Ladd-Gilman House - Its History

A Fine Early Brick House

The premier land that the Ladd-Gilman House sits upon was deeded to Peter Coffin as early as 1690 from the new Town of Exeter. After 1721, a brick house was erected upon the land by Capt. Nathaniel Ladd, millwright and ‘dealer in land’ and his third wife, Mercy Hilton, who had purchased 1-1/2 acres from Peter Coffin’s grandson, Eliphalet. Nathaniel Ladd served as Constable in 1737. He conveyed the property to his two younger sons, Elias and Josiah, who lived as tenants with their families. Josiah was a millwright, carpenter and joiner and also was deacon of the First Congregational Church in Exeter for many years. He married Sarah Morse. Elias, a tailor, married Ann Gilman, daughter of Capt. John Gilman, Jr. 

House Enlarged

In 1747 Elias deeded a portion of the house to Col. Daniel Gilman and relocated to Stratham. Daniel probably never lived at the house, and bequeathed it to his son Nicholas Gilman in 1779. In 1752 the east side of the building was enlarged and wooden clapboards were added around the original center-doorway brick house. Nicholas, shipbuilder and merchant, and his wife Ann Taylor moved into the house. They had six children who survived infancy: John Taylor, Nicholas, Nathaniel, Elizabeth, Samuel and Daniel. By 1777, Josiah’s son, Simeon Ladd, sold the remainder of the house to Nicholas Gilman.

Slavery Still Present

According to his probate inventory, Nicholas Gilman owned, or held "his time" a "Negro Boy nam’d Bob" who was valued at 15 pounds in 1779. This slave lived at the Ladd-Gilman House, possibly until Gilman’s death in 1783. By 1790 all but two slaves had been freed in Exeter, although many freed servants may have stayed in the services of their households longer. 5% of Exeter’s population in 1770 was Black, to be eclipsed only by the onset of the immigrant millworkers in the 1830s and beyond.

 Revolutionary State Capital

When Exeter was the state capital of New Hampshire during the American Revolution, the Ladd-Gilman served as the State Treasury. In 1783, Nicholas and Ann Taylor Gilman died, months apart, leaving the Ladd-Gilman House, land, wharves, docks and holdings to their eldest son, John Taylor Gilman and his wife, Deborah Folsom. John Taylor lived at the house, serving first as state treasurer in 1786, 1791-94, and then as Governor of New Hampshire—elected to this office from 1794-1805, 1813-1816. Upon Deborah’s death in 1791, he married her widowed sister, Mary (d.1812) and then Charlotte Bourne Hamilton (d.1840). By 1818 they relocated to a new house on Front Street, and the old mansion became home to his nephew, Capt. Nathaniel Gilman, Jr. and his wife Elizabeth Gardiner.

Gilmans Hold Onto the Mansion

After 1824, various Gilman family members and their servants rented the house from the old Governor, including Col. Peter Chadwick, his wife Susan Coffin, Capt. John W. Chadwick, his wife Frances Gilman Rogers and their families. Journalist John Taylor Perry, great grandson of Nicholas Gilman, Sr., was the last Gilman in the house. After his death in 1901, the estate was sold to the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire, with funds from John Gardiner Gilman, the Perry Family and Edward Tuck. One of the Society’s original twelve members was Nicholas Gilman, Jr., who served on Washington’s staff and was, along with John Langdon, delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Alterations to the house were made and a caretaker’s cottage was added to protect the ‘military museum and clubhouse’ for the Society.

The Ladd-Gilman House was one of the first historic homes open to the public at the beginning of the twentieth century. Over the next 90 years, Society members amassed collections, furniture and research, and held the old mansion together through good and lean years.

Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire

The Society of the Cincinnati is a patriotic, benevolent, social, non-political Order with military overtones. It was organized on the 13th of May 1783, by the officers of the Continental Army then in cantonment at Newburgh, NY on the Hudson River. Major General Baron de Steuben presided over the convention of officers at which the Institution of the Order was adopted. The Society was divided into 13 state societies, and one Society in France, and upon the roll of original members includes nearly all of the military and naval characters of the Revolution. The General Society, headquartered at Anderson House in Washington DC, is composed of the general officers and delegates from each State Society, and meets every 3 years.

The first meeting of the General Society was held at Philadelphia, May 4, 1784, and its first President General was elected: General George Washington of Virginia. The New Hampshire Society was established under Major General John Sullivan on November 28, 1783 at the "house of Col. Samuel Folsom" (Folsom Tavern) with twelve officers attending. The New Hampshire Society met annually until 1824, when the membership dwindled into non-existence.

Nearly a century later, the New Hampshire Society was revived. By November 1, 1902 the Society purchased the Ladd-Gilman House from descendants of the Gilman family, then known as "Cincinnati Memorial Hall" and established a military museum and historic house open to the public. The New Hampshire Society continues to meet annually in Exeter, and their historic properties are managed by the separate not-for-profit American Independence Museum.

Submitted by Bonny LADD-SULLIVAN Jan 20, 2001