The house at 48 Chestnut Street in Salem was built in 1909 for Caroline O. Emmerton, the philanthropist who had the year before purchased the House of the Seven Gables and would oversee its restoration as a museum. Designed by architect William G. Rantoul and modeled on the Derby House in Salem, the house on Chestnut Street was quickly sold to Francis A. Seamans, who lived there for over twenty years.
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)”
Built around 1729, replacing and reusing timbers from a previous house at the same location that had burned, the Clark-Morgan-Benson House is one of the oldest surviving buildings on Essex Street in Salem. Built by Joseph Neal, the house has been enlarged over time and has two substantial ells, forming a U-shape, the ell on the western elevation having a gambrel roof like the front facade. In the nineteenth century, the dwelling was divided between the Clark and Morgan families and was later owned, undivided, for much of the twentieth century by the Benson family.
Typical of houses of its period, including in its entryway, is the Josiah Woodbury House, on Broad Street in Salem, built around 1774. Woodbury was a mason and the house stayed in his family until 1815. The house has a rear ell of a type known as a Beverly Jog.
The Buffington-Goodhue-Wheatland House, at 374 Essex Street in Salem, was built around 1785 or earlier for Capt. Nehemiah Buffington, who died in 1832. It soon passed to Benjamin Goodhue, who moved the house forward to be closer to Essex Street. He also added the Greek Revival-style entrance. The house was in the Wheatland family from 1849 to early in the twentieth century.
The Lindall-Gibbs-Osgood House is a gambrel-roofed residence at 314 Essex Street in Salem. Located between the “Witch House” and First Church, it was built for Mary Lindall and later had other owners, including the Gibbs family. In 1825, it was bought by Capt. William Osgood and remained in his family until was acquired by the Red Cross in the 1940s. The house continues as an office building today. According to The Colonial Architecture of Salem (1919), by Frank Cousins and Phil M. Riley, it was in this house
where Benjamin Thompson, afterward Count Rumford, commander-in-chief of the Bavarian army, lived as a boy and made some of his early experiments. Rumford ovens, invented by this eminent scientist and author, are to be found in several of the larger old mansions of Salem, a few of them even now finding occasional use.
At the age of 13, Thompson was apprenticed to John Appleton, a merchant who owned the house at the time.
Thought to have been built sometime between 1744 and 1748, the Cabot-Endicott-Low House, at 365 Essex Street in Salem, is an important example of a high-style gambrel roof Georgian colonial residence. The house was built for Joseph Cabot, a merchant, and remained in his family until purchased by William C. Endicott in 1870. Endicott was a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1873-1882) and Secretary of War under Grover Cleveland (1885-1889). His daughter, Mary, married British prime minister Joseph Chamberlain in 1888. Endicott‘s friend, merchant and silversmith Daniel Low, owned the house from 1894 to 1919. Continue reading “Cabot-Endicott-Low House (1744)”