The Abbot-Spalding House, owned and operated by the Nashua Historical Society, is one of the area’s most prominent examples of Federal period architecture, albeit with substantial early 20th-century Colonial Revival alterations. The house was built for business leader Daniel Abbot (1777–1853) who served as first president of both the Nashua and Lowell Railroad and the Wilton Railroad, and was Nashua Bank’s first president. Known as “the Father of Nashua,” Abbot was co-founder of the Nashua Manufacturing Company, Nashua’s first lawyer, and served as president of the Hillsborough County Bar Association.

Home to Abbot until his death in 1853, the house passed to his daughter and then to George Perham, who modernized it so that its appearance was in keeping with its Victorian neighbors. Upon Perham’s death in 1891, the house was briefly owned by Reverend Henry Lessard before being purchased in 1905 by William Edward Spalding (1850–1910). Spalding, who served as a vice president of the First National Bank, was a ward representative, city treasurer, and a member of various city organizations.

Spalding’s daughter, Sylvia, sold the house to the Nashua Historical Society in 1978, stipulating she be allowed to live there for the remainder of her life. Upon her death in 1984, she bequeathed the contents of the house to the historical society.