Penhallow House Preservation Webcam

Join us live as we take you behind the scenes of the restoration of the Penhallow House! Built in 1750, this architectural rarity is one of only a handful of saltbox-style structures left standing in Portsmouth. It housed the law offices of Samuel Penhallow, where free Black people in colonial Portsmouth could certify their status to prove their exemption from slave curfew laws.

Over the decades, Penhallow has had many different owners and tenants—among them were Black families who considered the Washington Street area of Puddle Dock their home. Once restored, the Museum plans to open the house for the first time to the public and interpret a 20th-century Black experience in the Penhallow House. Click here to learn more.

Funding for the Penhallow House restoration was provided in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom (NEH) and the New Hampshire Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP). Additionally, funding came through the Cogswell Benevolent Trust, the Samuel P. Hunt Foundation, an anonymous foundation, the McIninch Foundation, and private donations to the Building Community: the Campaign for Strawbery Banke.