Category: Colonial

Landlord Fowler Tavern (1761)

by Dan//Colonial, Taverns, Westfield

Built around 1761 (perhaps as early as 1755), the Landlord Fowler Tavern is located at 171 Main Street in Westfield. Daniel Fowler was granted a tavern license in 1761 and the building continued to function as an inn until the 1830s. At the start of the American Revolution, Daniel Fowler served on the Committee of Correspondence, which met at the tavern. As related in The Westfield Jubilee (1870):

It is said that General Burgoyne, when he passed through this town as a prisoner from the field of Saratoga, spent the night at this tavern, and with true military politeness, kissed the wife of the landlord, on the morning of his departure.

Another prisoner of war to stay in the house during the Revolutionary War was Hessian commander General Friedrich von Riesdesel. H. C. Schaeffer owned the property between 1885 and 1916, during which time he conducted a cigar-making business on the premises. More recently, the former tavern has been restored and converted into apartments. The Fowler Tavern‘s original Connecticut River Valley broken scroll pediment doorway was removed in 1920 by Wallace Nutting and placed in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The current doorway on the building is a replica.

Mission House (1739)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Stockbridge

Rev. John Sergeant was the first missionary to the Mohicans of Western Massachusetts. He came to Stockbridge in the mid-1730s and lived at first in a small cabin. In 1739, he married Abigail Williams and by 1742 had built what is now known as the Mission House. In 1751, Jonathan Edwards succeeded Rev. Sergeant as missionary. The Sergeant family continued to occupy the house until 1867. The elaborate front doorway was added in the 1760s. The house originally stood on Prospect Hill, but between 1926 and 1930, it was moved to its current location at 19 Main Street and was restored by Miss Mabel Choate, the owner of nearby Naumkeag. The Mission House’s gardens were designed from 1928 to 1933 by Fletcher Steele. The Mission House is now a property of the Trustees of Reservations. Continue reading “Mission House (1739)”

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Marblehead (1714)

by Dan//Churches, Colonial, Marblehead

Located at 26 Pleasant Street in Marblehead, St. Michael’s Episcopal Church is the oldest Episcopal church building on its original site in New England. Founded by a group of donors consisting primarily of sea captains, the church was built in 1714, with many of its original materials being shipped from Great Britain. The original square church was expanded by one third in 1728 with a new roof. During the Revolutionary War in 1776, patriots raided the church and removed the British royal coat of arms. Many of St. Michael’s members at the time were Loyalists who fled to Canada. As related in Historic churches of America (1907), by Nellie Urner Wallington:

In the course of time, as one by one the families of the communicants died or removed to distant localities, the parish was so depleted that in 1818 funds were no longer forthcoming for the support of the church. The church building was closed, and the glebe sold to pay off the debt of the parish. In 1833, however, vigorous attempts on the part of the Congregationalists to secure possession of the church edifice roused the whole Episcopal church of the United States, until parish after parish contributed aid and old St. Michael’s was once more set upon its feet.

The church‘s current stained glass windows were installed in 1888.

Thomas Smith House (1757)

by Dan//Agawam, Colonial, Houses

Built c. 1757, the Thomas Smith House stands at 251 North West Street in the Feeding Hills section of Agawam. Thomas Smith was born in Suffield (now in Connecticut, but then in Massachusetts) in 1725, married Esther Ball in 1755, and died in 1814. The house, previously known as the Matthew Noble House (Noble, one of Agawam’s earliest settlers, first owned the land on which the house was built), was purchased by the Agawam Historical Association in 2002. Remarkable for the fact that it has not been significantly altered since it built, the Association has restored (pdf) the the house with funding from the Agawam Community Preservation Act. It is now a living history house museum.

Daniel Bray House (1776)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Salem

The house at 1 Brown Street in Salem, which has been vacant for several years and has an unsafe building mark on its door, was built in 1776 for Daniel Bray. A master mariner who sailed as ship’s master on several vessels owned by merchant John Derby, Bray built the house on land owned by his family, which he later purchased in 1770. After retiring from the sea, Bray managed Derby Wharf in Salem. The house remained in Bray’s family after his death in 1798 until 1856 and was then owned by the Kelley family until 1901. It was probably around 1902 that the front of the house was converted for shop space, serving first as a grocery store and then, at different times, as gift shops or for offices. Since 1983, it has been owned and rented out by the Peabody Essex Museum, which is currently investigating the architectural history of the house and will determine how best to use the structure in the future.