On the night of July 10, 1666, Anne Bradstreet was startled from sleep by her family’s screams of “fire, fire!" While everyone escaped the blaze unharmed, their house and belongings were destroyed. Anne Bradstreet would later lament this fateful night in her poem “Verses upon the Burning of our House” — which gives voice to her grief, catalogs what was lost, and ultimately expresses her trust in God’s divine hand guiding all things. Despite the tragedy, she and her husband Simon built a new home in Andover, Massachusetts, where she would live and write poems until her death in 1672.

For centuries, historians, archaeologists, and the curious public have sought to locate the remnants of the Bradstreets’ North Andover homes. Using modern methods including dendrochronology and ground penetrating radar, while building on the work of those before us, archaeologist Donald Slater and English professor Christy Pottroff have discovered the remains of both Bradstreet houses — the burned foundation of the home destroyed by fire, as well as elements of the second replacement house, which still stands on the property today.

In the hopes of preserving the property for future generations, they have established the 501(c)(3) Bradstreet-Phillips Historic Preservation Trust with the goal of acquiring the property. Further research into the Bradstreets’ North Andover homes will reveal a multitude of complex histories and stories at the very roots of American culture. Slater and Pottroff's aim is to ensure the preservation of this site, and to embark upon further archaeological investigation together.

We invite you to join our team in this urgent pursuit—as the property is slated to be sold Spring 2024. We hope to build community around the archaeological excavation and preservation of the oldest home of an American writer–an incredibly rare site with several structures of major colonial-era importance. It’s the birthplace of American poetry, the site where Anne Bradstreet composed The Tenth Muse, published in 1650, the first book of poetry by a North American author. It’s the country home of her husband Simon Bradstreet, one of the most powerful colonial-era officials and wealthiest merchants of his generation. It was likewise the locus of colonist/Native American conflict, and was the home of servants and enslaved people. 

We have outgrown simple stories of the earliest settlers in New England–of Plymouth Rock and the first Thanksgiving. Further research into the Bradstreet Homes opens the door to a multitude of complex histories and stories–at the very roots of American culture. Not all of the stories passing through these homes are easy to tell–they are as complex and as deeply rooted as the site we are studying. We still have much to learn, more to dig, artifacts to analyze and study–to give a full account of the houses and their seventeenth-century residents. It is our work to ensure the preservation of this campus of early American homes–and to embark upon further archaeological investigation together.