The Bird Homestead offers a rare glimpse into 19th century life on a small family farmstead in a thriving maritime village. This Greek Revival house, built about 1835, survives intact along with several farm buildings, and its long ownership by one family for more than 150 years is matched by the importance of the people who lived there. Three scientists, Henry Bird and his sons Roland and Junius, were born, raised, and spent much of their lives there, making significant discoveries in entomology, paleontology, and archaeology. Henry's daughter Alice was a talented nature illustrator, and Doris became the much-loved children's librarian at the Rye Free Reading Room for 42 years. The Rye Meeting House has stood on Milton Road since 1867, when a Christ's Church vestryman bought the building and moved it there. Earlier in the 19th century it had been a schoolhouse, then it became Grace Chapel, serving as Christ's Church's outreach mission to the neighborhood. At about the same time, the Methodist Church established another chapel at 626 Milton Road, now a private home. A small library was added to Grace Chapel in 1875, where Doris Bird later received her first training as a librarian. In 1959 the Religious Society of Friends bought the chapel and used it as a Quaker Meeting House. Today both buildings are owned by Rye City, operated by the Bird Homestead Preservation Trust, and listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places.