Clear Comfort (a.k.a. The Alice Austen House) was built in 1690. In 1844 it was purchased by John Haggerty Austen, Alice Austen's grandfather. Alice Austen herself moved there as a young girl in the late1860's with her mother, Alice Cornell Austen, after the two were abandoned by Alice's father. She went on to spend most of her life there, until financial problems and illness forced her to move in 1945. In her absence, the house fell into disrepair until a group of concerned citizens saved it from demolition in the 1960's. The house successfully gained status as a historic landmark, and was restored in the mid 1980's. It currently serves as a museum of Alice Austen's life and times.