Michael Dell’Orto and Jackie Kahle were looking for a larger home in a more rural area in 1985, and with no pressing reason to move, they were able to spend their time finding the perfect fit.

It came, when they discovered the Burton-Putnam House in the original Wilton Center, aptly called Wilton Center Road.

“There was something about it that spoke to me,” Dell’Orto said. He first toured the home on his own, and said he had to immediately call his wife to tell her to come look at it – believing he had found their home.

One of the first things he did when they purchased the home was go to the library to get a card, Dell’Orto said. And while he was there, he inquired whether there was any history associated with the house. He was directed upstairs to the Historical Society, and embarked on more than six months of research digging into the deed history of the house and trying to determine its lineage.

The exact date the house was built is not known, but assessments place it in circa 1770, though as with many homes of that period, it has been added onto significantly since them -- at least once in the 1800s and two sections by Dell’Orto and Kahle themselves, who took care to try to match the 1800s additions, with exposed wood-beam ceilings.

The early date of the home places it as being built not long after the town’s founding in 1739. Research done by Dell’Orto is murky as to the earliest transfers of the property, but one of the earliest known families to live in the home was the Burtons, circa 1810 or earlier. The property belonged to Capt. John Burton by 1810, though he possibly lived in it earlier than that, caretaking the property for his father, Deacon John Burton.

Capt. John Burton belonged to one of the early settling families of Wilton. In 1793, he moved to Andover, Vt., where he lived for several years before returning to Wilton in 1808. While it is known that Captain Burton lived in the house, the deed conveying the property to him has been lost to time, or was never filed in the first place. It is possible that the property was owned by Deacon Burton, from as early on as its original building.

The property remained in the Burton family through 1856, left by Captain Burton to his second wife, Susannah, until she sold it shortly before her death to Dorcas Putnam, wife of Amos Putnam. Both Amos and Dorcas, who were third cousins, were descended directly from Jacob Putnam, considered to be the first permanent settler in Wilton.

After Dorcas’ death in 1887, Amos moved to Nashua, and the house passed to their son, William, who sold it in 1890 to his father-in-law, Luther Tarbell, who owned a farm and traded in real estate. Within the year, the property was sold to Michael McCarthy (sometimes spelled McCarty) who leased it to tenants. The McCarthys kept the house for 15 years, selling it in 1905 to John Edward Devlin and Mary Devlin, who already owned a house on the southeast corner of the Wilton Center Road and Isaac Frye Highway intersection.

In 1914, Charlie Peters, who was gardener and caretaker for the Devlins, and his wife moved into the house as tenants. The Peterses continued to live in the house following the death of the Devlins, who left the house wo their daughter, Marjory Standish Devlin Moors.

The Peterses kept chickens, a pig and cows, and raised vegetables both on his land and for the Moorses. When Marjorie Moors died, she left a life tenure in the house to the Peterses, at which time, the house would revert to her cousin, Donald Scott. By that time, the Peterses had been in residence there for over 50 years, and the home was known as “the Peters’ place.”

In the 13 years from the death of the Peters to the purchase of the home by Dell’Orto and Kahle, the home went through a quick succession of owners, having a total of four owners.

Dell’Orto said he loves the historic aspect of the home.

“It talks to me all the time,” he said. “There were people living in this house when Washington was elected president. There were people living in this house during the Civil War.”

When the Wilton Center Meeting House burned, people on scene ran to Amos Putnam to see if he had a key to the alternate entrance of the building, not wanting to enter under the bell tower where the fire was burning.

“There were people here, in this house, that very night, who saw that fire,” Dell’Orto said.

And Dell’Orto said it’s not just the history that he loves, but the contemporary people who make up the Wilton center today. When he and Kahle first moved into the house, they were greeted that December by a group of carolers, a tradition he’d never experienced living in the city. Several took the time to welcome them to the neighborhood, and offered help if there was ever a need.

“It is a special community, full of wonderful people. Who wouldn't want to live in a place like this?” Dell’Orto said.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertrascript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.