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.