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.
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.
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.
The Mason-Roberts-Colby House is a Georgian Colonial residence at the corner of Federal Street and Federal Court in Salem. The house has an attached Beverley jog to the right of the front facade. Built in 1768 for Capt. Jonathan Mason, the house was originally located where the Forrester-Peabody House (1818) stands today on Washington Square North, but it was moved by a team of sixty oxen to make way for the newer building. The move was supervised by William Roberts, a mason, who would later build the East India Marine Hall and St. Peter’s Church. His descendants then owned the home for many years.
In 1809, the corner of Washington Square and Essex Street, off Salem Common in Salem, became the site of the Archer Block. Later called the Franklin Building, it was a commercial and residential building constructed under the direction of Samuel McIntire. Destroyed by fire in 1860, it was replaced with an Italianate-style successor. From 1833, the property was owned by the Salem Marine Society, which later agreed to raze the building and sell the land for construction of a new hotel. In return, the hotel built a room for the society’s use on the top floor. The hotel, built in 1924-1925, was named the Hawthorne Hotel, in honor of the famous Salem author. It was designed by architect Philip Horton Smith of the firm of Smith & Walker.
In 1782, Salem Federalists erected the Assembly House, also known as the Cotting-Smith Assembly House, at 138 Federal Street to serve as a gathering place for social and cultural events. Lafayette and Washington were both entertained there in the 1780s. The original building was most likely quite plain, but it was significantly altered around 1798 by Samuel McIntire, who added elaborate Federal style ornamentation to the front facade. By that time, the building had ceased to be used as an assembly place and was converted into a residence. Jonathan Waldo, an original funder of the Assembly House, had become sole owner in 1796 and sold it to Samuel Putnam, a local judge, two years later. Around that time, Waldo and his partners, William Stearns and Col. William Pickering, built the Stearns Block on Washington Street, which included their own new assembly space called Washington Hall, intended to supercede the Assembly House. In 1919, the Old Assembly House was acquired by Joseph Newton Smith, whose daughter, Mary Silver Smith, gave the house to the Essex Institute, now the Peabody Essex Museum, in 1965. Continue reading “Assembly House, Salem (1782)”
The ornately detailed Colonial Revival style house at 357 Essex Street in Salem, which features architectural references to Salem’s past as a Federal-era China Trade seaport, was built in 1889-1890 for Z. Augustus Gallup. He was the manager of the Naumkeag Clothing Company.
