Museum

The museum is open on Saturdays from 1 pm – 4 pm during the summer and by appointment any time of the year.

Please contact the Museum Curator Nancy Sandberg at curator@DurhamHistory.org or call 603-868-2350.

Situated in The Old Brick Town Hall built c.1823 by Joseph Coe (1782 – 1852) son of Reverend Curtis Coe (1750 – 1829) who preached in the Oyster River Meetinghouse from 1780 to 1806. Joseph Coe was a merchant trader with property investments and a shipbuilding business at the Old Landing on the Oyster River, once the commercial center of Durham.

After the Piscataqua Bridge was built in 1796 and the First New Hampshire Turnpike opened in 1803, Durham's business center shifted from the salt river to the land route connecting the port of Portsmouth with Concord, made the state capital in 1808. In 1820 Coe purchased land at ‘Durham Corner’ where Newmarket Road met the Turnpike (now Dover Road & Main Street). He constructed a three-story brick commercial building with a dramatic curved corner entrance dominating views from all directions.

The Federal Style structure is distinctive for its construction of locally-quarried hammered granite foundation blocks, window sills and lintels and locally-made brick, two important Durham industries during the 18th and 19th centuries. The workmanship displays particular skill in the two different masonry bonds for the straight and curved walls; brick running bond on the flat sides with every seventh course of headers; alternating header and stretcher pattern at all courses of the curved corner bay. The front door and transom are also curved to fit the rounded corner. The windows on all three floors originally had shutters, as can be seen by the iron shutter dogs. This is a rare building type with few similar examples in the seacoast area.

After Joseph Coe, the building was owned by Mary Pickering Burt and in 1840 the Town of Durham purchased the building from her for use as Durham’s first Town Hall. By 1853 interior alterations had removed the third floor to create a double height room for town meetings on the upper level, with a wide stair at the north corner. The dramatic tall triple-hung windows express the civic stature of the building. The local post office was situated in a store on the ground floor during the 1860s and again in the 1890s. The selectmen’s room and the meeting space upstairs served Durham's needs until the 1960s, when the Durham Historic Association was installed in the upper floor space while town functions including the Police Department and the District Court occupied the ground floor and other town offices were located in a converted house next door.

The Old Brick Town Hall was documented by the Historic American Building Survey in 1935 as HABS file NH-06. In 1980 the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a significant contributing resource in the Durham Historic District in 1980: [link to the HABS report in Archives Section]

The Durham Historic Association Museum has educated and entertained a full range of history buffs, from elementary school students to professional historians and researchers.  The air-conditioned museum is free and open to the public. It is located upstairs at the old brick town hall, on the corner of Route 108 and Main Street (right by the traffic signal). Look for the brick building with the curved door, a rarity even when first built.  Parking is immediately behind the museum or at the nearby Town offices on Newmarket Road (Route 108 South).

Learn about Durham’s 400 years of history! See old photos and maps, farm implements, dolls, the 1875 town hearse, and much more!  Stair-lift access available. The museum is open on Saturdays from 1 pm – 4 pm during the summer and by appointment any time. Please contact the Museum Curator at curator@DurhamHistory.org or call 603-868-2350.