Built for Col. John Page, the gambrel-roofed house at 335 Essex Street in Salem dates to around 1793. As explained in “Early Recollections of the Upper Portion of Essex Street,” by Oliver Thayer, in Historical Collections of the Essex Institute (vol. XXI, nos. 7, 8, 9, 1884), the house was “for many years, the home of Capt. Thomas Holmes and then of Mr. Abbott Walker. It is now in the possession of Mr. Frank Cousins” Frank Cousins was a photographer and co-author of books such as The Wood-Carver of Salem: Samuel McIntire His Life and Work (1916) and The Colonial Architecture of Salem (1919).