It wasn't the history of 24 S. Spring St. that captured Kathryn Askins's heart. When a For Sale sign set her pining for the place 16 years ago, she didn't know Ralph Waldo Emerson had married in the front parlor. Or that the home was moved from its original spot on Main Street around 1816 to make way for the State House. Or that Daniel Webster considered it a gathering spot for intellectual and civilized company.

Askins just loved the house, its 54 doors, 11 fireplaces, crown molding and grand staircase. Or, rather, what the house could become.

Built in 1792, the former mansion had been vacant for three years except for the resident pigeons and squirrels when Richard and Kathryn Askins bought it in 1993. It needed a new roof and wiring. A toilet was coming through the ceiling. The servants' quarters had no heat. Trees were beginning to swallow the front.

"The Realtor tried to talk us out of buying this house," Kathryn said.

The couple's children were grown and they were in their late 40s at the time. It's Concord's good fortune the Realtor was not persuasive.

With years of work and money, the Askinses have not only reclaimed this grand old house, but they've also rediscovered an exciting time in Concord's history. One former owner in particular, Col. William Kent, was at the center of Concord life in the early 1800s - about the time the New Hampshire Patriot, predecessor to the Concord Monitor, began publication. Kent started the city's first bank and hosted visiting dignitaries like President James Monroe and Marquis de Lafayette, when Lafayette visited New Hampshire in 1825. After Lafayette's death, Kent named Fayette Street in honor of the marquis.

"We consider ourselves caretakers of this house," said Kathryn. "Finding out the house's history has made me love it even more. And I hope the next people who own it have a real feeling for this house."

The next owners will at least know more of the story than the Askinses did. Kathryn has collected photographs, historical anecdotes and writings from past owners into albums that will stay with the house when she and her husband move on. The collection includes a final letter to Kent from his first wife, written a month before she died in 1820.

The restoration and research have been natural projects for Kathryn. For one thing, her high school year book (circa 1966) predicted she would restore a mansion. And she's always loved history, so much that she will earn her doctorate in American history this May from the University of New Hampshire.

A mobile home

The first thing to know about the South Spring Street house is that it's been moved - twice.

It initially sat on the corner of Main and Park streets, on what is now part of the State House plaza. Its first owner, Capt. Peter Robertson, ran a local bakery and was well-known for his "Lection cakes," gingerbread treats enjoyed on Election Day, according to Grace Amsden's A Capital for New Hampshire.

Robertson owned the home briefly before he sold it to Kent. When the city selected Main Street for the State House site around 1815, (partly at Kent's urging) Kent moved the home to Pleasant Street.

There it sat until about 1860, when the South Congregational Church wanted the Pleasant Street spot for its new building. Then-owner Elisha Morrill, a local butcher and farmer who with his wife Eleanor raised 12 children in the eight-plus bedroom house, moved the building again, to its current location on South Spring Street.

Kent didn't own the house the longest - that was William A. Stone and his son, between 1874 and 1943 - but the property has always been most associated with Kent and his family because they were the first to make the place a destination. Today, a small sign hangs outside the front door declaring the property "The Kent House, 1792." (next page »)