After Whittier's death in 1892, James Carleton bought the farm. Carleton, a boyhood friend of the poet and a former mayor of Haverhill, donated the property to the Haverhill Whittier Club. It was officially opened in 1893, a year after the poet's death. Today, it functions as a hands-on museum dedicated to the poet's memory; visitors are allowed to sit in chairs actually used by the family, and the guest register sits on the desk built in 1786 for the poet's great grandfather.