The Chase Homestead, Buxton

RHR Smith & Company is proud to help celebrate and preserve the history of Buxton, Maine.

Our office is located in a house originally built by Benjamin Toppin Chase sometime around the turn of the 19th Century. After Mr. Chase’s marriage to Miss Submit Woodman in 1815, the house was not only their home, but also a store and a tavern. Since the house was located on the stage coach line between New Hampshire and Portland, the house also provided rest and supplies for the stage coaches.

The Chase Tavern is even more remarkable because of the wall mural in the tavern painted in the early 1830s by the famous Rufus Porter.

In the early 1870’s the house became the headquarters for the Buxton and Hollis Agricultural Society’s annual fairs which were held in the nearby park. The ballroom and dining area in the house were used to entertain fair goers.

In 1908, the property was purchased by A.L.T. Cummings, City Clerk of Portland, as a summer home. He renovated the home and renamed it “Crossways”. The house was used to entertain the political and social elite from Portland and Buxton.

The home was purchased by Ronald H.R. Smith in 2000, renovated, and became the Buxton Professional Center, and the home office of RHR Smith & Company, Certified Public Accountants. Many of the original features of the house were retained, and the Rufus Porter mural was restored.

We hope the home remains a source of community pride for another century or more.

Our thanks to the Buxton Historical Society.