The historic estate was founded by Bay Colony native Isaac Royall and is recognized as giving a face and life to the history and existence of slave quarters and slavery in Massachusetts.

It is a National Historic Landmark, operated as a non-profit museum, and open for public visits between June 1 and the last weekend in October.

Among the historic objects on display is a tea box, said to be from the [4] same batch that was dumped into Boston Harbor on the night of December 16, 1773, and a very small painting by John Singleton Copley of Isaac Royall Jr.

On December 26, 1732, Isaac Royall Sr., a slave trader, rum distiller, and wealthy merchant of Antigua, purchased the house and 504 acres (2 km2) of land along the west bank of the Mystic River in what was then Charlestown, an area annexed to Medford in 1754.

He remodeled the house extensively between 1733 and 1737, adding a third story, encasing the east facade in clapboard, and ornamenting the exterior with architectural details and continuous strips of spandrel panels.

Other features he added include the false ashlar siding on the new western facade and great Doric pilasters inserted at the corners.

The interior was redone in Georgian wooden paneling, trim, and archways of a quality possibly unsurpassed by any surviving house of the period.

Today, you can take a tour of the Royall House finding a "kitchen chamber" where slaves worked and slept in a room on the second floor.

[9] In 1898, the Sarah Bradlee Fulton Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution conceived the idea of preserving the Royall House "for the sake of its history and aesthetic value."

The group's initial mission was to raise US$10,000 (~$239,276 in 2023) to purchase the house, the slave quarters and three-quarters of an acre of surrounding land to be maintained as a museum, which they accomplished by April 1908.