Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, the country town of New Ipswich stood poised on the crest of a growing economy. The second New Hampshire Turnpike was opening up the region as a commercial center. Small businesses and textile mills, evidence of the new republic’s infant industries, were springing up along the banks of the Souhegan River. Charles Barrett, a prosperous farmer in town, felt sufficiently emboldened by the future to embark upon a series of business ventures, investing in a glass factory, a toll road, a canal system, and, most importantly, New Hampshire’s first cotton mill. His son Caheles Jr. followed his father’s pattern, joining in a partnership in 1819 in a textile mill with the latest modern machinery, a power loom.
When young Charles Jr. was married on October 15, 1799, his father made an agreement with the bride’s father that he would build the newlyweds a home if the bride’s father would furnish the home. Called Forest Hall, the house’s stately architecture and lavish furnishings conveyed a confident urbanity and sophistication that clearly reflected both families. The numerous handsomely decorated reception rooms were designed for entertaining in a cosmopolitan manner. An elaborate allée was later added to the landscape with a flight of stone steps flanked by maples rising up the hillside behind the house. Similar in form to terraced steps, or “falls” found at grand houses along the coast, the Barrett allée is unusual in that it leads up to a summerhouse rather than down to a water feature. The elegance of the design, however, is entirely consistent with a home of this architectural quality.
But the golden age of New Ipswich was not long-lived. After the railroad bypassed New Ipswich in the 1850s, the town entered into a decline, and the population dwindled. Charles Barrett’s descendants stayed on and even updated the house, but today Forest Hall remains essentially a relic of the federal era. After 1887, the family used the house only in the summertime. Caroline Barr-Wade, the family member that donated the house to Historic New England in 1950, fondly recalled staying there in the 1870s and 1880s – “Forest Hall has at its entrance two huge slabs or steps of granite, and on warm summer evenings, Madame Barrett and my mother would sit just inside the front door on an old old-fashioned sofa or chairs, and the rest of us on various cushions on these low wide steps, talking and singing.”
Three anniversaries this year – the 275th anniversary of the founding of New Ipswich, the 225th anniversary of the building of Forest Hall, and the 75th anniversary of the home being a house museum. Barrett House was the site of the Town Picnic as part of the festivities this year. The event included live music, a vintage photo booth with period costumes, lawn games and abbreviated tours of the museum. For some, it was their first time seeing the interior of this grand home.
For more information about the Barrett House and other Historic New England properties, please visit historicnewengland.org
This article was adapted from an essay by Darlene Marshall.