11 Most Endangered Historic Places
Daniel Webster Farm
Year Listed: 2005
Location: New Hampshire
Daniel Webster Farm Orphanage Building, New Hampshire. The Daniel Webster Farm was selected for the 2005 America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list.
Credit: Daniel Webster Farm/National Trust for Historic Preservation
Significance
Daniel Webster (1782-1852), one of America's foremost statesmen (U.S. Congressman, Senator, presidential candidate and Secretary of State) and most dynamic orators, maintained his family's Franklin farm outside of Concord, New Hampshire, as a retreat, model stock farm, and meeting place until his death in 1852. The 141-acre property includes the National Historic Landmark-listed Webster/Tay home, several surviving buildings related to the orphanage and convent, the remains of an early fort, and a historic cemetery. Located along the Merrimack River, the 141-acre property has about a mile of river frontage and some of the state's most valuable agricultural land. Webster's father, Ebenezer, had purchased what was then called Elm Farm in the last years of the eighteenth century and moved his family there. The farm remained in the Webster family until the 1850s, when it was purchased by the Tay family.
In 1871, the 141-acre farm became the site of the New Hampshire legislature-chartered New Hampshire Orphans' Home. This home, school, and working farm for children orphaned in the Civil War was one of the first such institutions to be strategically located to take advantage of the health benefits of a rural environment. Additional buildings were added throughout the rest of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries to accommodate more and more children. In 1960, the renamed Daniel Webster Home for Children was acquired and operated by the Sisters of the Holy Cross. The Sisters remained on the property until 2000, when, faced with dwindling members and financial resources, they placed the farm on the market.
