Ammi Culver, who owned a brickyard on the banks of the Quinnipiac River, built the house at 290 Quinnipiac Avenue in North Haven in 1857. After his death in 1865, his widow Delia lived their with her children, Benjamin and Martha, and Samuel Sackett, her second husband. Martha Culver (1864-1926) married Frank Smith, but soon divorced him. After traveling for some years, she lived the rest of her life in her old family home in North Haven. She later willed her house and land to the the town, stipulating that the property be used as a community gathering place that would include a library and recreational fields. She had been a member of the Friday Afternoon Club, which had started a private library in 1912. First located in the vestibule of the Baptist Church, it moved to the Culver house in 1927 and continued in operation by the Friday Afternoon Club until 1962 and thereafter by the town as the Montowese branch of the North Haven Public Library until 1978, when library operations were consolidated at the main town library. Today Martha Culver Memorial is preserved by the North Haven Historical Society as a house museum and also contains the Brockett collection of early farm tools and equipment.
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