Cooper-Frost-Austin House
Encyclopedia
Colonial America
The colonial history of the United States covers the history from the start of European settlement and especially the history of the thirteen colonies of Britain until they declared independence in 1776. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain and the Netherlands launched major...
n house, currently estimated to have been constructed circa 1681-1682. It is located at 21 Linnaean Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. It is the oldest extant home in Cambridge and operated as a non-profit museum by Historic New England
Historic New England
Historic New England, previously known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities , is a charitable, non-profit, historic preservation organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is focused on New England and is the oldest and largest regional preservation...
. The house is rarely open for public tours, but private tours can be arranged during the summer months.
The house was built by Samuel Cooper on land that his father, Deacon John Cooper, had owned since 1657, and was first documented in 1689 in The Register Book of the Lands and Houses in the "New Towne" (as Cambridge was then named). Its original structure was a single room and chimney bay in width, two and one half stories in height with an integral lean-to, containing a "low room," "little room," "kitchin," "Chamber," "kitchin Chamber," "Garret," and "Cellar," all of which still exist, as do the original chimney and a facade gable. The house was extended in 1690 by Cooper's son, and then again between 1807-1816 by Martha Frost Austin and Thomas Austin who added an enclosed porch and Federal style stairway and trim. The house was acquired by Historic New England in 1912.
In 2002 the Oxford Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year...
Laboratory http://www.dendrochronology.com/ analyzed wooden beams from the original structure and ascertained that donor trees were felled at the following times: Winter 1675/6, Winter 1680/81, and Spring 1681. The oldest timber may have been stockpiled before construction.