Paine House Museum

The Paine House was the site of Coventry's first town meeting in 1741, and the earliest parts of the building likely date back to the 1690s in connection with a sawmill built by Samuel Bennett. In the 1780s the house was known as the Brayton Tavern, and in the mid-19th century it was purchased by the Paine family, who owned it for 87 years. In 1953, Zilpha Foster bequeathed the Paine House to the Western Rhode Island Civic Historical Society (WRICHS), and the house was added to the National Historic Register in 1974. Currently the WRICHS stores its collections and archives at the Paine House, which operates as a house museum in the spring, summer and autumn.