Isaac Dayton House (ca. 1725) (Newport, Rhode Island)

 house, place with historical importance

The house has what is essentially an enclosed end chimney that heats two rooms on each floor. In the northwest corner, the entry/stairway displays a tight, steep set of twisting stairs to the second floor. Attic space is accessed by an enclosed straight-run, almost ladder-like staircase. While there may have been small, unheated rooms on each floor in the southeast corner, no conclusive evidence was found for a partition on either floor that would have created such rooms. As a result, the tiny house was restored with a single room across the back on each floor.
(cont.- www.newportrestoration.org/preservation/historic_houses...

Dayton (1720-1804), a shoemaker, owned the house prior to 1769. A prominent citizen of Newport and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Militia, he was imprisoned by the British for refusing to swear allegiance to the King when they occupied the town during the Revolutionary War.