[This article appears in the September/October 2021 issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
Renowned for its leading role in the LGBTQ-rights movement, New England’s LGBTQ history goes way back. There’s so much to explore in our region’s rich history of individuals living their authentic lives, and these six sites—one for each New England state—offer great starting points. Please be sure to visit each website before visiting the sites in person for details on admission, hours of operation and any updates around pandemic prevention.
Massachusetts
Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House, 75 Eastern Point Blvd., Gloucester; historicnewengland.org
Perched on a rock ledge overlooking Gloucester Harbor, Beauport, the Sleeper-McCann House, is a National Historic Landmark. It was the summer home of one of America’s first professional interior designers, Henry Davis Sleeper. The site “tells the story of a gay man in the early twentieth century,” notes The History Project, which leads tours there where you can learn about Sleeper’s family and friends and hear readings from books and letters written by him and his social circle. Check The History Project’s website (historyproject.org) to see if there might be an upcoming tour this fall, or visit this picturesque retreat on your own.
Rhode Island
Rough Point, 680 Bellevue Ave., Newport; newportrestoration.org/roughpoint
It’s a bit lurid, but you can visit the site where Doris Duke, once the richest woman in America, allegedly, in a jealous rage, ran over her handsome, younger gay friend Eduardo Tirella, an emerging Hollywood designer, outside the gates of her Newport mansion back in 1966. You can read all about this story of power sweeping an inconvenient investigation under the proverbial rug in Vanity Fair–writer Peter Lance’s recent “Homicide at Rough Point.” Or you can simply wander through the Rough Point mansion, where Tirella curated art projects for Duke. Rough Point, of course, offers the visitor much more as well, including public art performances and sweeping seascapes beyond the extensive, Fredrick Law Olmstead–designed grounds. It’s one of the best places to soak up Newport’s rich history, with or without a few lurid details.
Connecticut
Palmer-Warner House, 307 Town St., East Haddam; ctlandmarks.org
Visit the state’s first historic site focused primarily on LGBTQ history. Some 200 years after its construction, Connecticut Landmarks opened to public tours this former home of preservation architect Frederic Palmer and his longtime partner Howard Metzger, who lived there from 1945 to 1971. Visitors glimpse into the lived experiences of a gay couple in the mid-20th century. Beyond the unassuming exterior, you’ll find all the men’s possessions plus diaries, love letters and other correspondence that capture the reality of same-sex love in an era of secrecy.
Maine
Frances Perkins Center & Homestead, 170A Main St., Damariscotta; francesperkinscenter.org
Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary—and although it wasn’t widely known at the time, the first LGBT cabinet secretary—is credited as the architect of the New Deal. In 2020, the Center purchased from Perkins’s grandson, Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, the 57-acre Perkins Homestead, designated a National Historic Landmark in 2014, in nearby Newcastle. After completing renovations and repairs, the homestead opened to the public as an educational and cultural center this past spring.
New Hampshire
Stories of Portsmouth’s LGBTQ+ Community, Portsmouth; portsmouthhistory.org/walking-tours
On the second Sunday of each month, Seacoast LGBT History Project founder Tom Kaufhold has been leading “Gay Old Times,” a walking tour of the hidden history of LGBT clubs, organizations and people who impacted the seacoast of New Hampshire. Kaufhold takes his tour-goers through the city of Portsmouth on this engaging 75-minute tour, passing by many beautiful historic sites and sharing some important facts about Portsmouth LGBT people, places and events. (For more on the Seacoast LGBT History Project, visit their Facebook page.)
Vermont
Gravesite and Archives of Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant, Weybridge Hill Cemetery, 2479 Weybridge Rd., Addison; Henry Sheldon Museum, 1 Park St., Middlebury; henrysheldonmuseum.org
In 2019, an early American double silhouette traveled to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC from its home at the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury. The portrait, framed in silk and braids of hair, depicts the early same-sex couple Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant from Weybridge, whose relationship lasted 44 years. It was created around 1810. You can learn more about this couple in “Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America,” by Rachel Hope Cleves, who based the book on the couple’s letters, poems, diaries, and business records in the Sheldon Museum’s archives. Better yet, visit the museum in person. You can also go see their gravesite, where they share a single gravestone, in the Weybridge Hill Cemetery, about a 5-minute drive from the museum.
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