Monthly Archives: May 2011

Union Club, Boston (1809)

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Daniel

In 1863, some former members of the Somerset Club in Boston who were strong supporters of the Union formed the Union Club. They acquired a house at 8 Park Street in Boston to be their clubhouse. It had been built in 1809 for John Gore and been completely remodeled in Greek Revival style (but with interesting cast iron balconies as well) in 1838 for Abbott Lawrence. The Union Club hired Gridley J. F. Bryant, who had overseen the earlier remodeling, and John Hubbard Sturgis to remodel the interior. Peabody and Stearns were hired in the 1880s to add a fifth floor and the Club was expanded into the adjoining house, at 7 Park Street, in 1896. That house (1809) had been the home, from 1854 to 1856, of Governor Henry Gardener of the “Know Nothing” party. In 1869 the house was sold to John Amory Lowell and the Club acquired the house from his estate.

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William Stevens House (1836)

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Daniel

Located at 14 Broad Street in Salem, next to the Jonathan Neal House, is a house built in 1836 for grocer William Stevens. It may have been built by William’s brother, James Stevens, a carpenter, who had acquired the land from the Pickering family. Augustus Blake owned the house from 1864 to 1908, when he sold the property back to a member of the Pickering family, Anna D. Pickering.

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Glen Magna (1790)

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Daniel

Glen Magna Farms in Danvers began with a house, built in the 1790s by Jonathan Ingersoll. In 1812, the property was acquired by Capt. Joseph Peabody, wealthy Salem shipping merchant, as his gentleman’s estate. Additional acres were later acquired by the Peabody family, who occupied the estate for over a century. In 1893, Peabody’s granddaughter, Ellen Peabody Endicott, hired the Boston firm of Little, Browne and Moore to expand the house into a stylish Colonial Revival mansion. In 1926, she was awarded the Hunnewell Gold Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for the estate’s plantings. After her death the following year, her son, William Crowninshield Endicott, Jr., continued enhancing the estate until his death in 1936. In 1901, he had brought the 1793 Derby Summer House to Glen Magna. Since 1963, the house and the eleven central acres of the property have been owned by the Danvers Historical Society, which has restored the historic gardens and grounds.

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David Boyce House (1782)

Posted on May 19, 2011 by Daniel

The David Boyce House, at 7 Lynn Street in Salem, was built in 1782. As mentioned in “Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolution,” in The Essex Antiquarian, Vol. XI (1907),

David Boyce, cordwainer and shoemaker, lived in Salem as early as 1777; married Hannah Lang of Salem July 27, 1777; she was his wife in 1789, and was dead in 1825; he died in Salem Aug. 20, 1838, apparently leaving no issue.

He must have lived in Salem before then, because the sign on his house indicates that he participated in Leslie’s Retreat in 1775 and, according to Charles M. Endicott in his Account of Leslie’s Retreat at the North Bridge in Salem, on Sunday Feb’y 26, 1775 (1856), when the British regulars were approaching,

To remove as many of the guns as the time would permit beyond the reach of the troops, and to a place of safety, appeared the universal determination of the people. Mr. David Boyce, who lived in a house adjoining the North Church, is remembered to have been seen hurrying away with his team, and all the truckmen of the town were upon the spot without delay.

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Wheeler House, South Natick (1831)

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Daniel

Moses Eames built the Greek Revival house at 4 Pleasant Street in South Natick in the 1830s, on land he had acquired in 1831. Eames later built a larger home next door on Pleasant Street in 1839. In 1845, he sold the earlier house to Lucy Morse and ten years later it was purchased by Aaron Wheeler. It remained in the Wheeler family until about 1918 and has since had other owners. The house briefly served as a restaurant in the late-1950s.

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Cooley-Eveleth House (1827)

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Daniel

After his first home in Longmeadow burned, Calvin Cooley built a new brick house on the same site, 418 Longmeadow Street, in 1827. Calvin Cooley’s eldest son, James, became a lawyer and in 1826 was sent by Henry Clay, president John Quincy Adams’ Secretary of State, to Lima, Peru as charge d’affaires, where he died several months later. Another son, Alford Cooley, married Caroline Bliss Saxton Cooley in 1833. Their daughter, Caroline L. Cooley Eveleth, later lived in the house with her husband. The Cooley-Eveleth House has a rear wing added in the 1930s.

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Beckford-Whipple House (1739)

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Daniel

Built perhaps as early as 1739, the Beckford-Whipple House, at 2 Andover Street in Salem, was later significantly altered. In 1739, John and Rebecca Beckford deeded the house to their son, John Jr., who next left the house to his son Ebenezer in 1788. Ebenezer was probably the owner (1788-1816) who enlarged the house around 1804. The Whipple family owned the house for about a century starting in 1826. The present front facade and side porch are turn-of-the-century modifications in the Colonial Revival style.

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