White Album NH

While the storm was churning down south, and politicking-before-the-primary was happening in Salem, we escaped north to New Hampshire for the weekend, where I “shopped” for a vacation house and my husband decidedly did not. He humored me, however, and let me stop at every single house that caught my eye to take a photograph, probably because none of these houses was actually for sale. When I scrolled through these photographs last night I realized that each and every one of these houses was white, including the Quaker meetinghouse we found after crossing a covered bridge (about the only image that’s going to break up the non-palette below) and the Shaker meetinghouse we stopped at on our way home. We spent Saturday night at the Highland House in Tamworth, which was built in the 1790s by a Salem mariner, merchant and tanner named George Dodge (1750-1821), who was clearly trying to escape busy Salem too! He was lured back to the city by his father’s will in 1808: the elder Captain George Dodge left his son a considerable fortune of $282,000 plus the responsibility of running his various businesses in Salem. I’m not sure George Jr. made it back to New Hampshire for any extended length of time, and when he died in 1821 he left his “considerable” Tamworth properties to the First Congregational Society.

White NH

White Interior

White Latch

Highland House on a misty (frosty?) Sunday morning, and a few interior details…..below: its neighbors, and a bit further afield in the foothills of the White Mountains.

White NH 3

White NH flowers

White NH2

White NH Hill House

White NH Chartreuse

White NH mountain

White NH Bridge

White NH hill house 2

White NH perfection 2

Charming Wonalancet Union Chapel below…Friends’ Meeting House in Sandwich and Shaker Meeting House at Canterbury Shaker Village, where we stopped on the way home. I do believe that I’ll be dreaming of this last hilltop house, with its eyebrow windows, until my dying day!

White NH Church

White Collage

White NH perfection


7 responses to “White Album NH

  • Helen Breen

    Hi Donna,

    Thanks for yet another glimpse into charming, rural New Hampshire. Fun that you could connect your B & B with Salemite George Dodge.

    Loved your selection of real estate and, of course, you photograph these dream houses so well. I will be heading up to Meredith tomorrow and may do my own “shopping” on the way…

  • Glenn McDonald

    Ain’t it just great to be alive for Fall in New England?

  • Brian Bixby

    I always take a delight in knowing that those picturesque ponds below Canterbury Shaker Village, which help make it look pastoral, were originally dammed to provide power for the Shakers’ factories.

    • daseger

      I knew you’d give me some special insight! Boy that is a well-run and -maintained museum!

      • Brian Bixby

        I’ve enjoyed my admittedly few visits there, and keep thinking I should finish visiting all the Shaker village sites soon. (Still haven’t made it to Alfred, Enfield (CT), Groveland, Watervliet (OH) or Busro/West Union yet, or the two short-lived Southern ones.)

  • Pearl

    That spiral door latch is amazing.

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