Picture Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1781, when naval hero John Paul Jones rented a room in this house. This 2½-story wood-frame dwelling, built in 1758 by master housewright Hopestill Cheswell for Captain Gregory Purcell, later became a boarding house where history brushed close to everyday life. Captain Purcell and his wife Sarah owned the house until his death in 1776; afterwards Mrs. Purcell took in boarders until her death in 1783.
It was during that boarding-house period that American Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones rented a room here in 1781–1782 while supervising construction of the ship America. The house is now a historic house museum and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1972. Note the gambrel roof and the two chimneys projecting from the interior, and the two-story addition to the northeast added in the early 19th century.
The five-bay main facade still centers on a doorway topped by a segmented feature that hints at its 18th-century origins. Picture Captain Purcell's boarders coming and going through the 1780s, then notice the gambrel roof, twin chimneys, and northeast addition that still frame this house.