Category: Salem

Gideon Tucker House (1809)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Salem

The Gideon Tucker House, also known as the Tucker-Rice House, is at 129 Essex Street in Salem. It was built in 1808-1809 for Gideon Tucker who, according to Old Time Ships of Salem (1917):

was born March 7, 1778, and built and occupied the house on Essex street opposite the Essex Institute. He was clerk for Joseph Peabody and afterwards a partner in that noted shipping firm, which he left to establish a business of his own. He died February 18, 1861. “A venerable man of exact habits and strict integrity.”

Tucker’s house, designed by Samuel McIntire, once looked very similar to the McIntire-designed Gardner-Pingree House across the street, but the Tucker House was significantly altered in 1910. As described in Cousins and Riley’s Colonial Architecture of Salem (1919):

Because of their spaciousness and large number of rooms, the three-story square houses of brick built during the early nineteenth century lend themselves admirably to adaptation as semi-public institutions, and several splendid old mansions have been so utilized. Thus in 1896 the Father Mathew Catholic Total Abstinence Society, organized in 1875, purchased the Tucker-Rice house at Number 129 Essex Street for its headquarters, and considerably remodeled it. […] Much of the handsome interior wood trim remains, but the splendid elliptical porch, one of the best proportioned in Salem, was removed to the garden of the Essex lnstitute for preservation, where it may now be seen with a contemporary three-piece door from the Rogers house on Essex Street and glasswork of attractive pattern.

In more recent times, the house has been converted for use as condominiums.

Pickering House (1651)

by Dan//Colonial, Gothic, Houses, Salem

One of Salem‘s most interesting buildings is the Pickering House at 18 Broad Street, which is the oldest house in the United States continuously occupied by one family. The earliest section, on the east, was erected by carpenter John Pickering, Sr., around 1651. The house was later expanded to the west in 1671 by his son, John Pickering II, and in 1751, Deacon Timothy Pickering raised the rear lean-to to a full two stories. A two-story ell was added in 1904. The front, with the new addition of two cross gables, was adapted to the Gothic Revival style in 1841. The fence also dates to this period. The house‘s most prominent resident was Timothy Pickering, the arch-Federalist politician (serving as a cabinet member, Senator and US Representative), who had been an aide to Washington during the Revolutionary War. Boston architect Gordon Robb, who also restored the Witch House in Salem, restored the interior of the Pickering House in 1948 and it was opened to the public in 1951 by the nonprofit Pickering Foundation.

Francis A. Seamans House (1909)

by Dan//Colonial Revival, Houses, Salem

The house at 48 Chestnut Street in Salem was built in 1909 for Caroline O. Emmerton, the philanthropist who had the year before purchased the House of the Seven Gables and would oversee its restoration as a museum. Designed by architect William G. Rantoul and modeled on the Derby House in Salem, the house on Chestnut Street was quickly sold to Francis A. Seamans, who lived there for over twenty years.

Dodge-Barstow-West House (1802)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Salem

Built for merchant Pickering Dodge around 1802, the Federal-style Dodge-Barstow-West House, at 25 Chestnut Street in Salem, was later owned by the Barstow family and was purchased in 1895 by George S. West. A photograph by Frank Cousins of the house’s doorway was featured in The Architectural Record (vol. XLII, no. V, 1917), with the following description by Phil M. Riley:

The half-oval porch of the George West house, 25 Chestnut street, presents a distinctly pleasing type for modern adaptation. The proportions are excellent, the detail simple and carefully spaced. The paneled door with its graceful welcoming sidelights and fanlight is broad and typical of the best in Salem. The steps are of granite, with an extremely fine wrought-iron railing.

Col. John Page House (1793)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Salem

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). Continue reading “Col. John Page House (1793)”