Coffin House

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Coffin House was occupied by the Coffin family over three centuries, and provides fascinating insight into domestic life in rural New England. The structure, which contains the family's furnishings, began as a simple dwelling built in the post-medieval style. Tristram Coffin and his family lived, cooked, and slept in two or possibly three rooms; their possessions were few.

Beginning in 1712, the house more than doubled in size to provide living space for a married son and his family. As the family grew, they added partitions and lean-tos so that different generations could continue to live together under one roof.

In 1785, two Coffin brothers legally divided the structure into two separate dwellings, each with its own kitchen and living spaces. With rooms from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, Coffin House depicts the impact of an expanding economy and new concepts, such as the notion of privacy, on architecture and modes of living.

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