Daniel Webster House (built 1760)
137 Vaughan Street, Portsmouth, NH

This street and everything on it was replaced by the Portsmouth Parade Mall off Hanover Street in the 1960s. The supermarket there is now office buildings. A piece of the road still exists as the Vaughan Mall. Webster lived here right after his marriage in 1808 and knew it as the Meserve House. George Meserve had been appointed by the British to collect Portsmouth taxes just as the dreaded Stamp Act was enacted in 1765. Meserve's Portsmouth neighbors burned him in effigy and forced him to resign the position, which he quickly did. At the turn of the 20th century as the immigrant North End evolved, the house was converted into two stores (see 1958 picture below from the Portsmouth Herald) and was later flattened along with the rest of the neighborhood during urban renewal.

Continue with 4 PORTSMOUTH HOMES