to American Independence with French general Comte de Rochambeau. Smithsonian magazine writer Howard Hugh suggests that the red wool flock wallpaper in the bedchamber where Washington slept was hung in anticipation of the general's arrival. Webb Jr. sold the house in 1790 and it passed through different owners until it was purchased by Judge Martin Welles around 1820. Welles went on to modernize the southern half of the property. The house remained in the Welles family until the death of Welles' grandson in 1913. The house was purchased by a group of businessmen who sought to operate it as athenaeum or a library; however a lack of funds resulted in its sale to Wallace Nutting in 1916. Wallace Nutting The Joseph Webb House was bought by antiquarian Wallace Nutting on February 9, 1916, to serve as a sales area and studio. Lyle writes that Nutting intended to use the house "as one of the links in his 'Chain of Colonial Picture Houses'—all important historic sites located in New England that were part of his business plan to promote a nostalgic appreciation of 'Old America.'" Nutting commissioned painted murals for the front parlors and hallway. On July 4, 1916, the Webb house was opened to the public with a 25 cent admission charge, but the American entry into World War I and the rationing of gasoline took its toll on Nutting's business. Nutting sold the house in 1919 to The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in Connecticut, which opened it to the public as a historic house museum. Colonial Dames The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America restored the house to before Nutting's changes with a team of preservationists; with the intention of restoring the appearance of the original construction. The murals commissioned by Nutting were covered up with reproduction wallpapers, but a panel of the wall paper was torn off and the hallway murals were painted over. In 1996, the Dames acknowledged Wallace Nutting's interpretive focus of the Webb House and removed the wallpaper in the "Yorktown" parlor. In 2007, the murals in the northeast parlor were uncovered and reinterpretation of the room around the Colonial Revival period. An exhibit in the center hall of the house shows Wallace Nutting's influence. The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum gives tours of the house April through November, but requires appointments for tours for January through March. The house was declared