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(#1) Taos Pueblo
- Place
As with the Acoma Pueblo, the adobe buildings of the Taos Pueblo were constructed using a mixture of earth, water, and straw. Parts of the present-day buildings are believed to have been built between 1000 and 1450 AD.
Of the 19 pueblos in New Mexico, Taos is located the farthest north, near the Taos Mountains and Red Willow Creek, or Rio Pueblo de Taos. Some 150 people still live here year-round.
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(#2) Acoma Pueblo
- Place
Located 60 miles west of Albuquerque, NM, the Acoma Pueblo has been continuously inhabited since at least 1150 AD. Also known as "Sky City," the settlement was established on a mesa that rises 367 feet above the valley floor.
The two- and three-story adobe brick buildings are still in use today, though fewer than 50 Acoma permanently reside there. The rest of the 3,000-member tribe live in surrounding villages.
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(#3) Fairbanks House
Built around 1637, the Fairbanks House of Dedham, MA, holds claim to the title of "oldest known wooden structure still standing in North America." It housed eight generations of the Fairbanks family (beginning with Jonathan and Grace Fairbanks) and is a museum today.
Lowell Cummings, a former professor of American Decorative Arts at Yale University, has called the home "one of the most important historic houses now standing in the northeastern part of the United States" due to its "unbelievabl[y] unspoiled condition."
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(#4) C. A. Nothnagle Log House, Gibbstown, NJ (c. 1638-1643)
Located on the Swedesboro-Paulsboro Road in Gibbstown, NJ, the C.A. Nothnagle Log House is "one of the oldest surviving cabins in the United States." Allegedly, all of the cabin's original logs are still intact, save one that was damaged by ivy and had to be replaced.
The cabin's owners, Harry and Doris Rink, keep the cabin open to the public - and occasionally serve visitors sandwiches."All of your history books in school begin with the Revolutionary War," Doris told NJ.com. "This [house] is the 17th century. It's before the history books."
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(#5) Henry Whitfield House
Built more than a century before the American Revolution, the Whitfield House is both the oldest house in Connecticut and the oldest stone house in New England.
According to the museum's website, that stone was carved from local granite, and on behalf of Reverend Henry Whitfield - one of the English Puritans who founded Guilford in 1639.
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(#6) Richard Sparrow House
Described as the "oldest house in Plymouth," the Richard Sparrow House was built around 1640 and is located at 42 Summer Street.
The website for the Sparrow House, which is now a state museum, offers scant information on the house itself. It does, however, provide some fascinating biographical information on Richard Sparrow, his family, and colonial life. For instance:
As a freeman, Richard was granted a house tract of six acres in 1636, which required him to construct a house within four years. [...] By 17th century standards, Richard's family was small, which dictated the demanding work of colonial life be completed by only three family members. In 1639, Mary Moorecock was apprenticed to Richard and Pandora [Sparrow] for nine years in exchange for food, lodging, clothes and a ewe lamb. The lamb was to be kept by Mary's stepfather, who was to "keep one third of the increase for labor."
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(#7) Lower Swedish Cabin
- Place
Built in the early 17th century by Swedish immigrants of the New Sweden colony, this log cabin served a variety of purposes prior to its restoration in the 1980s.
Initially used as a trading post for the Swedes and local Natives in the 1600s, it was later used by filmmaker Siegmund Lubin as the setting for Silent Era motion pictures between 1904 and 1906. Before it was abandoned, it was also used as a gathering place for the Girl Scouts.
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(#8) General Israel Putnam House
- House
Though named after Israel "Old Put" Putnam, a major general in the Revolutionary War, the Putnam House is more notorious for its connection to the 1692 Salem Witch trials than its architecture.
The house was built by Israel's grandfather, Thomas, sometime around 1648. Thomas Putnam's son, Thomas Jr., was heavily involved in the witchcraft hysteria that afflicted Salem in the late 17th century. That is to say, Thomas Jr. and his wife Ann accused a lot of folks of a lot of witchery. Things got so heated during this era that Thomas's younger brother, Joseph, who lived in the house at the time, allegedly told Ann, “If you dare to touch with your foul lies anyone belonging to my household, you shall answer for it.”
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(#9) Old House, Cutchogue, NY (1649)
Built in 1649 and restored in 1940, the Old House is located on State Route 25 in New York's Suffolk County. According to the Cutchogue-New Suffolk Historical Council, it is "the oldest English-style, medieval house in New York State," and considered "one of the finest examples of Pilgrim Century architecture in the nation."
The historical council has made a 2019 archaeology report of the property available, which partly sought to determine if there were any hidden artifacts of "ritualistic or magical significance, in particular 'witch bottles' and comparable devices found at similar sites that may have been buried there.” Unfortunately, despite that intriguing description, no such items were found.
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(#10) Macy-Colby House
- American Colonial
Built by the English Thomas Macy in approximately 1649, the house was sold to Anthony Colby in 1654. Macy is notable for being the subject of a 19th-century poem by John Greenleaf Whittier entitled The Exile.
After moving his family into Amesbury proper, Macy later ran afoul of the local, Puritan government. His crime? Allowing four Quakers to stay in his new home for "less than an hour" during a heavy storm. This was against a 1657 law that forbid the harboring of "any of the cursed sect of Quakers," and Macy was fined 30 shillings for it.
Macy was himself a Baptist, and left town two years later to become the first European settler of Nantucket.
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(#11) Pieter Wyckoff House
Considered the oldest structure in New York City, the Wyckoff House was built by Pieter Wyckoff when New York was still New Netherland. Wycokoff worked as an indentured servant for six years before completing his labor contract and marrying his wife, Grietje.
Though the house is estimated to have been built in the mid-1600s, most of what you see today was constructed in the 1800s.
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(#12) Thomas Lee House
The Thomas Lee House, "one of the oldest wood frame houses in Connecticut," was first constructed in 1660. Renovations were made to the house up until about 1765, when major additions ceased. The house was a residence for about two centuries, then was sold to a neighboring farmer who, according to the East Lyme Historical Society, used it as a chicken coop and to store hay.
The historical society purchased the house in 1914, spruced it up, and opened it to the public the following year.
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(#13) James Blake House
Architecture buffs should be delighted by the James Blake House, which is not only the oldest house in Boston, but also "one of only a few examples of West England country framing in the United States." The house was built in 1661 and originally occupied by James Blake, an English immigrant, and Elizabeth Clap, the daughter of a deacon.
In the late 19th century, the house was to be demolished to make way for a massive urbanization project. It was purchased and refurbished by the Dorchester Historical Society, which also paid for it to be moved 400 yards to its current location. According to the historical society, "This seems to be the first recorded instance of a historic private residence being moved from its original site in order to rescue it from demolition."
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(#14) John Bowne House
A New York City landmark and a blend of Dutch, English, and colonial traditions, the Bowne House was built around 1661 and renovated by John Bowne in 1669 and 1680. According to the Bowne House Historical Society, Bowne "acquired" his land from the indigenous Matinecock tribe.
The house at it exists today was renovated up till 1815. It has been a museum since 1947.
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(#15) Richard Jackson House
- Place
The oldest wood frame house in New Hampshire, the Jackson House was built in 1664 by Richard Jackson, a sailor and woodworker. Seven generations of Jacksons would inhabit the house before it came into the possession of William Sumner Appleton, the founder of Historic New England, in 1924. Appleton removed the most recent additions made to the house in his era, though kept earlier modifications from the 18th and 19th centuries.
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(#16) Samuel Pickman House, Salem, MA (1664)
Records indicate sailor Samuel Pickman built this house in 1664, though it may have been constructed by his father, Nathaniel, who was a carpenter. In either case, it is one of the oldest buildings in the city of Salem.
Perhaps because the house resides next to the Old Burying Point Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in the United States, or simply because Salem has a long tradition of supernatural goings on, the Pickman has taken on some ghostly tales of its own. There is one particularly gruesome legend that involves a family of three that lived in the house in the 18th century.
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(#17) Bacon's Castle, Surry, VA (c. 1665)
When it was originally the home of Arthur Allen, a wealthy plantation owner in 17th century Virginia, this Jacobean-style home was simply known as Allen's Brick House. Allen had the house built in 1665 and passed not long after, leaving the estate to his son. The house earned the nickname "Bacon's Castle" during Bacon's Rebellion of 1676, when it was occupied by about 70 of Nathaniel Bacon's followers between September and December of that year.
According to Preservation Virginia, Bacon's Castle is the "oldest brick dwelling in North America." As such, the property also contains another notable historic dwelling, an 1830 house for enslaved African-Americans.
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(#18) Ryves Holt House, Lewes, DE (1665)
Built by Dutch settlers in 1665, the house is named after the first Chief Justice of Delaware, Ryves Holt, who purchased it in 1723. It is believed to be the oldest building in the state.
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(#19) Halsey House, Southampton, NY (c. 1683)
Though the property was homesteaded in 1648, the "saltbox-style" house that exists there today was built sometime around 1683.
Today, the Halsey House is decked out with 17th and 18th century furnishings, and its backyard boasts "a Colonial revival-style garden that replicates an 18th century herb garden, a perennial border and an apple orchard."
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About This Tool
Almost everything slowly disappeared in the course of time. There are many amazing and unique buildings in this world, even though they have gone through thousands of years under the sun and moon, they are still very well preserved. Speaking of such ancient buildings, perhaps many people think of the Great Wall, the Pyramid, etc. Although the United States does not have a long history, there are some old houses that have existed for hundreds of years and still stand today.
The random tool displays the 19 oldest houses in the US. The United States may not be as old as European countries, but hundreds or even thousands of years of history seem to be everywhere in every corner, and people can find these old houses in different places.
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