Houses – Page 42 – Historic Buildings of Massachusetts

Greenleaf House (1859)

by Dan/March 30, 2011March 30, 2011/Cambridge, Houses, Second Empire

A Federal-style house, built in 1823, once stood at 76 Brattle Street, but was moved in 1858 to 19 Ash Street to make way for a new mansard-roofed mansion, completed in 1859. The new house was home to Mary Longfellow Greenleaf, sister of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and was purchased by Radcliffe College in 1905. At first used for music classes, after 1913 it became the residence of the president of Radcliffe College, and more recently of the dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

53 Dunster Street, Cambridge (1841)

by Dan/March 30, 2011March 30, 2011/Cambridge, Greek Revival, Houses

At 53 Dunster Street in Cambridge is a former house, built in 1841 and now owned by Harvard University. The builders, William Saunders and Stephen S. Bunker, interestingly made the house three stories, unusual for Greek Revival-style houses of the period.

Z. Augustus Gallup House (1890)

by Dan/March 22, 2011January 24, 2020/Colonial Revival, Houses, Salem

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.

John Jenkins House (1799)

by Dan/March 19, 2011January 24, 2020/Colonial, Houses, Salem

According to the plaque on the house at 2 River Street in Salem, it was built in 1799 for John Jenkins, a tailor.

Glover-Cook-Chapman House (1799)

by Dan/March 18, 2011January 24, 2020/Federal, Houses, Salem

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.

Jonathan Neal House (1767)

by Dan/March 16, 2011January 24, 2020/Colonial, Houses, Salem

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.

Rev. James Conway House (1848)

by Dan/March 15, 2011January 24, 2020/Greek Revival, Houses, Salem

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.