While he was a professor at Bowdoin College, Cleaveland conducted some of the earliest studies of mineralogy in the United States.

Its main facade, facing west, is five bays wide, with a center entrance flanked by pilasters and topped by a semi-elliptical fanlight louver and entablature with cornice.

The interior has fairly typical middle-class woodwork of the period, with the finest elements found in the central hall and the northwest parlor.

[3] The house was built in 1805-06 by a local master builder, Samuel Melcher, for Parker Cleaveland, who had arrived in 1805 to begin his long career at Bowdoin College.

Cleaveland expanded the curriculum to include chemistry and mineralogy, and it is in this area that he made his greatest impact.