Great Road Day: Hearthside House

On a rainy day in September 2024, I went to Great Road Day hosted by several historical venues in Lincoln, RI. This town in the Blackstone River Valley is known for its history, as I had previously featured Eleazer Arnold House and its annual celebration Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Great Road Day recognizes the early highway system, and this event meant I had the opportunity to visit several venues that I had always gone by but never gone in. My first stop was Hearthside House, part of Great Road Heritage Campus.

Facts around the construction of this house seem murky. Around 1810, a young Quaker named Stephen Hopkins Smith supposedly won a lottery and used his winnings to build a house to impress an unnamed young woman, who did not much like its location and never married him. Smith’s siblings lived in his house as he worked with well-known industrialists Edward Carrington and Moses Brown Ives (the latter being part of the Brown family for whom Brown University is named) to build the Blackstone Canal, a disastrous business venture.

After the deaths of Smith and his siblings, the house was sold from many times with a total of eleven families living in the house. The final owners were the Mowbray family. The father E. Andrew Mowbray loved history and ran his own publishing company, now run by his son Stuart with a focus on antique guns, swords, and other weapons. Upon his death in 1996, the family sold their historic home to the town of Lincoln, and the museum formed five years later in 2001.

Only the first floor was open to the public during Great Road Day, but it had more than enough artwork, antiques, and unique architectural features to satisfy any visitor. In several rooms were little parlor sculptures of late 19^th century people having a good time, whether they were playing games or getting married. These were designed by well-connected John Rogers, grandson of shipping magnate Elias Hasket Derby of Salem, MA, last mentioned during my trip to Salem Maritime National Historic Site. Rogers produced the statuettes at a factory in New York and sold them at affordable prices so middle class people could have art. Other arts and crafts included a Tiffany or Tiffany-inspired stained glass lamp, mantel clocks, a door decoration shaped like a cat, and delft tile around a fireplace.

Other items of note in the house included a painting of American privateer Silas Talbot, the remains of a Rumford oven, and a massive model dollhouse. Although Talbot was a Patriot during the American Revolutionary War and had worked at the behest of George Washington, he had accidently been painted with a all-red coat instead of a navy blue coat with red trim; fortunately, recent restorations of the painting set this straight. As for the Rumford oven, while it was nowhere near as complete as the full Rumford kitchen I saw at Historic New England’s Rundlet-May House in Portsmouth, NH, the signage did an excellent job describing the life of Count Rumford, also known as Benjamin Thompson, and detailing the rediscovery of the oven in 2003. Finally, the dollhouse was built into the wall of the front hallway and resembled some of the rooms within the house.

The house was fairly well-lit for such a dark day and plenty of signage was available, while docents were friendly and knowledgeable. The first floor of the house is accessible via ramp, so those using a wheelchair or with limited mobility would have an equitable experience during Great Road Day. Since Hearthside House hosts events throughout the year at a range of price points, I may return in the future to take a different tour.

Abby Epplett’s Rating System

Experience: 7/10

Accessibility: 8/10