In 1805, Israel Williams, a Salem merchant, purchased an unfinished house at 19 Chestnut Street, begun by President Grover Cleveland’s great-uncle, Rev. Charles Cleveland. Williams was the first captain of the Salem East Indiaman Friendship, launched in 1797. He soon completed the house, which remained in his family until 1857. As explained in Cousins and Riley’s The Colonial Architecture of Salem, “Of broad street frontage but no great depth, this is one of the many three-story wood houses of this period that are oblong rather than square and depend on a two-story L in the rear for several rooms.” The house was next owned by merchant Henry W. Peabody until 1905 and then by architect William G. Rantoul from 1907 to 1939. Rantoul restored the house, adding the entryway (copied from the nearby Towne House), window frames and a balustrade along the roof (since removed).