In a lot of ways, a powder house was the colonial version of a self-storage facility. In the 18th century and well into the 19th century, every household needed gunpowder, but wise forebears stipulated that any amount over a pound had to be stored in a powder house, rather than a private home.
Every town had one, set well away from the populated areas, to store supplies for the battle against the British, as well as the gunpowder needed for building roads and even for hunting whales. While a number of these structures are still standing on the North Shore, few have been restored—and none with the exacting standards of
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