-Shabazz Hall.
In the 1950s, the house was moved to make room for new campus facilities. First to a site and near the present-day Kiewit Computation Center and later to its present site on North Main Street, across from Bradley Courtyard.
The Cottage became the headquarters of the Hanover Historical Society in 1968. Volunteer curators from the society maintain the cottage and give tours..
You can visit the cottage on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm, Memorial Day to Colombus Day.
