Three Chimneys Inn

One of the oldest inns in America, built in 1649 by Valentine Hill along the Oyster River in Durham.

Hannah Hill was married in 1659, around the age of twenty, and then she vanishes from the historical record entirely. No document records her death, its cause, or its date. What local tradition preserves is that she drowned in the Oyster River, which runs directly behind the house her father built, and that she has been making her displeasure known inside that house for more than three and a half centuries. The Three Chimneys Inn is the oldest standing structure in Durham, New Hampshire, and one of the oldest surviving buildings in the state. It was built in 1649 by Valentine Hill, whom historians describe as 'New England's leading seventeenth century entrepreneur.' On the twenty-ninth day of the ninth month of 1649, Hill and Thomas Beard were granted the falls of Oyster River to establish a sawmill, and Hill constructed the original homestead, much of it ferried upriver by gundalo, a flat-bottomed boat used on New Hampshire's tidal rivers. The house was single-story with a basement and a combined living area and kitchen. In 1699, Nathaniel Hill, Valentine's son and heir, added a second story. The house survived the Raid on Oyster River of July 18, 1694, one of the bloodiest events of King William's War. A combined force of Abenaki, Maliseet, and French fighters attacked the English settlement at Durham, killing 104 inhabitants and taking 27 captive. Half the dwellings in the settlement, including several garrisons, were burned to the ground. The Hill homestead was one of the few structures that endured, and after the attack, Nathaniel Hill equipped it with 'Indian Shutters' for protection. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Durham's Historic District. Hannah's ghost is not malevolent, but she is extraordinarily particular. The prevailing theory among staff and paranormal investigators is that Hannah despises anything new, and she reserves a special hostility for electronic devices. Every time a new piece of equipment is introduced to the inn, whether a computer system, a television, or a kitchen appliance, the staff reports an agonizing period of malfunctions, glitches, and breakdowns that defy technical explanation. Objects go missing and reappear in unexpected locations. Doors lock themselves. Noises emanate from rooms that are verified to be empty. Levitating glassware has been reported in the tavern area, glasses rising from tables and hovering momentarily before being set gently back down, as if examined and found wanting. FrightFind, the paranormal travel directory, has profiled the Three Chimneys Inn as one of New Hampshire's premier haunted destinations. The UNH student newspaper, The New Hampshire, published a detailed investigation of the inn's paranormal claims. Haunted Rooms America includes it among the most haunted places in the state. Despite all the reported phenomena, no visitor or employee has ever described Hannah's behavior as harmful. She seems less interested in terrorizing the living than in expressing her displeasure with modernity in the only house she has ever known, a house that has stood on the banks of the Oyster River for 377 years and shows no sign of surrendering to the present.