The objects in this picture -- like the curtains, rug, piano and harp -- did not accurately represent the early 1800s-era to which the house had been restored. The debate over the furnishings in the Chase House made headlines in the local newspaper and culminated in the hiring of the museum’s first professionally trained administrator in 1972. Mrs. McLaughlin, who lived upstairs in the Cahse House, was at the heart of the controversy that changed the nature of the museum.

This image from the book STRAWBERY BANKE:
A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making
by J. Dennis Robinson
(c) Strawbery Banke Museum Collection