About Us
Brackett Point Estate is family-owned 100-acre estate located in southern New Hampshire. Established directly on Great Bay in 1676, Brackett Point has been an apple farm, summer cottages, and now year-round homes rented by the Bracketts to a select number of guests. Over the last 40 years, it has been transformed into a farm estate that has many conveniences. Our estate retains the rustic charm of its day, while simultaneously offering modern comfort.
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HISTORY
Home of Thomas J. Brackett I - 1914
Chicken farm on Brackett Point - 1925
#4 (left) and #5 (right) - July 1989
Home of Thomas J. Brackett I - 1914
The Bracketts love of Great Bay begins in 1630 with the arrival of Anthony Brackett and Susanna Drake to Portsmouth, New Hampshire as property stewards for John Mason. Their son Thomas Brackett settled in Portland, Maine with Mary Mitton, granddaughter of founder George Cleeve. Thomas and Mary carved out homesteads in the frontier economy of fish, farm, and masts for the Royal Navy.
Thomas and Mary's son, Lieutenant Joshua Brackett, settled in Greenland with relatives following his family's massacre during King Phillip's War. Joshua and his wife, Mary Weeks, purchased adjoining farms around Great Bay and throughout the Piscataqua basin for their children. As a neighbor wrote:
These lands around the bay were far the best in town,
And here the prudent Bracketts came and settled down.
Ona Judge, George Washington's fugitive slave, escaped to Greenland and was sheltered by James "The Peacemaker" Brackett and his wife Martha Cate. Ona and her children lived out the rest of their lives in freedom.
The Bracketts' succeeding generations were an embroidery of notable accomplishments and families - the Pickerings, Veaseys, Lewis, Brownells, and Spauldings.
In 1929, at the beginning of the Great Depression, Thomas J. Brackett built a series of cabins along the bay to serve as affordable seasonal housing. In the era of prosperity following World War II, his son John and wife Helen Haigh modernized the cabins into seaside vacation cottages. They built a wonderful family vacation community, complete with a restaurant, theater, dance hall, swimming, boating, hayrides, cook-outs, and sports events.
The present owners, Thomas J. Brackett III and Alison Deschenes LaPage, have adapted the summer cottages into a beautiful village of year-round homes with kayaking and canoeing at the dock, miles of walking and ski paths, a chapel, and the 1676 Barn restored as an event venue. Wildlife and waterfowl abound for a life of restful enjoyment on the shores of Great Bay, preserving the best of the past while embracing the future.
In its history, Brackett's Point has never stopped growing. Its strength lies in the community of people who have called it home. We hope you will join us as we begin our 5th century of heritage together, celebrating the continuing beauties of this unique Great Bay community.