Founded in 1763 and settled in a picturesque valley on the banks of the Saxton’s River, Grafton was

a thriving village on the post road between Boston and Albany.  By 1830, Grafton was also a bustling

commercial center, home to many farms, sawmills, tanneries, gristmills, sheep farms, woolen mills,

and one of the nation’s largest soapstone quarries. 

The Parsonage was built circa 1800, about the same time that the Old Tavern opened as the prosperous

center of the town.  The Tavern hosted such prominent guests as Daniel Webster, Oliver Wendell Holmes,

Ulysses S. Grant, and Rudyard Kipling, testimony to the notoriety of Grafton in the nineteenth century. 

In 1845, the Parsonage was given to the Baptist Church, currently known as the “White Church,” as a

residence for their ministers.  The house belonged to the Church across the street until 1998, when the

combined Congregational and Baptist congregations sold the Parsonage to the present owners.  More than

two hundred years after it was built, the Parsonage is once again a private residence, and having undergone

a complete renovation, takes its place among the pristine collection of restored homes that comprise

Grafton’s historic and often-photographed Main Street.