Merrill-DeSilvio House
Exeter, Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Marker Inscription
Merrill-DeSilvio / House / c.1820
Erected by Exeter Historic District Commission
The Story
This plaque marks a home built around 1820, when Exeter was a settled and prospering New England town well past its colonial and Revolutionary beginnings. In the Federal era, substantial wood-frame houses like this one lined the streets of southern New Hampshire's river towns, their dignified proportions reflecting the confidence of the young republic. The hyphenated name records two families who shaped the house's long life — the Merrills who are associated with its early years and the DeSilvios of a later generation — a common New England way of remembering a home through the people who kept it.
Why it matters
Everyday houses like this are the living fabric of early America, showing how ordinary families built and passed down homes that still anchor a town's historic character two centuries later.
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Related people
- · Merrill family
- · DeSilvio family
Themes & tags
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