Category: Colonial

Ingersoll’s Ordinary (1670)

by Dan//Colonial, Danvers, Houses

The earliest sections of Ingersoll’s Ordinary in Danvers date to around 1670, although the building has had additions and changes over the years, most notably in 1753. In the late seventeenth century, when Danvers was known as Salem Village, this ordinary, an early type of inn and tavern, was run by Deacon Nathaniel Ingersoll. During the Salem Witch Hysteria of 1692, the ordinary was used by those involved in the examinations, held at the nearby meetinghouse. The first group of women to be accused were originally going to be examined at the ordinary, but the large crowds required the use of the meetinghouse. Tituba, a slave owned by Samuel Parris, was one of the first three people accused of practicing witchcraft during the Salem witch trials. Her husband, John Indian, also owned by Parris, worked at the ordinary. The former ordinary is now a private residence.

Capt. Evans House (1730)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Marblehead

On State Street in Marblehead is a house built around 1730 for Samuel Nichols of Reading, a bricklayer. The house was later owned by Capt. Samuel Hooper, a ship-master and merchant. The house is traditionally called the Capt. Evans House, for Capt. Ebenezer Giles Evans, a noted Sea Captain. According to Old Marblehead Sea Captains and the Ships in Which They Sailed (1915), “Capt. Evans was lost in the “Corinna” on his passage from Cape Haytien to Boston in 1825.”

Isaac Mansfield House (1721)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Marblehead

Isaac Mansfield was a joiner who built his home in Marblehead in 1721. He may be the same person as Capt. Isaac Mansfield (born 1695 and died 1760) [there was also an Isaac Mansfield, Esq., born in 1722, and another Capt. Isaac Mansfield, born in 1750]. The house was rebuilt in 1810 by housewrights John & Eben Harris. Built on Mechanic Street, which was then a cow path leading to Brimblecomb Hill, the house is now the Brimblecomb Hill Bed & Breakfast.

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.

Rebecca Nurse Homestead (1678)

by Dan//Colonial, Danvers, Houses

Located on a proprty of 25 acres of fields, pasture and woods at 149 Pine Street in Danvers is the Rebecca Nurse Homestead. The house was mostly likely built in 1678, when Francis Nurse, a skilled maker of wooden household items, began renting the property from owner James Allen. Nurse would eventually purchase the house, where he lived with his wife Rebecca and eight children. In 1692, during the Salem Witch Trials, the 71-year-old Rebecca Nurse was accused of practicing witchcraft. Initially found not guilty at her trial, her young accusers went into convulsive fits which led the jury to return with a guilty verdict. Rebecca Nurse was hanged and her family secretly buried her on the Homestead land. In 1885, the family dedicated a granite memorial in her honor in the Nurse family graveyard. The monument is inscribed with a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier. Francis Nurse died in 1695 and the Homestead remained in the Nurse family into the eighteenth century. Rebecca’s great-grandson, Francis, lived in the house and, as a sergeant in the Danvers Alarm Company, responded to the Lexington Alarm in 1775. The Homestead was owned by the Putnam family from 1784 to 1908. Purchased and restored by the Rebecca Nurse Memorial Asociation, the property was given to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1926 and, since 1981, has been a museum owned by the Danvers Alarm List Company.

Judge Samuel Holten House (1670)

by Dan//Colonial, Danvers, Houses

The Judge Samuel Holten House in Danvers was built in 1670 by Benjamin Holten in what was then known as Salem Village. In the house resided Sarah Holten, who testified against Rebecca Nurse during the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692. From a much smaller initial core, the house, which served as a tavern, was expanded six different times over the years, making it a prime example of the development in stages of a Colonial house. In the later eighteenth century, Judge Samuel Holten lived in the house. He was a physician and statesman who served as a member of the Continental Congress from 1778 to 1780 and again from 1782 to 1787. In 1778, he was a signer of the Articles of Confederation. Since 1921, the house been owned and restored by the General Israel Putnam Chapter of the Daughter of the American Revolution.

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)”