Restoring and rehabilitating Penhallow House will have a major impact on the Museum’s mission.

Rehabilitation:

Penhallow House, the only remaining saltbox-style house at Strawbery Banke and one of the few left in Portsmouth is undergoing an extensive rehabilitation to preserve its layered history.

Built in 1750 by Samuel Penhallow, a respected magistrate and deacon of the North Church, the house originally stood at the southeast corner of Court and Pleasant Streets. In 1862, it was moved on rollers to its current location on Washington Street, when the tide still flowed into Puddle Dock and Canoe Bridge spanned its upper end. Now part of the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire, a portion of the Penhallow House is being restored to tell the story of the Cousins family, a Black family who lived there during the Great Depression.

Penhallow House. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS.

Penhallow House. David J. Murray/ClearEyePhoto.com

Penhallow House is one of four historic structures at the Museum — including the Shapley-Drisco-Pridham, Sherburne, Lowd, and Jones Houses — that is vulnerable to sea-level rise. After consultation with preservationists, engineers, and architects, Strawbery Banke decided to create a new foundation for the house, which included building a wet-proof basement as part of a groundwater-intrusion adaptation strategy.

The Museum contracted with Preservation Timber Framing, a well-known building preservation company with over 30 years of experience working on historic structures, to conduct the restoration. On October 10-11, 2023, the house was carefully lifted approximately 10 feet using hydraulics, structural steel, and cribbing. Gravel and filter fabric were added to the basement to encourage drainage to perimeter drains and the City of Portsmouth’s stormwater system, and a new foundation was created.

The restoration includes stabilizing the structure, repairing historic materials, and reflecting its 1937–1943 appearance. While the costs have risen from an initial $1 million due to material and labor increases, private donations and grants keep the project on track.

Interpretation:

Once the restoration is complete, Penhallow House will tell the story of Geraldine “Jeri” Cousins Palmer and her parents, Kenneth Cousins, and Eleanor Richardson Cousins Williams, who lived there from 1937 to 1943. Unlike many Great Depression narratives and stories of the Great Migration that focused solely on hardship, this exhibit will highlight the joy, resilience, and community engagement of the Cousins family and Portsmouth’s Black residents.

Jeri Cousins Palmer, a lifelong community leader and a founding member of the Seacoast African American Cultural Center, left an extensive oral history detailing her time in the house. Her daughter, Judith Baumann, has also shared family artifacts and stories, helping Strawbery Banke authentically recreate their home. The restored space will include family belongings and museum purchases such as handmade quilts, books, kitchenware, roller skates, and a framed photograph of Abraham Lincoln. A copy of an oil portrait of Willietta Richardson, Palmer’s maternal grandmother—a fortune teller and tarot reader—will hang in the restored living room.

Beyond physical artifacts, the exhibit will immerse visitors in the social life of the Cousins family. Music and recreated church bulletins from The People’s Baptist Church at “The Pearl,” where the family was active, will highlight their deep ties to faith and community. Jazz music will evoke their lively social gatherings. Oral histories allow Strawbery Banke to precisely locate key household elements, from the kitchen table to the family piano, making this one of the most detailed, personal interpretations at Strawbery Banke.

The Museum anticipates opening the Penhallow House exhibit to the public later this year, offering visitors a look at Black life in Portsmouth’s historic Puddle Dock neighborhood.

Funding for the Penhallow House restoration was provided in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy Demands Wisdom (NEH) and the New Hampshire Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP). Additionally, funding came through the Cogswell Benevolent Trust, the Samuel P. Hunt Foundation, an anonymous foundation, and the McIninch Foundation, as well as from private donations to the Building Community: the Campaign for Strawbery Banke. 

The Strawbery Banke Fund (Annual Fund) allows the Museum to continue to spearhead preservation work, retain its professional and knowledgeable staff, and provide innovative educational programs. Click here or use the button below to make a gift. 

Penhallow House. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS.

SPOTLIGHT

Washington Street in Portsmouth was home to many African Americans, including Eleanor Cousins, who lived in Penhallow House with her family in the 1930s, and her brother Kenneth “Bunny” Richardson. Richardson (1914-1994) moved into the same apartment in the 1950s. He had grown up in Portsmouth, attended Whipple Junior High School, and was an entrepreneur: he led a dance band that performed across the Seacoast, offered barbershop services from his Penhallow apartment, and worked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where he became the Shipyard’s first Black Supervisor. He sat on the Equal Employment Opportunities Committee (EEO), administering and enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination.

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