about us

For over 100 years, the Sargent House was the home of sea merchants, patriots and community leaders. A fine example of high-style Georgian domestic architecture, the house was built in 1782 for Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), a philosopher, writer and an early advocate of women's equality.

Today, the Sargent House Museum seeks to engage the public in the life, times, writings, and home of Judith Sargent Murray, a pioneering advocate of women’s education and equality. Moreover, the Sargent House Museum seeks to empower women and men, young and old, to value women’s equality, education and role in the community  for the benefit of the common good.

Visitors will learn the history of Judith as well as her relationship to Reverend John Murray, a founding member of the Universalist church. In addition, visitors will be able to explore a small collection of original works by the great portrait painter, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), a descendant of the Sargent family, who loved the house and its ties to Post-Revolutionary Gloucester.