Peter Pettengill is said to have come to Grafton from Salem, New Hampshire, in 1787, accompanying the first minister to settle in the town. He married in Grafton and built this common bond brick, Georgian-plan house that typifies the arched-panel masonry popular in southeastern Vermont between 1810 and 1840. The entrance and sidelights are sheltered beneath a semielliptical relieving arch and recessed infill panel, as are all the windows, except those of the second-story eaves sides. These have granite lintels. Many variations of the masonry type, including those with recessed wall panels and rectilinear and triangular forms during the Greek Revival, are found in the Windsor and upper Windham counties region. Pettengill's son Abbott supposedly fired the bricks for the house in his kiln near Houghtonville Road, which also supplied bricks for several other houses with arched windows in Grafton.