Visit the Paul Wentworth House web site
This Just in: Moving the Wentworth House

The 300-year old colonial Paul Wentworth House had been moved, stick by stick, to Dover, Massachusetts in 1936, making it by rights, the oldest house in that town too. The entire process was documented by WPA photographers and architects and the archives are on file in the Library of Congress. In 1999 representatives from Rollinsford tracked down their missing saltbox home. They met with the 98-year old owner of the house, a descendent of the Wentworth family. A few months later, the owner died and, soon after, his heirs auctioned off the contents of the home and sold it.

In 2002, after a tense waiting period, the modern owner agreed to let the house go home to New Hampshire, and it was again disassembled and then trucked back to its original location. But estimates to carefully reassemble the Paul Wentworth House one final time ran to $650,000.

For a while preservationists feared that the place might suffer the fate of Portsmouth’s Old Statehouse that today molders in a trailer in Concord like a giant set of Lincoln Logs. Then in 2003 came the amazing news that a $275,000 state grant had been approved by the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP). But the offer runs out in August if the total funds have not been collected.

Now, according to the official Paul Wentworth Home web site, the group is $81,000 shy of its goal. So the stopwatch has been reset and the race to save the ancient house is on again.

Now you can follow that race online. The Association for Rollinsford Culture and History (ARCH) has just released its official web site. PaulWentworthHouse.org is a solid, serviceable summary of the story to date. It was designed by Dana Stairs, a volunteer, who works as a mechanical engineer at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

The story is all here from the arrival of Paul Wentworth to the latest fundraising news. Five members of the family are pictured and there are a few, though not enough, photos of the house itself. We get a peak at the report of archeologist Neal de Paoli who checked out the land where the house will go, not far from its original spot. Key moments in the history of the recovery effort are ticked off in a neat chronology that helps make sense of this strange and complex story.

Indeed, this straightforward, no frills web site is precisely what the project needs at this time. The house, after all, is still in pieces and a slick professional web site might send the wrong message. This is, after all, a small grassroots effort to preserve an important piece of Rollinsford, a town of just 3,000 that does not even have a library. When completed the Paul Wentworth House will become the central community building promoting town history and culture.

The fact that there is a web site at all is a thrill to those of us who wondered whether the project could fly. Two other LCHIP-funded projects in the Seacoast have similarly straightforward web sites. Check out the web site for the restored African American church "The Pearl" in Portsmouth. Then visit the online home of the 1723 James House in Hampton. Now a region rich with historical museums is richer still.

THE UP SHOT

THE UP SHOT

Somebody please buy these people a webcam. I cannot imagine a cyber sight more pleasing than watching this old house online as it rises again in Rollinsford. The new location is just 75 feet from where the building was first built around 1701.

Once the richest man in rural Salmon Falls, Paul Wentworth owned much of Somersworth and plots of land in Rochester and Berwick. His lumbering business, farm and sawmill were among the region’s earliest industries. The house is visible in an 1877 "bird’s eye" illustration of Rollinsford which is posted on the Library of Congress web site. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can click from the Paul Wentworth site to the super-sized version of the map online in Washington, DC. The rural mill town looks very much as it did in the late 19 ^th century. Today, however, the massive brick mill buildings on the river offer converted office and studio space to high tech companies and scores of Seacoast artists.

The house will be reconstructed according to those detailed photos and plans created in the 1936 federal Historic American Buildings Survey. Those plans too are resident on the Internet in a truly astonishing portfolio of no less than 150 old images of the house recently added to the nation’s online historic archive. I just clicked through these black and white photographs of the Paul Wentworth House before and during its first journey. It is a haunting experience. Every notched beam is documented and now those same rugged timbers – after almost 70 years -- are back where they began. Workers reassembling the jigsaw puzzle in 2004 will have an extraordinary set of pictures to guide them.

But the race is not over until the runner crosses the finish line. According to an ARCH spokesperson, another $10,000 has come in recently. But there’s still $70,000 left to raise – and then there will be operational costs for the new facility, staff, outreach costs, maintenance, utilities, programming, publicity, furniture, exhibits and more. Any Rollinsford farmer can tell you that’s not chicken feed, especially when ARCH is offering memberships in this amazing project for a mere $10.

Unfortunately, this is where the web site falls off the technology wagon. Readers are asked to run their donation form off onto a printer, stick a check in the mail and use one of those old-fashioned stamps to mail the money. It’s cute. But please -- somebody put a PayPal link on that page right away. Ask for $25 or $50 or $100 and let Internet users make an instantaneous donation.

This is no small moment in New Hampshire history. One of our oldest historic buildings is back and this fall, when the doors reopen, there should be one hell of a house party.

THE UP SHOT

Somebody please buy these people a webcam. I cannot imagine a cyber sight more pleasing than watching this old house online as it rises again in Rollinsford. The new location is just 75 feet from where the building was first built around 1701.

Once the richest man in rural Salmon Falls, Paul Wentworth owned much of Somersworth and plots of land in Rochester and Berwick. His lumbering business, farm and sawmill were among the region’s earliest industries. The house is visible in an 1877 "bird’s eye" illustration of Rollinsford which is posted on the Library of Congress web site. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can click from the Paul Wentworth site to the super-sized version of the map online in Washington, DC. The rural mill town looks very much as it did in the late 19 ^th century. Today, however, the massive brick mill buildings on the river offer converted office and studio space to high tech companies and scores of Seacoast artists.

The house will be reconstructed according to those detailed photos and plans created in the 1936 federal Historic American Buildings Survey. Those plans too are resident on the Internet in a truly astonishing portfolio of no less than 150 old images of the house recently added to the nation’s online historic archive. I just clicked through these black and white photographs of the Paul Wentworth House before and during its first journey. It is a haunting experience. Every notched beam is documented and now those same rugged timbers – after almost 70 years -- are back where they began. Workers reassembling the jigsaw puzzle in 2004 will have an extraordinary set of pictures to guide them.

But the race is not over until the runner crosses the finish line. According to an ARCH spokesperson, another $10,000 has come in recently. But there’s still $70,000 left to raise – and then there will be operational costs for the new facility, staff, outreach costs, maintenance, utilities, programming, publicity, furniture, exhibits and more. Any Rollinsford farmer can tell you that’s not chicken feed, especially when ARCH is offering memberships in this amazing project for a mere $10.

Unfortunately, this is where the web site falls off the technology wagon. Readers are asked to run their donation form off onto a printer, stick a check in the mail and use one of those old-fashioned stamps to mail the money. It’s cute. But please -- somebody put a PayPal link on that page right away. Ask for $25 or $50 or $100 and let Internet users make an instantaneous donation.

This is no small moment in New Hampshire history. One of our oldest historic buildings is back and this fall, when the doors reopen, there should be one hell of a house party.

THE UP SHOT

Somebody please buy these people a webcam. I cannot imagine a cyber sight more pleasing than watching this old house online as it rises again in Rollinsford. The new location is just 75 feet from where the building was first built around 1701.

Once the richest man in rural Salmon Falls, Paul Wentworth owned much of Somersworth and plots of land in Rochester and Berwick. His lumbering business, farm and sawmill were among the region’s earliest industries. The house is visible in an 1877 "bird’s eye" illustration of Rollinsford which is posted on the Library of Congress web site. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can click from the Paul Wentworth site to the super-sized version of the map online in Washington, DC. The rural mill town looks very much as it did in the late 19 ^th century. Today, however, the massive brick mill buildings on the river offer converted office and studio space to high tech companies and scores of Seacoast artists.

The house will be reconstructed according to those detailed photos and plans created in the 1936 federal Historic American Buildings Survey. Those plans too are resident on the Internet in a truly astonishing portfolio of no less than 150 old images of the house recently added to the nation’s online historic archive. I just clicked through these black and white photographs of the Paul Wentworth House before and during its first journey. It is a haunting experience. Every notched beam is documented and now those same rugged timbers – after almost 70 years -- are back where they began. Workers reassembling the jigsaw puzzle in 2004 will have an extraordinary set of pictures to guide them.

But the race is not over until the runner crosses the finish line. According to an ARCH spokesperson, another $10,000 has come in recently. But there’s still $70,000 left to raise – and then there will be operational costs for the new facility, staff, outreach costs, maintenance, utilities, programming, publicity, furniture, exhibits and more. Any Rollinsford farmer can tell you that’s not chicken feed, especially when ARCH is offering memberships in this amazing project for a mere $10.

Unfortunately, this is where the web site falls off the technology wagon. Readers are asked to run their donation form off onto a printer, stick a check in the mail and use one of those old-fashioned stamps to mail the money. It’s cute. But please -- somebody put a PayPal link on that page right away. Ask for $25 or $50 or $100 and let Internet users make an instantaneous donation.

This is no small moment in New Hampshire history. One of our oldest historic buildings is back and this fall, when the doors reopen, there should be one hell of a house party.

THE UP SHOT

Somebody please buy these people a webcam. I cannot imagine a cyber sight more pleasing than watching this old house online as it rises again in Rollinsford. The new location is just 75 feet from where the building was first built around 1701.

Once the richest man in rural Salmon Falls, Paul Wentworth owned much of Somersworth and plots of land in Rochester and Berwick. His lumbering business, farm and sawmill were among the region’s earliest industries. The house is visible in an 1877 "bird’s eye" illustration of Rollinsford which is posted on the Library of Congress web site. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can click from the Paul Wentworth site to the super-sized version of the map online in Washington, DC. The rural mill town looks very much as it did in the late 19 ^th century. Today, however, the massive brick mill buildings on the river offer converted office and studio space to high tech companies and scores of Seacoast artists.

The house will be reconstructed according to those detailed photos and plans created in the 1936 federal Historic American Buildings Survey. Those plans too are resident on the Internet in a truly astonishing portfolio of no less than 150 old images of the house recently added to the nation’s online historic archive. I just clicked through these black and white photographs of the Paul Wentworth House before and during its first journey. It is a haunting experience. Every notched beam is documented and now those same rugged timbers – after almost 70 years -- are back where they began. Workers reassembling the jigsaw puzzle in 2004 will have an extraordinary set of pictures to guide them.

But the race is not over until the runner crosses the finish line. According to an ARCH spokesperson, another $10,000 has come in recently. But there’s still $70,000 left to raise – and then there will be operational costs for the new facility, staff, outreach costs, maintenance, utilities, programming, publicity, furniture, exhibits and more. Any Rollinsford farmer can tell you that’s not chicken feed, especially when ARCH is offering memberships in this amazing project for a mere $10.

Unfortunately, this is where the web site falls off the technology wagon. Readers are asked to run their donation form off onto a printer, stick a check in the mail and use one of those old-fashioned stamps to mail the money. It’s cute. But please -- somebody put a PayPal link on that page right away. Ask for $25 or $50 or $100 and let Internet users make an instantaneous donation.

This is no small moment in New Hampshire history. One of our oldest historic buildings is back and this fall, when the doors reopen, there should be one hell of a house party.

THE UP SHOT

Somebody please buy these people a webcam. I cannot imagine a cyber sight more pleasing than watching this old house online as it rises again in Rollinsford. The new location is just 75 feet from where the building was first built around 1701.

Once the richest man in rural Salmon Falls, Paul Wentworth owned much of Somersworth and plots of land in Rochester and Berwick. His lumbering business, farm and sawmill were among the region’s earliest industries. The house is visible in an 1877 "bird’s eye" illustration of Rollinsford which is posted on the Library of Congress web site. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can click from the Paul Wentworth site to the super-sized version of the map online in Washington, DC. The rural mill town looks very much as it did in the late 19 ^th century. Today, however, the massive brick mill buildings on the river offer converted office and studio space to high tech companies and scores of Seacoast artists.

The house will be reconstructed according to those detailed photos and plans created in the 1936 federal Historic American Buildings Survey. Those plans too are resident on the Internet in a truly astonishing portfolio of no less than 150 old images of the house recently added to the nation’s online historic archive. I just clicked through these black and white photographs of the Paul Wentworth House before and during its first journey. It is a haunting experience. Every notched beam is documented and now those same rugged timbers – after almost 70 years -- are back where they began. Workers reassembling the jigsaw puzzle in 2004 will have an extraordinary set of pictures to guide them.

But the race is not over until the runner crosses the finish line. According to an ARCH spokesperson, another $10,000 has come in recently. But there’s still $70,000 left to raise – and then there will be operational costs for the new facility, staff, outreach costs, maintenance, utilities, programming, publicity, furniture, exhibits and more. Any Rollinsford farmer can tell you that’s not chicken feed, especially when ARCH is offering memberships in this amazing project for a mere $10.

Unfortunately, this is where the web site falls off the technology wagon. Readers are asked to run their donation form off onto a printer, stick a check in the mail and use one of those old-fashioned stamps to mail the money. It’s cute. But please -- somebody put a PayPal link on that page right away. Ask for $25 or $50 or $100 and let Internet users make an instantaneous donation.

This is no small moment in New Hampshire history. One of our oldest historic buildings is back and this fall, when the doors reopen, there should be one hell of a house party.

Somebody please buy these people a webcam. I cannot imagine a cyber sight more pleasing than watching this old house online as it rises again in Rollinsford. The new location is just 75 feet from where the building was first built around 1701.

Once the richest man in rural Salmon Falls, Paul Wentworth owned much of Somersworth and plots of land in Rochester and Berwick. His lumbering business, farm and sawmill were among the region’s earliest industries. The house is visible in an 1877 "bird’s eye" illustration of Rollinsford which is posted on the Library of Congress web site. Through the miracle of the Internet, you can click from the Paul Wentworth site to the super-sized version of the map online in Washington, DC. The rural mill town looks very much as it did in the late 19 ^th century. Today, however, the massive brick mill buildings on the river offer converted office and studio space to high tech companies and scores of Seacoast artists.

The house will be reconstructed according to those detailed photos and plans created in the 1936 federal Historic American Buildings Survey. Those plans too are resident on the Internet in a truly astonishing portfolio of no less than 150 old images of the house recently added to the nation’s online historic archive. I just clicked through these black and white photographs of the Paul Wentworth House before and during its first journey. It is a haunting experience. Every notched beam is documented and now those same rugged timbers – after almost 70 years -- are back where they began. Workers reassembling the jigsaw puzzle in 2004 will have an extraordinary set of pictures to guide them.

But the race is not over until the runner crosses the finish line. According to an ARCH spokesperson, another $10,000 has come in recently. But there’s still $70,000 left to raise – and then there will be operational costs for the new facility, staff, outreach costs, maintenance, utilities, programming, publicity, furniture, exhibits and more. Any Rollinsford farmer can tell you that’s not chicken feed, especially when ARCH is offering memberships in this amazing project for a mere $10.

Unfortunately, this is where the web site falls off the technology wagon. Readers are asked to run their donation form off onto a printer, stick a check in the mail and use one of those old-fashioned stamps to mail the money. It’s cute. But please -- somebody put a PayPal link on that page right away. Ask for $25 or $50 or $100 and let Internet users make an instantaneous donation.

This is no small moment in New Hampshire history. One of our oldest historic buildings is back and this fall, when the doors reopen, there should be one hell of a house party.