The Kingsley House is a historic First Period house at 108 Davis Street in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. The oldest portion of this house is estimated to have been built around 1680, making it the oldest structure in Rehoboth. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, where it is listed at 96 Davis Street
The east portion of the house may have originally been a one-room, two-story “stone ender” with a subsequent one room addition to the west. “The builder appears to have been John Kinglsey, one of the first Rehoboth proprietors. His pleading account dated 1676 is the only surviving written record of the terror and decimation brought to the first Rehoboth settlement by King Philip’s War.” [Bus Tour of Historic Rehoboth Homes, Carpenter Museum]
Click on the map below for a Google map of the house location.
Directions: Travel north on Route 136 to its end and turn left on Davis Street.
Kingsley House is just after Meadowlark Drive. Parking is limited along Davis Street.
The oldest two-room portion of the post and beam Wheeler-Ingalls House (above). a 2-1/2 story saltbox house at 51 Summer Street, may have been built before 1710 by Samuel Millard; its left side exhibits a number of First Period construction techniques. A lean-to consisting of a kitchen, pantry and bedroom was added later to the main house, making it a saltbox. In 1760 it was purchased by Dr. John Wheeler, and it was in the Ingalls family at the time of the American Revolutionary War. It is one of the least-altered houses of the period in Rehoboth.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler%E2%80%93Ingalls_House]
Gray Graffam, in a 1976 school-related final project, states that “the beaming is consistancy [sic] sawn oak with flat chamfer; the posts are all two-story ‘gunstock’ posts; the four summer beams area lengthwise-chimney girt to end girt; the framing of the roof is entirely common rafters without purlins and collar beams; and all the walls are vertically boarded. These consistencies give evidence that this portion of the house was constructed as one unit.”
Click here for a description of the house in a March 18, 1999 Sun Chronicle article by Janette Sears.
Click here for the National Historic Register application for this house.
The Nathan Bliss House (above, left) at 13 Locust Avenue, just south of the Carpenter Museum in the Village, was built as a single structure dating back to 1650. The center section of the present structure has been traced back in Bristol County deeds to 1732.
The Abiah Bliss House (above, right) at 154 Agricultural Avenue has a complex construction history, which may begin as early as 1666, making it one of the oldest houses in the region. Architectural evidence suggests it was built before 1740, so it is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the Rehoboth area.
Click here for the Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System page and a link to the scanned record cover sheet on this house.
