American Independence Museum
The American Independence Museum is a historic house museum located in Exeter, New Hampshire. Its 1-acre campus includes two buildings: the Ladd-Gilman House, a registered National Historic Landmark built in 1721 by Nathaniel Ladd, and the Folsom Tavern, built in 1775 by Colonel Samuel Folsom. The museum was opened in 1991 after a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence known as a Dunlap Broadside was found in the Ladd-Gilman house, 200 years after its arrival in Exeter. It is the centerpiece of the museum’s collection. The museum’s mission is “Connecting America’s Revolutionary past with the present.
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Portsmouth Athenaeum
Membership libraries were first created in the 18th century for the mutual edification of their members and to elevate the educational resources available in the community. The name “Athenæum” was used by a number of societies established during the nineteenth century to describe institutions with broader aims than just a library. While there were once hundreds of membership libraries across America, there are now fewer than twenty left.
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