Possibly the oldest existing structure in Beverly, this house may have begun as a log fort built by James Westfall between 1772 and 1774, with the north section’s first floor and interior logs and brick chimney surviving from a frontier fort that predated the town’s founding. By 1840 it belonged to saddler Montgomery “Gum” Hart, who traded it in 1860 to Marteny Buckey for the Buckey Hotel up the street. During the Civil War, the house served as a hospital, and in the 19th century it also housed a tavern. It contains some of Beverly’s earliest Civil War graffiti, including the signature and date “July 14/61” left by Lewis Hooke of Rockingham County, a Confederate prisoner of war, one day after Lt. Col. Pegram surrendered his contingent in Beverly. Andrew J. Collett bought the house in 1871, and his family owned it until 1948.