Stephen Phillips House (1821)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Salem

In 1800, Captain Nathaniel West and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Elias Hasket Derby, hired Samuel McIntire to design a country estate in Danvers. They later divorced and Elizabeth retained the house, but Capt. West eventually inherited a third of the building. In 1821, he transported his three rooms by ox sled to Chestnut Street in Salem, where they formed the core of his new Federal-style mansion. The West family sold the house in 1863 to Malvina Tabitha Ward, who ran a boarding house and school in the residence. In 1875, the house was sold to Annie B. Webb and in 1911, Anna Wheatland Phillips and her husband, Stephen Willard Phillips, bought the house. By that time the house had been expanded and much altered over the years in various architectural styles. Anna and Stephen W. Philips hired architect William Rantoul to remodel the house to reflect its origins in the Federal style. Stephen W. Philips, who was born in Hawaii, collected Oceanic art. His father, Stephen Henry Phillips, had served as Attorney General for the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1866 to 1873. Stephen W. and Anna Phillips’s son, Stephen Phillips, who died in 1971, had wanted his childhood home to become a museum. In 1973, his wife, Betty, established the Stephen Phillips Memorial Charitable Trust for Historic Preservation, which opened the house to the public. Since 2006, the house has been owned by Historic New England. The property also includes the carriage house, which contains the family’s collection of carriages and automobiles.

Mugford Building (1880)

by Dan//Commercial, Marblehead, Organizations, Queen Anne

Captain James Mugford of the Continental Navy is a Marblehead hero of the American Revolution. The Mugford Association, named in honor of Capt. Mugford, built the prominent Mugford Building, on Washington Street in Marblehead, in 1880. The Association met in a hall on the second story, while the lower level of the building was used for commercial space. The Association disbanded in 1943 and the building has since had other owners. This Marblehead landmark continues to house retail shops.

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.”

Hamilton Hall (1805)

by Dan//Federal, Organizations, Salem

Happy New Year!!! Our first building of the new year is Hamilton Hall in Salem, named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. A three-story brick Federal-style building, designed by Samuel McIntire and built from 1805 to 1807 on Chestnut Street at Cambridge Street, Hamilton Hall was built as a gathering place and hall for functions held by Salem’s wealthy Federalist elite. A particularly notable event was the visit by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824. With its ballroom, Hamilton Hall is still used for social and cultural events, including being rented for weddings. The west end of the building was completed in 1824 and the Greek Revival entrance was installed in 1845.

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.

Amos and Solomon Towne House (1804)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Salem

One of the earliest Federal-style mansions on Chestnut Street in Salem was built in 1804 for two brothers, a schoolmaster and a ship-master, Amos and Solomon Towne. Notable for its fine entrance porch, the house was jointly owned until Amos sold his half in 1807. Solomon sold the house to merchant James King in 1821. While Amos still occupied the house, there was “a school for misses” held there where Sarah Gould taught “reading, English, grammar, geography, embroidery, tambouring, needlework in its various branches, drawing, painting and paper fancy work.” The house has been expanded on the sides and to the rear by later owners.

First Church in Cambridge (1871)

by Dan//Cambridge, Churches, Gothic

Merry Christmas from Historic Buildings of Massachusetts!!! Today, Let’s look at a church with a long history. The current church, or meeting house, of the First Church in Cambridge, is the congregation’s sixth and was built in 1871. The first meeting house was built in 1632 at Mount Auburn and Dunster Streets. This congregation eventually left for Hartford, Connecticut under Rev. Thomas Hooker and a new congregation was gathered in Cambridge in 1636. A second meeting house was built in 1650 in the center of Harvard Square and was replaced by the third, at the same location, in 1706. The fourth was built at the corner of Church Street and Massachusetts Avenue in 1757 and was used until 1829, when there was a split in the congregation between Congregationalists and Unitarians. The Congregationalists, taking the name of the Shepard Congregational Society, built their own separate fifth meeting house (the Shepard Memorial Church), at Mount Auburn and Holyoke Streets in 1831. Outgrowing this, they built the current church, at Garden and Mason Streets, in 1872. In 1899, the two churches agreed to be separately known as the First Church in Cambridge (Congregational) and the First Church in Cambridge (Unitarian), now called the First Parish Cambridge. In the 1920s, a Parish House with a chapel, offices, classrooms and meeting halls were added to the Congregational Church. The church has a brass cockerel weathervane, which was made by famed coppersmith Shem Drowne in 1821 for the New Brick Church, known as the Cockerel Church, on Hanover Street, Boston and was purchased for the Cambridge church in 1873. Continue reading “First Church in Cambridge (1871)”