Knowlton Tenement at 59 Main Street

This rental property is one-half of a house built in 1851 on the site of today’s LSPA building. The property was owned in 1889 by Moses Knowlton who, wanting a larger home, decided to divide the original house and move the sections to alternate corners of his property to be used as tenements. This was a wise move at a time when there was a serious shortage of housing for factory workers in the area.

This rental property is one-half of a house that was built in 1851 by Americus Sargent on land he purchased along the harbor shore near the dam. Americus worked in the threshing machine shop. In 1857 William Hopkins bought the house and added a shop where he made leather wallets. He sold the house three years later to Josiah Turner, one of Sunapee's most important industrialists who lived here until 1870. Turner sold the property to Abiather Young, a Sunapee manufacturer of clothes pins. In 1878 Young’s estate sold the house at auction to Charles Knowlton, an investor in the Sunapee Lake Steamboat Company.

In 1886 Charles sold the Hopkins house to his sister-in-law, Lucy Knowlton. Her husband, Moses, wanted to build a larger house on the property overlooking the harbor. Rather than demolish the Hopkins house, he hired Eben Batchelder to divide it into two sections and move each half onto new stone foundations built at each corner of his lot. This section was moved here in 1889, roofed with slate, and expanded with two wings which made it an attractive addition to the street. Once completed, each half of the Hopkins house became a tenement and was immediately occupied due to the severe housing shortage. 

For a deeper look into the stories of all that has happened here over the years, check with the Sunapee Historic Society.  Look for Sunapee's Historic Buildings & Places Vol. 1.

Barbara Bache Chalmers, Sunapee's Historic Buildings & Places Vol. 1 (Sunapee Historical Society, 1918 & 1919).