Thorn-Dodge House (Old Chappaqua Historic District)

The Thorn-Dodge House is located on scenic Quaker Road in the Old Chappaqua Historic District in the town of New Castle in Westchester County, New York. It was built ca.1765 and was the residence of Elnathan Thorn, an early Chappaqua settler, whose name and property appear on an American Revolution-era map made for George Washington. The house was purchased by Henry and Rebecca Dodge in 1848. The Dodge family was responsible for moving the original Thorn house farther away from the road, and enlarging it to its current size. The Thorn-Dodge House remains a well maintained eighteenth century private dwelling. The Old Chappaqua Historic District, including the Thorn-Dodge House, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

The area along Quaker Road (once named “Pines Bridge Road”) was originally settled by members of the Society of Friends around the year 1730. These early residents of what was then referred to as “Shapequaw” and is now known today “Chappaqua.” The Quakers moved across the mainland of New York (Westchester County) from Long Island where they had “established a Meeting” dating back to 1645. Their first Quaker Meeting House in Chappaqua was originally constructed in 1753.

The Thorn-Dodge House is less than a half mile south of the Quaker Meeting House on Quaker Road in the Chappaqua Historic District. The oldest part of the house, towards the rear, was built ca.1765 and was the residence of Elnathan Thorn, whose name and property appear on a map of this area that was made for George Washington during the American Revolution. When Thorn resided in the house, it was actually situated even closer to the road, by a well. It remained in this location during the ownership of the Underhill family, who purchased the property from Martha, Elnathan Thorn’s widow in 1789. It was a small, simple structure when the Purdy family owned it next.

Henry and Rebecca Dodge purchased the home from the Purdy family in 1848. They moved the original part of the house away from the street to its current location and added a new front section. This was completed in 1852 and turned the home into a five bay by two bay house. The house remained a wood-frame dwelling sheathed by clapboards and covered by a gable roof. Subsequent owners include Charles Dodge, who was son of Henry and Rebecca, as well as James Dodge, who was Charles’ son and who married Mabel Dodge in 1903. The following year in 1904, a tornado destroyed all of the outbuildings, as well as other houses on Quaker Road. Mabel Dodge gave birth to her daughter, Marjorie, the day after the tornado. The Thorn-Dodge House is included in the Old Chappaqua Historic District, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

1. Chappaqua Historical Society, Town of New Castle. Prepared by Dorothy Whitney Gruber in collaboration with Isabelle A. Haight. The Early Quaker Hamlet of Old Chappaqua: Its Houses, Its People, Its Way of Life. Chappaqua, NY. The Chappaqua Historical Society. 1973.
2. Chappaqua History Committee and Gray Williams. New Castle: Chappaqua and Millwood. “Images of America” series. Charleston, SC: Acadia Publishing, 2006.
3. “Old Chappaqua Historic District #74001319.” National Register of Historic Places. United States Department of the Interior/National Park Service. 1974. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75323143 
4. Williams, Gray. Picturing Our Past: National Register Sites in Westchester County. Westchester County Historical Society. 2003.