Dorsett House



1118 Pequawket Trail

postcard dated January 1907

This house on Pequawket Trail, directly across from Smith Avenue, remains largely unchanged after almost 100 years.

Deed research for this property reveals that it once was a part of a 25 acre parcel of land with long road frontage on both Pequawket Trail and Main Street.

  • 1835 The 25 acre lot was sold by Solomon Anderson to Eliza Coolbroth.
  • 1840 Tobias Lord acquired this land in a lawsuit settlement against Eliza & Isaac Coolbrooth.
  • 1842 Tobias Lord resold the large parcel back to Coolbroth EXCEPT this lot, "on the Fryeburg Road, 6 rods and 4 links wide by 23 rods deep, where my house and lamp black kilns now stand." Lord probably did not live in this house as his home on Heath Lane had been built by this date.
  • 1850 census indicates  Sylvanus B. Dorsett, 42, Cashier, and Patience Dorsett, and their 4 children are living with Patience's parents, Elisha & Elizabeth Strout in the Strout family home beside Strout Brook, a short distance east of this property.
  • 1852 Tobias Lord sold this property to Sylvanus & Patience Dorsett.
  • 1860 census lists Sylvanus Dorsett, cooper, living here with his wife Patience, children, Nancy, Frances, Thomas and Winfield.
  • 1871 map indicates location of this house although the house footprint does not match the current house.
  • 1874 Patience Dorsett sold to her son Thomas Dorsett.
  • 1917 Thomas Dorsett sold to Lewis & Minnie Dorsett.
  • 1941 Minnie Dorsett sold the property out of the family.
It is not known when the house in the photograph was built. It is doubtful that it is the house Tobias Lord described in 1842. It is more likely that was built by Thomas Dorsett, perhaps soon after he acquired the property in 1874.
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