The Forbes House Museum is located atop Milton Hill, overlooking Boston’s skyline, the Neponset River marshes, and Boston Harbor in the distance. It sits on the traditional land of the Neponset band of the Indigenous Massachusett people, who stewarded this land until the early 1600s. By the late 1700s, this land was home to Thomas Hutchinson, the last royal governor of Massachusetts.

In 1833, Isaiah Rogers built the Greek Revival-style mansion for Mrs. Margaret Perkins Forbes, a widow, and her four daughters. The house was an engineering marvel for that era, boasting both central heating and indoor plumbing. Four generations of Forbes family members lived in the house until 1962. The current collection illustrates their philanthropic and entrepreneurial pursuits, as well as their global travels. There are beautiful examples of art, artifacts, export porcelain and furniture from China, interesting accessories and novelties from the Victorian Era, items from Captain Forbes’s incredible humanitarian mission to Ireland in 1847, and Lincoln and Civil War artifacts and memorabilia collected over 50 years by Mary Bowditch Forbes.

In 1966 the museum was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The house is surrounded by nearly seven acres of land, including tranquil garden areas, beautiful mature trees, and wide-open expanses of grass. Visitors are welcome to enjoy the property any time, dawn to dusk.