Town of Durham

Your gift will help preserve Durham’s Heritage!

By donating to the rehabilitation of the Bickford-Chesley House, ell, and barn at Wagon Hill Farm, you become part of our effort to preserve special places in Durham. Your gift will support the improvements not included in our LCHIP grant and town funding, that are required to com-plete this Heritage project.

Over the next few months, you will see work on the house including:

• Foundation repairs

• Window replacement

• Interior rehabilitation

• New restrooms added in the ell

• Exterior painting

• Restoration of the porch

• Installation of an ADA ramp

A gallery for changing exhibits will be created on the first floor of the farmhouse that requires:

• Interior lighting

• Floor coverings

• Exhibit cases

• Information panels

• Other gallery amenities

Funds generated through the Wagon Hill Farm Heritage Expendable Trust help supplement Town of Durham funding to fulfill ongoing preservation and interpretation needs of the 139-acre Wagon Hill Farm historic landscape, as well as the Bickford-Chesley House, the historic connecting ell, the Bickford Chesley House Gallery, and the new barn.

This donation is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.

About the Bickford-Chesley House at Wagon Hill Farm

On land farmed seasonally for centuries by the Abenaki, this site was one of many around the Piscataqua estuary to be settled by Englishmen in the 17th century. It remained in consistent agricultural use for nearly 300 years.

The Bickford-Chesley House and expansive landscape exemplify the agricultural history of New Hampshire mixed agriculture on the family farm, including salt marsh farming, orchards and ci-der production, river transportation and commerce, farming for urban markets, dairy and poul-try farming, and boarding house tourism.

The 1804 Federal-style farmhouse retains much of its original exterior and interior woodwork, including the original skived clapboards (ends overlapped for waterproof seal), mantlepieces, and doors. The house faced the First NH Turnpike 1800-1803, an important connection of the Seacoast to the growing interior of the State, now US Route 4.

The house was built in 1804 by John Bickford (1765-1813), a sea captain and resident of Salem, Massachusetts, who owned several New Hampshire farms managed by tenant farmers. Follow-ing Bickford’s death in 1813 in Uruguay, several generations of the Chesley family managed a diverse farming operation used until the mid-2oth century. The Town of Durham purchased the property from the Tirrell Family in 1989.