Tucked away on one of the many dirt roads winding around the base of Mount Monadnock, Archie and Nina MacIntyre’s antique Cape house has an unusual name and a long and storied history, including ties to the founding of Dublin. 

“It’s called Clothespin Farm because they used to mill clothespins at the mill just down the road,” Nina MacIntyre explained on a tour of the property. “The mill shut down when the Civil War came around.”

The mill, originally a grist and sawmill, was built on Stanley Brook in 1768 by William Twitchell, who was the third European settler in Dublin. According to the National Register of Historic Places, the Twitchell Mill was the second mill built in Dublin, after a mill built by Eli Morse. 

Remnants of the foundation of the Twitchell Mill can still be seen among the stones and ledge lining Stanley Brook, which flows out of Thorndike Pond down the valley to Mud Pond. 

According to the history of Dublin, the original portion of the MacIntyres’ home was built in 1812 by Samuel Morse, who was descended from Capt. Thomas Morse, the first English settler in Dublin. Thomas Morse’s ancestor, Samuel Morse, immigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1635. 

Samuel Morse built his home in a sheltered spot on the south side of the brook.  At the time, the house and the mill were separate properties. In 1936, the Morse house was moved from its original location to its current site on the hill facing Mount Monadnock. 

“We have the historic photos which document how they moved the house up to the top of the hill in 1936,” Nina MacIntyre said. “You can see in the pictures how the crew slid railroad ties under the old cottage to slide it off its original foundation. Then they used a turnstile, pulled by a horse, to move the house one rope length at a time until they got it up to the top of the hill! You can see Monadnock in the old photos. The whole hillside was clear then and was used to graze cattle.”

After the house was moved to the top of the hill, the new owners added a large addition, and it was used as summer home for decades. When the MacIntyres renovated the property in 2017, they kept the original Cape house and replaced the newer addition.

“We kept the 1812 part and knocked down the 1936 part,” Nina MacIntyre said. 

The MacIntyres, who have deep ties to Dublin, worked with architect Sheldon Pennoyer to design an addition to the house that would be in keeping with the historic scale and aesthetic of the home. Landscape designer Laura Trowbridge created the gardens.

Nina, who has a background in design, was fully involved in the creation of the new addition.

“We tried to be as true as we could to the site, and to the original house,” she said. “We just love the history of the house and the property. There is so much history of parts of the house being reused and recycled, and we wanted to continue that tradition.”

As tribute to the history of both the house and the mill, the MacIntryes incorporated three original millstones from the Twitchell Mill into their landscaping. One millstone is now a doorstep to the hallway between the original part of the house and the new addition, while one is the focal point of the patio and the third welcomes visitors to the red barn just across from the house. 

Nina MacIntyre  pointed out stray marks on the millstone incorporated into the entryway to the red barn, just across the circular driveway from the house.

“According to the story in the Dublin history book, a boy named Amos Twitchell, who was the son of Samuel Twitchell, was studying to become a doctor, and sometimes he would get so wrapped up in his studies, he would stop paying attention to the millstone, and the grain would run out and the stone would start to get worn down. Apparently that’s what these marks are,” Nina MacIntyre said.

The studious Amos Twitchell graduated from Dartmouth and became a surgeon. He later served in the state Legislature, and founded the Dublin library. 

Walking through the red barn, Nina MacIntrye pointed out the unusually wide floorboards and a long trestle table. She said the most-recent owners, the Harris family, were ardent conservationists who repurposed as much wood and materials as they could.

“These big pine boards were from blow-downs from the hurricane of 1938,” she explained. “This table is a single board from a chestnut tree, which was lost, like so many others in the region, during that hurricane. The framing of this barn, which was built in 1939, was created from an older barn frame moved to the site.  You can see the original barn’s mortise and tenon joints from its original structure.” 

The MacIntryes continued the tradition of repurposing older material inside the house. 

“We love that that is the tradition of the house, and we salvaged and reused much as we could when we renovated. We used some of the old wood paneling to make some of the beds; there are bits of the older structures throughout the house,” Nina MacIntyre said. “It’s just a really special place, and we’re really fortunate to be here in the beautiful spot.”