This country estate overlooking Quincy Bay transports you to the eve of the American Revolution era and tells the story of a woman’s work to preserve her family’s history more than one hundred years later.

Pierce House is one of the last surviving examples of seventeenth-century architecture in the city of Boston. During the American Revolution, Col. Samuel Pierce participated in the fortification of Dorchester Heights. His remarkable personal papers and diaries allow us to explore everyday life during the war. Pierce was “a regular guy”—a middle-class farmer, not a politician or general or wealthy merchant. His journal entries offer visitors an eyewitness account of how events such as the Boston Tea Party and the Battles of Lexington and Concord were perceived by those living nearby and how the unrest and eventual war interrupted and shaped daily life.

Otis House tells the story of domestic life in post-Revolution Boston and features important objects connected to the conflict, including a desk and bookcase confiscated by the British during their occupation of Boston, as well as a couch made in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette’s triumphant tour of the United States in 1824.

The 230-acre site includes a 1690 manor house that served as the country seat of wealthy Newburyport merchants.