The Nathaniel Seymour House in Stockbridge was built in 1814 by a tailor and later owned by the Seymour family of storekeepers. Later owned by William Seymour, after his death it was sold in 1923 to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and moved to be set back from the street in front of the Parish House (the former George Seymour House), to become St. Paul’s Rectory.
Associated early on with the Cook family, the Elijah Northrup House in Lenox was built around 1790, when it was a tavern and farmhouse. Richard Sands Tucker of Brooklyn, NY purchased the house in 1866 and his widow later sold it to Henry Sedgwick. His son, Manton R. Sedgwick, sold the house to Caroline Katherine Carey, who purchased the property in 1928 so it could serve as the Lenox branch of the Berkshire County Home for Aged Women. In more recent years the house, located at 114 Main Street, has served as offices, most recently for Winstanley Partners.
The house at 35 West Silver Street in Westfield originally stood across the street. It was built, reputedly using ballast bricks from a Dutch ship, c.1825 by Colonel Lewis Fowler on the site of his family’s earlier homestead. The Fowler House was moved to its current site in 1875 by Cutler Laflin to make way for his new mansion. As related in The Westfield Jubilee (1870):
Another prominent citizen was Col. Lewis Fowler, son of Justus Fowler, brother of Alvin Fowler. He built the red brick house on the corner of Silver and South Maple streets, on the site of the old family mansion. He was never married. He was a farmer, a man of reading and information, a useful and faithful officer of the town, a representative, and died in the year 1849 at the age of fifty-one.
The Merwin House in Stockbridge was constructed around 1825 by Francis and Clarissa Dresser. It remained in the Dresser family until 1875, when they sold it to William and Elizabeth Doane of New York City. The couple named the house “Tranquility” and used it as a summer home. They substantially renovated the house in 1900, remodeling the interior and doubling the home’s by adding a shingle-style ell. The house was later the year-round home of the Doanes’ daughter, Vipont Merwin (1878-1965), and her third husband Edward Merwin, who died in 1932. She wanted the house, which was acquired by Historic New England in 1966, to become a museum and it is now open to the public several times a year. Continue reading “Merwin House (1825)”
The house at 8 Chestnut Street in Salem began as a one-story brick store, built by Daniel Gregg in 1805. In 1825, the property was acquired by Deacon John Stone, who added two additional stories. Stone, who was a wealthy distiller, built the houses at 5 and 7 Chestnut Street as rooming houses, while he resided at 8 Chestnut Street. As described by Frank Cousins and Phil M. Riley in The Colonial Architecture of Salem (1919), “Its chief distinctions lie in its doorway of graceful simplicity and the unusual gambrel-roofed wing of wood at the rear end. Unlike most brick houses of importance in Salem […] its windows boast no lintels, but have molded architrave frames of wood let into the reveals of the brickwork.” The house was later the residence of Capt. Daniel H. Mansfield, Rev. Edwin C. Bolles and architect William G. Rantoul. The garden next to the house was once the site of South Church, built in 1803-1804 and designed by Samuel McIntire. It was destroyed in a fire in 1903 and was replaced by a Gothic Revival-style church, which was lost in the mid-twentieth century.
The double house at at 38-40 Chestnut Street in Salem was built in about 1845 and architecturally represents the transition from the Federal to the Greek Revival style. The original resident of the west half of the house (until 1859) was Rev. James W. Thompson, while the other half was the residence of Captain Nathaniel West, Sr. As described in History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts, Now Called the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts. 1637-1888, Vol. III.-1822-1865 (1898), by Olver Ayer Roberts:
Rev. James W. Thompson, D. D., of Salem, delivered the Artillery Election sermon of 1833. He was a son of Rev. James Thompson, D. D., of Barre, Mass., and was born in that town Dec. 13, 1805. He graduated at Brown University in 1827, and at the Theological School of Harvard University in 1831. Prior to his graduation he was ordained to the Christian ministry. He settled first in Natick. An invitation to settle over the Independent Congregation Society, in Barton Square, Salem, was accepted by him, and he was installed March 7, 1832. He remained in this ministry twenty-seven years, and resigned March 7, 1859. He left Salem, and accepted an invitation to the Third or Jamaica Plain Parish Church, in 1859, where he continued as sole or senior pastor until his decease, which occurred Sept. 24, 1881. The funeral services were held in the Unitarian Church at Jamaica Plain, and his remains were buried in Salem.
The eastern half of the double house was later home to Joseph B. Andrews, mayor of Salem in 1854-1856. As described in Historical Sketch of Salem, 1626-1879 (1879), by Charles S. Osgood and H.M. Batchelder:
Joseph Andrews served as mayor in 1854-55. He was born in Salem Dec. 10, 1808, and died in Boston Feb. 8, 1869. He was captain of the Salem Light Infantry and brigadier-general of tho State militia, which position he held in 1861, at the opening of the Rebellion. He commanded at Fort Warren, in Boston harbor, and had charge of the State troops sent to that station prior to their departure for the seat of war, and until it ceased to be used for that purpose. He was a bank official.
Captain John B. Silsbee owned the western half of the house in the late 1850’s and 1860’s. The bay window above the left entrance is an early twentieth-century addition.
A double house with an unusual layout, the White-Silsbee/Hodges-Mott House is at 33-35 Washington Square North in Salem, between Oliver and Winter Streets. The section on the west, or left, side was built first, c.1811, by Joshua Upham for Joseph White, Jr., whose brother Stephen lived next door. The house was sold by Joseph’s widow, Eliza, to the Silsbee family, whom owned it until 1880. The attached house on the east, or right, side was built c. 1840 for the Misses Hannah and Betsy Hodges and was purchased by John N. Mott in 1871. Both halves of the house were later owned by the Clark family in the twentieth century.
