Three centuries, one family
The Coffin House story follows one of Newbury’s founding families through 1929. See two early back-to-back kitchens where the extended family cooked meals. Coffin House has wallpaper dating to 1815, one of the only surviving butteries in New England, and a fine collection of local furniture and objects. The house is furnished with items passed down in the family, and much of the interior remains unchanged since the nineteenth century.
Location: 14 High Street, Newbury, Mass. 978-462-2634 Hours of Operation:
- June 1 to October 15, first and third Saturdays, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
- All group tours must be scheduled by appointment. In addition to open days, group tours may be scheduled at times the museum is closed to the public.
Specialty Tours
We are happy to work with you to customize your experience.
- Guided House Tour: Enjoy an approximately one-hour guided tour; please allow one and a half hours for your visit.
- Around the Green: Tour Coffin House, the 1670 Swett-Ilsley House, and the First Parish Church burying ground. Take a walking tour around the “trayning field” where the town moved in the 1640s.
- Cradle to Grave: Spend an afternoon getting to know the Coffin family and their neighbors in their home and in their final resting place. Enjoy a special evening tour of Coffin House and then visit its residents and townsfolk across the street in the First Parish Burying Ground. Hear true tales of murder, heroism, and heartbreak from Newbury’s storied past.
- Early Newbury Century Excursion Tour: See three seventeenth-century houses in one day. Start at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm, a 1690 manor house where wealthy Newburyport merchants and tenant farmers lived and farmed the land through seven generations. Enjoy lunch at the farm on picnic tables next to our lovely farm animals. Next, go up the street to Coffin House (1678) to experience how one family lived for three centuries. Lastly, a few houses down, Swett-Ilsley House (c. 1670) is an example of a combined commercial and home site, and was once a seventeenth-century tavern and an early twentieth-century tea house.
Tour Details
- Up to 15 visitors can tour the house with each guide; generally we can accommodate up to 30 visitors in the house in one hour. Accommodations can be made for larger groups.
- Please note that the tour requires a considerable amount of standing and climbing stairs. If members of your group need special assistance, please let the museum know in advance.
Cost:
- Guided House Tour: $10 per adult for groups of 8 or more visitors. Additional rates apply for all other tours. Prices subject to change.
- Receptive tour operator rates available upon request.
- The tour leader and bus driver are welcome to a complimentary tour with the group.
- A non-refundable deposit based on your maximum number is due upon booking. The outstanding balance must be paid when the group arrives on-site for the tour.
- Please call two weeks in advance to confirm a guaranteed number of visitors.
Nearby Attractions:
- Historic Newburyport offers a wide variety of restaurants, shops, historic sites, museums, and attractions including the Museum of Old Newbury, Custom House Maritime Museum, Plum Island, and Maudslay State Park. There are also a number of shops, restaurants, and a brewery in nearby Ipswich.
- Visit other Historic New England properties nearby. Package discounts available.
- Rocky Hill Meeting House, Amesbury – One of the best preserved examples of an original eighteenth-century meeting house interior.
- Cogswell’s Grant, Essex – A mecca for lovers of American folk art, Cogswell’s Grant was the summer home of renowned collectors Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little.
Amenities:
- Street parking is available in front of Coffin House. Plenty of on-site parking is available half a mile down the road at Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm.
Please Remember
- Food and drink are prohibited in the museum.
- Touching, leaning, or sitting on the objects is prohibited.
- Cell phones should be silenced prior to your tour.
- Your group will stay with the tour guide for the entire tour.
Book Now
