OLD GARRISON HOUSE HISTORY
 The William Damm Garrison may be seen on the campus of the Woodman Institute in Dover, NH along with the Hale House, and visited as part of that tour. This historical sketch is excerpted from the speech given at the dedication of the Institute in 1916. The garrison was moved to its current at that time and covered with a protective wooden structure.

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William Damm was born 14 October, 1653; he was the second son of Deacon John Damm, whose residence was on Dover Neck a few rods southwest of the present marked site of the second meeting house. In 1642, the land on the west side of Back River was divided, by the town, into twenty-four twenty-acre lots forty rods in width on the river bank, and extending back eighty rods into the wilderness. The town gave these lots to various distinguished citizens of the Neck; John Damm received one of the lots, No. 11, and later purchased others; in 1675 he was the owner of lots 11, 12, and 13, and had purchased land in the rear of all of these lots.
When his son William was twenty-two years old, or thereabouts, he gave him this land and helped him build this garrison, or rather a house which could be garrisoned by enclosing a large yard around it with a high stockade of logs, placed upright in the ground. Not long after that William Damm married Martha Nute, daughter of James Nute, who owned and lived on the lot next south of Damm's land. The Nute family has lived on that farm continuously to the present time (note, this account was written in 1916).

William Damm resided in this house till his death in 1718. His son William Damm inherited the farm, and resided in the house till 1740. At his death it came into possession of his sister Leah Damm, who had married Samuel Hayes. Samuel and Leah kept house there from 1740 to 1770. It then passed into possession of their granddaughter, Leah Nute, who married Joseph Drew in 1771. They commenced housekeeping there and that was their home to the end of their lives, which were long. In 1810, Joseph Drew built the mansion house in which Mrs. Rounds now lives; his son William Plaisted Drew was then 16 years old, and, when his parents passed on, he inherited the garrison and the new house, which is the finest dwelling in the Back River district, and was beautifully located on a farm that is one of the best in Dover.

William Plaisted Drew, who was born in 1794, died in 1868. The farm and houses then passed to his son Edwin Plaisted Drew, who had married, and had a son and a daughter. Mr. Drew and family resided there till 1883, when it came into the possession of Mr. Bryant Peavey, who gave it to his daughter, Ellen S. Peavey, wife of Mr. Holmes B. Rounds. Mr. and Mrs. Rounds have resided there to the present time, (that is, 1916) thirty-three years. So the garrison was in possession of William Damm and his family about ninety-five years; in possession of the Drew family 112, and in possession of Mrs. Rounds 33 years; a total of 240.

As the house had been in possession of the Drew family more than a century it came to be called the "Drew garrison "; everybody had forgotten, or never knew, that any other family had owned it; nobody knew when it was built, or who built it. As Mrs. Rounds has owned it a third of a century it would be just as proper to call it the "Rounds garrison," as to call it the "Drew garrison," hence the original and proper name has been restored to it, in its new home -- William Damm Garrison.

To Mrs. Ellen Rounds belongs the credit and the honor of restoring and preserving this very interesting, historic house -- the oldest house in Dover. In it have been visitors who were among the first settlers on Dover Neck, 283 years ago, the emigrant ancestors of quite a number of persons present here today. So, in a way, it takes us back to the very beginning of the settlement on Dover Neck. Mrs. Rounds not only kept the house from going to ruin but, as the years went by, she collected valuable historic artifacts and has arranged them in the garrison for exhibition; they are there now, in number more than 800.

In 1915, Col. Daniel Hall had an interview with Mrs. Rounds and broached the matter of having the garrison and its contents removed to the place where it now. The proposition proved to be acceptable to her; in due time she made a formal gift of it to the Woodman Institute, subject to certain conditions that were readily agreed to by the Trustees of the Institute. Then Daniel Chesley was entrusted with the task of removing the house to its new home; it took him one week; he was fortunate in having fine weather all the time the work was going on. It was moved on rolls, and one horse did the hauling.

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From a speech by John Scales
Delivered July 16, 1916 at the
Dedication of the Woodman Institute, Dover, NH

James Nute arrived in Dover, New Hampshire from Tiverton, England in 1631.  He bought a farm there and prospered.  He married a girl named Sarah, but we don't know her last name.  James Nute's tombstone is still there on the farm along with several descendants.  The farm is still owned by a Nute and is thought to be the oldest piece of land in the US in continuous possession of one family.

(Document from Dover)

Whereas sundry Mischeifes and inconveniences have befaln us, and more and greater may in regard of want of Civill Government, his Gracious Matie having hitherto settled no Order for us to our Knowledge:

 Wee whose names are underwritten being Inhabitants upon the River Piscataquack have voluntarily agreed to combine our Selves into a Body Politique that wee may the more comfortably enjoy the benefit of his Maties Lawes. And do hereby actually engage  our Selves to Submit to his Royal Maties Lawes together with all such Orders as shalbee concluded by a Major part of the Freemen of our Society , in case they bee not repugnant to the Lawes of England and administered in the behalf of his Majesty.

 And this wee have Mutually promised and concluded to do and so to continue till his Excellent Matie shall give other Order concerning us.

 In Witness wee have hereto Set our hands the two & twentieth day of October in the Sixteenth year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord Charles by the grace of God King of Great Brittain France & Ireland Defender of the Faith &c Annoq Domi: 1640.

John Follett                         Samuel Haines                   Robert Nanney

John Underhill                     William Jones                     Peter Garland

Philip Swaddow                 William Jones                     Richard Pinckhame

Steven Teddar                   Bartholmew Hunt              John Upgroufe

William Bowden                Thomas Canning                John Wastill

John Phillips                         John Heard                          Tho: Dunstar

John Hall                              Fran: Champernoon         Abel Camond

Hansed Knowles                Henry Beck                          Edward Colcord

Robert Huggins                  Henry Lahorn                       Thom. Larkin

Edward Starr                       Richard Waldern               James Nute

William Waldern                Anthony Emery                   William Storer

Richard Laham                   William Furber                    William Pomfret

Tho: Layton                          John Crosse                         Tho: Roberts

George Webb                   Bartholmew Smith            James Rawlins

This is a True Copy compared with ye Original by me         

Edw Cranfield

(Endorsed)

New England N. Hampshire

The Combination for Government by ye people at Pascataq.

1640

James Nute came to America from Tiverton, in the County of Devonshire, England. He arrived with his brother, John, in 1631 under the auspices of Captain John Mason to settle his Laconia Patent at Dover Neck, NH. He signed the Dover Combination, now in the English Archives in London, England, on 20 Oct 1640. He served on the Grand Jury in 1643 and served as Selectman of Dover in 1659. He signed his name James Newte. His wife's name was Sarah. In the "Quaker Families" it is recorded that James Nute and his wife and son were among those fined in 1663 for absenting themselves from official worship in order to be with Quakers. They were absent on 25 Sundays and in addition had committed the offense of entertaining Quakers for four hours in one day. In the "History of Strafford County" it is recorded that it was about 1650 that James Nute bought lots numbers 9 and 10 from the grantees Barthey Smeg and John Ugrove, these lots being south of lot number 11, owned by Deacon John Dam. James is buried in the family plot on the west bank of Back River (Bellamy River Wildlife Management Area) with his daughter, Martha, and her husband, William Damm. James Nute's tombstone was restored in 1968 by E.F. Nute.  It reads, James (Newte) Nute;  born 1613;   landed in Portsmouth 1631;  settled in Dover 1640;  killed by indians 1691.