Like the Eleazer Arnold House ( LI14), this is another important “stone-ender.” The original pilastered stone chimney has become brick above the roof ridge and alterations (both old and new) have occurred on the elevations. But a sense of the original house remains. The short shingle extension beyond the stone chimney end contained the box which housed the entrance vestibule (its door now topped by a pretty nineteenth-century bracketed hood) at one corner of the house, together with a tight boxed stair to the upper story. Both fitted into the thickness of the fireplace wall. Like the Arnold house, this has a four-room plan, but the frame, all of a piece, indicates that the fourroom enclosure was built all at once. Whereas the Arnold House has a lean-to to the rear, here the rear, like the front, is fully two stories—making what was described at the time as an “upright house.” The parlor, with fireplace in the end wall, originally faced a realigned road, with the kitchen, its fireplace in the same end wall, immediately behind. The three major rooms claim three of the four (later) windows ranged along the elevations front and rear, while two tight bedrooms claim the others. The original owner was married in 1694, and this house may have been a wedding gift from his father. The first town meeting of what was then part of Smithfield occurred here.
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Valentine Whitman, Jr., House
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