We’ve created an interactive virtual tour of Webster Cottage so you can explore the building from the comfort of your own screen. The exterior is pictured above. To view each room, select the name from the list below. Interactive virtual tour instructions are listed below, as well.
How to Navigate This 360° Tour
- To put the tour in full screen, click the arrow at the bottom of the 360° photo. Then click on the ⤲ to expand the image.
- To look around, click and hold your mouse anywhere in the 360° photo and move your mouse slowly.
- To view each label, click on the white circles above each object.
- To exit full screen, press the escape button on your keyboard.
Information About the Webster Cottage Building
Webster Cottage is a one and a half story farmhouse built in 1780 by Professor Sylvanus Ripley on land given to his wife, Abigail, by her father Dartmouth’s founder, Eleazar Wheelock.
Webster Cottage’s dimensions, roof pitch, clapboards, cedar roof shingles and window lights are representative of eighteenth New England century farmhouses. It is probably much as Ripley built it except for the vestibule at the front door which was added later.
The house, which has a room layout typical of the era, holds a number of distinctive features. The entry is spacious for a farmhouse of this age with a narrow, steep yet graceful split staircase that may have originally been L-shaped to avoid a big central chimney. Upstairs, there are two rooms with curved ceilings which make them roomier and lighter than rooms in other small houses that have steeply sloped ceilings. Small square windows on the gable ends light under-the-eave closets which stretch the length of each second floor room. Fireplaces with mantels, woodwork, hardware, windows and an enclosed stairway connecting the second floor with the farm kitchen are interesting elements.
Webster Cottage originally sat on Main Street near Webster Avenue. It was moved to the east side of Main Street in 1927 and to its present site in 1967.
