Before & After
Dodge House History (a work in progress)
The earliest history of our house remains a mystery that we’re determined to unravel. Because it sits in a state park, it doesn’t appear in historic Hamilton tax records. It doesn’t surface in Hamilton Historical Society documents either, which was our first clue that it may predate the town, which wasn’t incorporated until 1793, though the land was settled in the 17th century as part of Ipswich. When we applied to be resident curators, the state was calling it Kerighan House, in honor of a Bradley Palmer State Park employee who lived here in the 1970s. Since then, they have changed the name to Dodge House, as the earliest town records of the property attribute it to Henry Dodge, who sold it to Elbridge Dodge in 1817. We have found evidence that it was built in colonial times and renovated during the Federal era, and we hope that a dendrochronologist will help us to resolve that question soon.