John Jenkins House (1799)
According to the plaque on the house at 2 River Street in Salem, it was built in 1799 for John Jenkins, a tailor.
The Glover-Cook-Chapman House, at 101-103 Federal Street in Salem, had many owners over the years. It was built in 1799 or earlier and its first owner was Ichabod Glover. This could be the same Ichabod Glover and house referred to in the following entry, dated April 29, 1802, from the Diary of William Bentley,
Curious incident happened yesterday. As a Company were attending a vendue of the goods of Ichabod Glover, lately deceased, in the chamber of the dwelling house of the deceased which was partly new, but not finished, the floor gave way, & the whole company of forty persons with the furniture & articles for sale fell down together. No person was killed, several were wounded, many bruised & all frightened. The House is in Federal street.
The house was later owned by merchant Samuel Cook, cabinetmaker John Jewett, and next by schoolteacher Rebecca Thayer and printer John Chapman, a publisher of the Salem Register. From 1874, it was home to Benjamin Shreve and his heirs.
The Jonathan Neal House, at 12 Broad Street in Salem, was long believed to have been built in 1767 for Jonathan Neal, a carpenter, who ran a waterfront warehouse. More recent research has indicated that the earliest parts of the house may actually go back to 1652. An early barn on the lot was enlarged by Neal’s father, also named Jonathan, with the central chimney being constructed in 1680 and other work being done later, as attested in deeds from 1720 and 1767, when the gambrel roof was added to the home.
At 18 Winter Street in Salem is a house built in 1848 for Rev. James Conway, who was pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church from 1846 until his death in 1857. As described in the Municipal History of Essex County in Massachusetts, Vol. I (1922):
Father Conway was ordained in Boston, July 31, 1831. The early years of his priesthood were spent among the Pennobscot Indians, and as assistant to Father McDermott at St. Patrick’s, Lowell. In 1841 he was appointed to the new parish of St. Peter’s in that town, where he remained until his assignment to Salem.
Once settled in Salem (quoting further from the same book),
His first care was to enlarge and beautify the church, increasing its seating capacity by six hundred. The Sunday school and choir were reorganized in 1846; a parochial residence on Winter street (1848) and later (1852) a much larger one on Mall street were his work; he purchased and opened the Catholic Cemetery in 1849. […] In 1855 “the Hodges estate,” on Walnut street, now Hawthorne Boulevard, was secured as the site of the first distinctively Catholic school in Salem. The Sisters of Notre Dame were introduced to Salem in the fall of 1855 and installed in a schoolhouse and convent set up on the site of the present school. They were insulted and almost attacked by the hostile natives, but persevered in their labors with almost immediate, success. Early in the spring of 1857 ground was broken, and the foundation of the present Church of the Immaculate Conception laid. Its walls were just beginning to rise under his supervision when sudden death called him to his eternal reward, May 24, 1857.
The completed Church of the Immaculate Conception, dedicated on January 10, 1858, continues today as the oldest Catholic church building in the Archdiocese of Boston.
The Osborne-Salata House, at 33 Washington Street in Peabody, was constructed around 1860. This Italianate house was built for Thorndike and Sarah Daniels. It was later owned by Dennison Osborne and next served as a boarding house. The house’s last residents, from 1945-1997, were Dr. Benjamin Salata, a dentist, and wife, Celia, a music teacher. She donated the house to the Peabody Historical Society, which already owned the adjacent General Gideon Foster House. Today the Osborne-Salata House contains the Historical Society’s Elizabeth Cassidy Folk Art Museum, the Peabody Art Association Gallery and the Ruth Hill Library & Archives.
The 350th post at Historic Buildings of Massachusetts is the Gardner-Pingree House in Salem, which is considered to be New England’s greatest example of a Federal-style (or Adamesque) town house. It was erected in 1804-1805 at 128 Essex Street for merchant John Gardner, Jr. and is generally considered to be the work of Samuel McIntire, who certainly did create the mansion‘s exterior ornamentation and interior wood carving. In 1811, financial difficulties forced Gardner to sell his house to Nathaniel West, who then sold it three years later to Captain Joseph White. In 1830, Capt. White was murdered in the house, an event that shook Salem and was followed by a sensational trial with a famed oration by Daniel Webster. The story would have an influence on Poe and Hawthorne. In 1834, the house was sold to David Pingree and remained in the Pingree family until 1933. The house was donated in that year to the Essex Institute, now the Peabody Essex Museum. The restored house is open to the public for tours, usually in conjunction with the museum’s nearby John Ward and Crowninshield-Bentley houses.
Maj. John Pedrick, a merchant and militia officer in Marblehead, built the house at 52 Washington Street in 1756. In 1770, he enlarged and remodeled the house, giving it a facade probably inspired by that of the nearby Col. Jeremiah Lee House. As described by Samuel Roads in The History and Traditions of Marblehead (1880),
His ships sailed to nearly every port in England, Spain, and the West Indies, and his transactions were with some of the largest mercantile houses of Europe. At one time, it is said, he owned twenty-five vessels engaged in the foreign trade.
The Revolutionary War, which proved so disastrous to the merchants of Marblehead, bore with especial severity upon Major Pedrick. Several of his vessels were destroyed by British cruisers in Massachusetts Bay, and many others rotted in port. But through it all he proved himself a zealous patriot, and a firm friend to his country. When his son was drafted as a soldier, he charged him not to accept a dollar from the government for his services, and provided him with money to meet his expenses. His daughters made a silk belt for their brother to wear, in which the gold and silver coins were quilted for safety.
In addition to his other losses, Major Pedrick suffered severely by the depreciation of Continental money. At a critical period of the war, he furnished the government with valuable military and naval stores, for which he was obliged to receive a large amount of paper money. In a short time this money became utterly worthless and the entire amount was lost.
Maj. Pedrick was also involved in the incident known as Leslie’s Retreat on February 26 1775. On that date, a British force under Col. Alexander Leslie landed at Marblehead and marched on Salem to destroy cannon and other arms and ammunition gathered there by the colonials. Again quoting Roads:
Suspecting the object of the expedition to be the seizure of several pieces of artillery secreted at Salem, Major John Pedrick hastened on horseback to that town, and gave the alarm at the door of the North Church. He was soon joined by a party of young men from Marblehead, and together they proceeded to the North Bridge, over which the regulars were obliged to pass.
Confronted by patriot militia at North Bridge in Salem, Col. Leslie eventually was allowed to cross on condition he advance only a short distance and then withdraw.
Maj. Pedrick’s House in Marblehead later served as an inn.