Category: Houses

Cassidy Building (1845)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Houses, Sheffield

The Greek Revival commercial building at 116 Main Street in Sheffield was built c. 1845. In the early twentieth century it was known as the Cassidy Building and housed Sheffield’s Post Office, with James G. Cassidy as postmaster from 1914 to 1922, succeeded by Miss Beatrice Ellis from 1922 to 1934. The building was again the Post Office from 1957 to 1966, with J. Wesley Warren as postmaster. The building has housed a number of antiques dealers over the years. Most recently, it is home to Samuel Herrup Antiques.

Goodrich-Robertson House (1727)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Sheffield

The saltbox house at 139 South Main Street in Sheffield was moved to its current location in 1946 from Wethersfield, Connecticut, where it had an address of 191 or 197 Main Street. It is thought to have been built c. 1727 by Jonathan Goodrich, who soon sold it in 1737 to Jonathan Stillman. In 1769 the property was acquired by Silas Deane (1737-1789), but it was not his residence. At the time he was erecting his own house next door at 203 Main Street. A wealthy merchant and lawyer, Deane played a vital role during the Revolutionary War. He was sent abroad by a secret committee of the Continental Congress in 1776 to secure aid from the French government. He later worked closely with Benjamin Franklin to negotiate the treaty of alliance with France that led to the sending of an army under the Comte de Rochambeau to aid George Washington. Together they would win the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. Deane’s house in Wethersfield is now part of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum.

Dr. Barwick Bruce, who came to Wethersfield from Barbados, purchased the Goodrich House in 1809. He sold it in 1816 to Dr. Ashbel Robertson (1787-1847). As related in Stiles’ History of Ancient Wethersfield, Vol. I (1904), page 728-729:

Dr. Robertson, for many years, carried on a mechantile business, sold wines and liquors (under a license) and practiced medicine. His store, with roof cut down and a brick front added, is now occupied by Comstock, Ferre & Co., as a seed warehouse, a little further up the same street. The mansion is now occupied by Mr. Austin Robertson, a son of the old doctor [.]

Austin Robertson was for many years the town tax collector and before the turn of the century, Wethersfield residents would come to his house where he accepted payment. In 1909, the house was still owned by Austin Robertson, but by the 1920s, after Robertson passed away, it was owned by E. Hart Fenn, who lived in the Silas Deane House next door. The Red Cross used the Goodrich-Robertson house during World War I. The house was moved to Sheffield in 1946 by a Mr. Tompkins, but its foundations can still be seen on the property of the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum. There is also a c. 1910s Wallace Nutting photograph of paneling from the house.

Although Silas Deane did not live in the Goodrich-Robertson House, its former proximity to his Wethersfield home led to to its becoming known as the Silas Deane House. In 1956, ten years after its move to Sheffield, the house was bought by Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Jones, who ran an antiques shop in the building. Most recently, the house has been the Blue Door Market & Cafe.

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Hardy-Parsons House (1764)

by Dan//Colonial, Gloucester, Houses

Hardy-Parsons House

The Hardy-Parsons House at 90 Middle Street in Gloucester was built in 1764 (according to a historic marker on the house) by Capt. William Dolliver, a mariner. The Hardy family occupied the house for many years and, at some point, Judy Millett had a school for small children in the west room of the house. In the mid-twentieth century the house was occupied by Samuel H. Mansfield and his wife, Carrie Esther Parsons Mansfield. They collected works by artist Fitz Henry Lane that are now in the Cape Ann Museum. In 1948, Mrs. Mansfield left the house to the Cape Ann Historical Association. It is now privately owned.

Charles Olson, the poet and resident of Gloucester who railed against the destruction of old buildings wrought by urban renewal, references the Hardy-Parsons House in “Maximus, to Gloucester: Letter 2,” as “the house the street cuts off.” (see also “A Scream to the Editor“).

Samuel Gilbert House (1750)

by Dan//Federal, Gloucester, Houses

The house at the corner of Angle Street and 1 Western Avenue in Gloucester was built in 1750 by Nathaniel Ellery. In the 1780s it became the home of Samuel Gilbert (1782-1860), a wealthy merchant, and was raised to three stories early in the nineteenth century. After his death, the house was occupied by his widow, his second wife Mary Hayes Gilbert, who died in 1887 at the age of 101, and by his son, Addison Gilbert (1808-1888). A merchant, banker, and civic leader, Addison Gilbert had no children. Upon his death, he left $100,000 to build the Addison Gilbert Hospital, which opened in 1897. He also left $75,000 to convert his home into the Addison Gilbert Home for the Aged. In 1981, the trustees of the Gilbert estate sold the house to the law firm that is now known as Orlando & Associates.

Ralph Waldo Emerson House (1828)

by Dan//Concord, Greek Revival, Houses

The home of Ralph Waldo Emerson, where the philosopher, essayist, and poet lived from 1835 until his death in 1882, is located at 28 Cambridge Turnpike in Concord. The house was built in 1828 by the Coolidge family and was known as the “Coolidge Castle.” Emerson purchased it from John T. Coolidge for $3,500 and moved in just after he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson (called Lidian). Emerson had previously lived in Concord in his family’s home called the Old Manse. Emerson wrote numerous works while living in the house, which he called Bush, and had many famous visitors, including Henry David Thoreau, who lived with the Emersons at different times and built his famous cabin on Emerson’s land at Walden Pond. The house had to be extensively repaired after a fire in 1872. After Emerson’s death, his wife occupied it and then their unmarried daughter, Ellen Tucker Emerson, until her death in 1909. Still owned by the Emerson family, the house opened to the public as a private museum in 1930. The contents of his study are now located at the Concord Museum, across the street.

Joseph Foster House (1760)

by Dan//Colonial, Gloucester, Houses

Erected circa 1760, the gambrel roof house at 75 Middle Street in Gloucester was the home of a merchant and Revolutionary War patriot named Joseph Foster (1730-1804). Originally from Ipswich, he became a ship captain, trading with the West Indies. He commanded privateers during the war and was a member of the Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779-1780.

At the start of the Revolutionary War, Foster was a hero of the Battle of Gloucester. On August 8, 1775, the Bristish sloop HMS Falcon, commanded by Capt. John Linzee, attacked two American schooners heading for Salem. He captured one, but the other escaped to Gloucester harbor and was grounded near Five Pound Island. Capt. Linzee sent barges with men to seize the grounded vessel, but local defenders, Joseph Foster playing a conspicuous part among them, fired on the British and effectively trapped them. In an attempt to distract the townspeople and relieve pressure on his men, Linzee fired Falcon‘s guns on the town of Gloucester, hitting the steeple of the First Church meeting house. He also sent a landing party to set fire to the town, but his men were captured by the locals. He then sent in his captured schooner, but its crewmen revolted and seized the ship. Linzee sailed off on the Falcon.

As related in The grandchildren of Col. Joseph Foster (1885), quoting from Babson’s History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann:

It was in 1779, a “period of great poverty” in Gloucester, when paper money had “depreciated to about one-seventieth of its nominal value,” and “about one-sixth of the whole population were” “living chiefly upon charity,” “that a large troop of women, in want of the necessaries of life, marched to Col. Foster’s store, and made known their determination to supply themselves with provisions and groceries from his stock, in spite of all resistance. Some of the number were prepared to take an exact account of the articles delivered to each person, with reference to payment, if they should ever he able to pay; but, pay or no pay, they would have them, and proceeded to help themselves accordingly. This merchant was one of the most ardent patriots of the town; and it is related of him, that his conduct on this occasion proved him to be one of the most benevolent: for the tale of suffering and destitution that the women had to tell so touched his feelings, that he liberally supplied their wants, and dismissed them with words of the utmost kindness and sympathy ”

After the war, Capt. Foster returned to his farm. The house in town remained in the family until 1859. Since then it has had a number of owners and gone through alterations, serving at different times as a dry goods store, a piano and sweing machine shop, a confectionery shop, the Trust Department of the Cape Ann Bank & Trust Company, and now as offices.