Two large connected dwellings stand at the corner of Jefferson Street and Mast Lane. These are the Winn-Yeaton (pronounced yet' -en) Connected Houses, two late eighteenth century frame houses that were constructed simultaneously for two separate owners.

Although frame houses connected in this manner are rare, this type of construction made the best use of limited space in an urban environment. Portsmouth has numerous examples of the narrow-fronted, three-story brick buildings from the Federal period, such as the Shapley Town House, which made the concept of independent but joined houses truly practicable. This brick construction was required by city ordinance after three devastating Portsmouth fires in 1802, 1806 and 1813. The Winn-Yeaton House is one of the few framed examples which survived these fires.

In 1794 Thales Yeaton, a twenty-four year old trader, bought a large vacant lot on Jefferson Street. Two weeks later he sold the east half of his street frontage to Timothy Winn, his thirty year old brother-in-law who was also a trader. Almost immediately they began building two adjoining houses. The resulting connected houses probably were completed the following year.

It was at exactly this time that Yeaton had a scrape with the law. He was part of a mob which in September of 1795 demonstrated against Jay's Treaty by marching through the streets, burning effigies and smashing windows. Such bitter resentment against the treaty's seeming sell-out of American shipping rights to Great Britain is easy to understand in a seaport like Portsmouth. Yeaton was summoned to court in Exeter, but the charges were dropped and he returned home to a rousing welcome. He went on to become an established tobacco manufacturer on Buck (now State) Street in Portsmouth.

Timothy Winn, also a merchant, ran a shop near Yeaton on Mulberry, and then on Buck Street. The sign over his door read "Timothy Winn 3d" which, in British monetary parlance, earned him the nickname of "Three-penny Winn" He reportedly enjoyed the joke. Winn died at the relatively young age of thirty-nine from one of the deadliest killers of his day, consumption, now known as tuberculosis.

Yeaton and Winn must have cooperated closely in building their houses, for the massive frames correspond almost exactly and the exteriors are markedly similar. One difference was the incorporation by Winn of part of a much older building into the back of his house.

Inside, different floor plans show the individuality of two different owners. Winn House was built with a central hallway design and two chimneys. The presence of two rear stairways and two kitchens reflects the fact that it was designed for two family occupancy. Yeaton House, in contrast, displays a central chimney design and was built as a single family dwelling, yet there are also many similarities.

Both of these houses originally contained a small commercial shop in one of the two front rooms. Such shops were common in urban areas in the eighteenth century when many crafts men and tradesmen worked out of their homes. The interiors exhibit many characteristics of post revolutionary architecture such as ogee (s-ended) friezes over the fireplaces, and denticulated mantels and cornices.

Winn House contains an exhibit entitled "To Build A House." This exhibit, partially funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, shows the various steps in constructing a house of this period, and displays tools of the craftsmen who built such houses.

His name reads like the title of some old- fashioned novel "Timothy Winn or the Memoirs of a Bashful Gentleman. "He came to Portsmouth from Woburn at the close of the last century, and set up in the old museum-building on Mulberry Street what was called "a piece goods store." He was the third Timothy in his monotonous family, and in order to differentiate himself he inscribed on the sign over his shop door, "Timothy Winn, 3d," and was ever after called "Three-Penny Winn." That he enjoyed the pleasantry, and clung to his sign, goes to show that he was a person who would ripen on further acquaintance." Thomas Bailey Aldrich 1893