Everyone driving through Bennington notices Mike Munhall’s historic brick home, which sits on a knoll over the Contoocook river, just past the Bennington Historical Society.
“The house has a lot of history, and it’s always played a big role in the village,” said Munhall, who moved to Bennington in 2014.
Benjamin Whittemore, who founded of the Whittemore cotton mill in 1825, built the Greek Revival house for his son, George Alfred Whittemore, in 1836.
“He gave his son Amos the cotton mill business, and he gave George this house,” Munhall said.
George Whittemore, who was the town’s postmaster, a storekeeper, and a New Hampshire state representative, lived in the home until 1892. The large brick home across the road, where Main Street and Bible Hill Road come together, was Benjamin Whittemore’s home. The Whittemores owned most of the center of Bennington at that time, including what is now Sunnyvale Cemetery.
“The Whittemores actually had their own private cemetery, which is now Sunnyvale,” Munhall said.
The property used to include the Whittemore cotton mill next door, which later became the Kimball Cutlery factory.
“Twenty feet from my back door , you were in the cutlery factory. Bennington used to be quite the center for cutlery,” Munhall said. “They shaped the blades here, and then they did the finish work up at the Goodell mill in Antrim.”
Bennington, which used to be part of Hancock, was formerly called “Hancock Factory Village.”
“Most of the population of Hancock at that time actually lived in what is now Bennington, and eventually, they wanted to become their own town,” Munhall said.
Bennington was a thriving center for industry at the time.
“There was a lot of energy here because of the Great Falls of the Contoocook. The river drops 70 feet in town; there are five dams in town, and the river used to be lined with mills,” Munhall said.
Of all of Bennington’s mills and factories, only Monadnock Paper Mills, just around a bend in the river, remains. The paper mill is still powered by the Contoocook River.
Around the turn of the century, the Keiser family bought the property. Mr. Keiser worked in the cutlery mill, and Mrs. Keiser was a milliner. In 1921, Mrs. Keiser sold the old cutlery factory building to Monadnock Paper Mill.
“At some point, the land was divided, with half of the land going to the Antrim Historical Society, and half staying with the house,” Munhall said.
Monadnock Paper Mill knocked down the factory and former mill in 1921.
According to Munhall, the small structure forming the front of the Bennington Historical Society was formerly Bennington’s “pest house,” where sick people were quarantined during illness.
The house, originally built in Greek Revival style, was updated with Gothic details and Italianate door hood in the mid-1800s. The house has three bedrooms and a full bath downstairs, and Munhall has just started to add another full bath to an upstairs dormer space. The house has unusually high ceilings for the era, and retains original beams, three fireplaces, and over 100-year-old sash windows.
Munhall, whose mother was British, spent most of his professional life working at a school in England. He bought the house when he retired.
“I grew up on Long Island, but my parents brought us to Peterborough every Columbus Day weekend, so I had a lof of fond memories of the region. I looked for something in Peterborough, but I couldn’t find anything, so I started looking around the area,” Munhall said.
Munhall grew up in antique homes , including one house built in 1706.
“I’ve been around old homes all my life,” he said. “My mother was a much better housekeeper than I am, though.”
Munhall bought the Whittemore house for $70,000 at auction in 2014.
“I was the only qualified bidder,” he said. ‘There was one other bidder, but he had the wrong kind of check.”
While they weren’t permitted to come in the house before the auction, Munhall and one of his sons looked through the windows to try to assess the condition of the home before he made an offer.
“We lucked out–when we were able to come inside, the house was in good shape. It needed a new roof and a new furnace, but for $70,000, that was nothing,” Munhall said.
Munhall’s favorite feature of the house is the “River Room” in the back, which has a beautiful view over the Contoocook River. According to Munhall, the house sits too high to be flooded.
“I’m not in a flood plain. Way back in the 1920’s, however , the river flooded and took out five houses across from the paper mill,” Munhall said.
The property still has granite foundations from the old mill and factory building on the riverbank. The house also used to have a large barn attached, but Munhall says no trace of the barn remains.
The property also has several small outbuildings, including what Munhall says is an extremely unusual two-level garden shed.
“It’s built right into the hillside, so it has a lower level with a separate entrance,” he said.
For years, the shed bore a sign reading “Just Buttons Museum,” a remnant of Munhall’s childhood. Munhall remembers his mother, an antiques dealer, trading buttons at the Just Buttons Museum in Connecticut.
“The wife traded buttons for clothing and shoes, and the husband traded political buttons. Years later, the husband and I started trading buttons when I had my own collection,” Munhall said. “I grew up near Teddy Roosevelt’s home on Long Island, and that’s how I got interested in politics.”
Years later, after both his parents had passed away, Munhall came across the sign from Just Buttons Museum at the Brimfield antiques market.
“It was the first stall in the first field — as soon as I walked in there, I saw the Just Buttons Museum sign. It was 10 bucks, so I bought it,” Munhall said. “Right now, it’s being repaired in the basement. Everyone comments on it, and people keep asking me what happened to it. It will go back up at some point.”
