Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden

Our last tour today (8/9) will be at 2:45 so we can prep for Twilight Tours at 4-8pm! See you there!

Tonight's the night! Twilight Tour is this evening, 4-8pm! Visit 11(!) sites tonight on one ticket. Come see these historic spaces during the most magical time of day - twilight. This self-guided tour is one of Portsmouth's most popular and treasured traditions and we hope to see you tonight. Tickets are still available via our website portmsouthhistoric.org/events and cash sales available at The Warner House. What's even better, your ticket is valid for admission to sites you don't visit tonight for the remainder of the 2024 season!

Sites open tonight: Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, Portsmouth Athenaeum, Strawbery Banke Museum's Pitt Tavern, Portsmouth Historical Society's John Paul Jones House, Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden, Historic New England's Langdon House, Rundlet-May House and Jackson House, The Warner House, Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion Historic Site and Wentworth-Gardner Historic House

One of our favorite events of the summer, Portsmouth NH Historic Sites Associates' annual Twilight Tour returns on Friday, August 9 from 4pm to 8pm. Moffatt-Ladd House joins other Portsmouth historic sites to be open for tours with the special theme, Flames of Revolution.

Here at the Moffatt-Ladd House, enter through our front door and tour the home of one of those who fanned those flames, William Whipple, Continental Congress delegate from New Hampshire and signer of the Declaration of Independence. We especially invite you to visit his chamber, with several notable belongings.

$20/adult; $10/child in advance; $25/$12 day of (after 4pm 8/8)
*any cash purchases MUST start at Warner House to check in and pay

The participating sites include:

Portsmouth Athenaeum
Historic New England’s Langdon House, Rundlet-May House, and Jackson House
Strawbery Banke Museum’s Pitt Tavern
Portsmouth Historical Society’s John Paul Jones House
Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire
Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden
The Warner House
Wentworth-Coolidge Mansion Historic Site
Wentworth-Gardner Historic House

See the Portsmouth Historic Associates website for more information or to purchase your tickets. https://www.portsmouthhistoric.org/events

This morning, a group of staff and NSCDA-NH members climbed up to the roof of the Moffatt-Ladd House to watch the USCGC Eagle make its way under the Memorial bridge, during this year's Parade of Sail. It was so easy to imagine ourselves as Samuel Moffatt watching for his own merchant ships.

The Tall Ship tours will be this weekend at the Port of Portsmouth at 555 Market Street, just up the road. You can't ask for a better maritime-themed day when you visit both!

Last year, UNH Master Gardeners took the time to both research the history of the Moffatt-Ladd garden, and note where the plants are. They created a pamphlet that includes a map of the grounds, divided into the different garden sections, that identifies the trees, shrubs and flowers. It also tells the story of the garden and who helped plant and plan it out.

This pamphlet will be available in the Counting House to take with you into the garden as you explore and learn even more about its fascinating history and the people who helped to make the beautiful oasis you see today. The Counting House also has a blackboard with a list of the currently blooming plants to keep an eye open for!

More progress of the Yellow Chamber Restoration Project! Very soon the reproduction wallpaper, produced using the original samples, will be fully applied to the walls of the chamber.

The next steps will be to finish painting the woodwork and applying the reproduction hunting scene sections of the wallpaper. Once all of the accurate pieces have been acquired, then it will be ready to furnish!

If you would like to learn more and help fund the completion of the Yellow Chamber, and be part of its story of preservation, visit https://moffattladd.org/home/yellowchamber.

Happy Independence Day! The Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden will be open today from 11am to 4pm. Join us on a tour to learn about the house’s inhabitants who fought against oppression by signing the Declaration of Independence and the 1779 Petition of Freedom. Visit our website www.moffattladd.org for more information on planning your visit.

Yesterday our Head Gardener Haven and his brother Jim went out via the widow's walk to do a "gutter crawl", joined by Building and Maintenance Committee Chair and NSCDA-NH member Deb, who took these pictures. (They used professional safety gear, and Haven is certified in rock climbing.)

He removed almost 3 quarts of leaf matter from the downspouts, as well as cleaned the grates. This should be a huge help with mitigating water damage.

This was all done before 9 am!

The Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden will be closing to the public today at 2PM so please plan your visit accordingly. If you're in Portsmouth, today is the perfect day to visit the garden, which is now free and open to the public during the museum's open hours. We hope to see you!

Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden will be closed tomorrow (Thursday, June 20th) because of the expected high temperatures. We will reopen on Friday, June 21st.

Stay safe!

Thank you to all who joined us for our first week of the season! We will be open from 11 am to 4 pm six days a week (closed Wednesdays) for visits to both the House and garden until mid-October. Tours run every 45 minutes, with the last leaving at 3:30 pm. New this season, the Moffatt-Ladd garden will be open to the public during our open hours without charge. We invite you to explore the grounds during your lunch break, or sit and just enjoy one of the few tucked away gardens right in downtown Portsmouth.

Join us starting this Saturday, June 1st for our 112th season!

The museum will be open for guided tours Thursday - Tuesday (closed Wednesdays) from 11am to 4pm from June 1 to the middle of October. Tours will be offered every 45 mins starting at 11 am with the last tour at 3:30 pm. This season the garden is free to the public during open hours. We can't wait to see you on our tours and visiting the garden!

This Saturday, May 18th, stop by Moffatt-Ladd for our annual heirloom plant sale (9 am to 1 pm, $6 per plant, 5 for $25, cash and credit accepted), then head over to the Portsmouth Public Library (NH) for the free "Our Interconnected Legacies", in collaboration with the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire at 10:30!

See you there!

From the end of April into May, the Moffatt-Ladd garden drastically changes. From the brown beds to green grass, the bunches of daffodils have made way for the grape hyacinths, bleeding hearts and irises. The budding trees have also flowered, like our pear, and the leaves are growing by the day.

On May 18th from 9 am to 1 pm you can take home heirloom perennials dug and potted here by our volunteers and staff. $6 per plant or $20 for 5, cash and card are accepted.

And starting our opening day on June 1st, you can enjoy our garden for free during open hours of 11 am to 4 pm!

Join us this Sunday, May 5th from 12-4 as one of the stops of Pro Portsmouth's annual Children's Day! Bring your family to learn about what life was like in a seaport in the 1700s. Try your hand at colonial games such as graces and trundling hoops, make a maritime mural and more! The first floor of the house will be open for exploration with the help of our guides.

Visit https://proportsmouth.org/events/childrens-day/ to learn more and to see where else to stop this Sunday!

Happy Arbor Day! Spring has started to show in the budding leaves of the trees found on the Moffatt-Ladd grounds. This season the garden is free to the public, and we are also offering a self-guided garden history tour.

Some featured trees on the tour include a honeysuckle that is believed to have been planted by Maria and Alexander Ladd, a Colonial Wilder pear tree planted by their son Alexander Hamilton Ladd and his gardener Lewis Walsh, and of course the horse chestnut that was planted by William Whipple, all survivors of many storms.

Visit our garden this season for free starting June 1st to see trees like our linden, honeysuckle, pear, Norway maple, horse chestnut, and the larch.

We're so excited to be partnering with the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire to host an important discussion at the Portsmouth Public Library on Saturday, May 18 at 10:30. Descendants of two people who lived in the Moffatt-Ladd House, Prince Whipple and William Whipple, will have a conversation about the discoveries of their family history of slavery and its legacy. This program is free and open to the public, and you can attend in person or online. We hope to see you there!

Register here: https://blackheritagetrailnh.org/special-events/

We know this is an eclipse-focused day, but can we talk about the Scilla?! Our garden is slowly coming to life and will be open for the first time on May 18. By the way, this year our garden is going to be free and open to the public during museum open hours. We hope you'll come and enjoy it!

We are thrilled to have two pieces from our collection on display as part of the "Combing History: Flax and Linen in New Hampshire" exhibit at the Woodman Museum in Dover, NH. The exhibit, organized by the University of New Hampshire Museum Studies Program, features linen pieces made from local flax in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The red shoes in the center are from the Moffatt-Ladd collection 😍. It opens tomorrow, April 6 and runs through November 24, 2024.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kimberly Alexander, Director of the Museum Studies Program.

More info on the exhibit: https://woodmanmuseum.org/event/unh-flax-exhibit-opening/
More info on the Flax to Linen Project: http://www.theflaxprojectunh.com/

We have an exciting announcement! Moffatt-Ladd House is now a member institution of the NARM (North American Reciprocal Museum) Association. That means that members of our Friends of the Moffatt-Ladd House program at the Patron level or above get reciprocal membership to all other NARM member institutions, including Historic New England and Portsmouth Historical Society locally. If you're interested in this great opportunity, please join the Friends of the Moffatt-Ladd House today!
Click here to join: https://moffattladd.org/friends-moffatt-ladd-house
For more information on NARM and to view a complete list of member institutions, see their website: https://narmassociation.org/

Today is the first day of spring! That means our garden will soon be in bloom. Did you know that you can take a piece of our garden home with you? Every year we sell saplings of trees, plants, and flowers from the historic Moffatt-Ladd Garden. This year our Plant Sale takes place on Saturday, May 18 from 9am to 1pm. All plants are $6 each or 5 for $25. We look forward to seeing you this spring!

https://moffattladd.org/upcoming-programs

Well, would you look at that! The very first flower of the year, a Winter Aconite, has appeared in our garden. Before we know it it will be awash with flowers of every color as it has been since the home's early days. In summer of 1828 Maria Ladd (1787-1861) wrote to her daughter, “...Our Garden is now in its beauty, we have a great abundance of Roses and Honeysuckle, Canterbury bells, & many other flowers in Bloom.” We look forward to the garden once again being in its beauty this coming spring.

March is Women's History Month! Did you know that the Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden has been stewarded by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of New Hampshire since 1912? NSCDA-NH is an all women's organization dedicated to preserving historic sites and educating the public about the history of New Hampshire and the United States. When the Ladd family decided that their historic home should become a museum, they knew that the Colonial Dames were the right women for the job. Since then, the Dames have poured all their available resources into ensuring that the home is maintained so that we can learn from it now and in the future.

This photo shows members of the NSCDA-NH in the great hall in 1947 dressed in eighteenth century costumes.

On this day in 1783 the New Hampshire House of Representatives approved a new plan "for taking a new Valuation for proportioning future Taxes for this State..." The Committee agreed that a resident's property value should be tallied up using a table, and gave an example. This is a section of the example table the committee included. In addition to the acreage of "Mowing Land," and "No. of Oxen," selectmen were also instructed to add "No. of Male Negroes & Mulatto Servants, from sixteen to forty-five Years of age" and "No. of Female Negroes and Mulatto Servants, from sixteen to forty-five Years of age" meaning that enslaved people were considered taxable property. This image is a section of the printed report from the New Hampshire House of Representatives held at the New Hampshire State Archives.

The Life & Death in the Piscataqua Symposium is back! Local historians will present reflections on the 400th celebration of Portsmouth's history. Tickets include all talks and a lunch of homemade soup. We hope to see you there!

Tickets: https://www.portsmouthhistoric.org/events

While the house and garden have been put to sleep for the winter, we've been busy in the office making sure everything is organized to help with future planning for the next few months and years at Moffatt-Ladd. Here are just some of the things we're working on while the house sleeps until spring:

Cleaning and re-organizing the office.
Reviewing our grants and other funding.
Looking ahead at this year's programs.
Planning weddings, garden parties and other rentals.
Updating our Friends of Moffatt-Ladd membership program and its benefits.
Renovating our website: stay tuned!

The Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden may be hibernating, but we are busy preparing for the 2024 season. You can help us create the best experience for yourself and other visitors by thinking back on this past year and taking this quick survey. Thank you!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHebChO_G4DJMvNI3Q0-geaQ4TsSHkdpWkH27PzzhqKMHhxg/viewform

“It changes in the light”; “It is so soft”; were just two of the committee members' first impressions of the sample reproduction of the original damask fabric that adorned the Yellow Chamber. As committee member Jane Nylander describes, “In damask, you want the background to be shiny. The background silhouettes the pattern and makes it stand out.”

This month we were able to compare the original damask from the 1760s with the sample we have had reproduced by The Gainsborough Silk Weaving Co Ltd in England. The committee voted to move forward with the manufacture of the damask, which will be used on the window and bed curtains, window seats and chair upholstery. Everything is to be hand-sewn to recreate the highest quality and correct placement of the flowered pattern.

To read more about the progress of the Yellow Chamber or to donate, click here: https://moffattladd.org/home/yellowchamber

Happy New Year, everyone! Like many of you, we've made a New Year's resolution. Ours is to make sure all of our visitors enjoy their visit to Moffatt-Ladd and leave having learned something. Do you think you can help us?
If you've visited Moffatt-Ladd House & Garden in the last few years, we would really appreciate it if you took a quick survey. Your answers to the survey will help us evaluate what we currently do at the museum, and create ideas for how we can do better in the future. Thanks for your help!

Photo is a flower in our beautiful garden in August. (Courtesy Rick Dumont Images)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfHebChO_G4DJMvNI3Q0-geaQ4TsSHkdpWkH27PzzhqKMHhxg/viewform?usp=sf_link