King Hooper Mansion (1745)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Marblehead

This week, we’ll be looking at some mansions in Marblehead built by members of the wealthy Hooper family. The oldest section of the King Hooper Mansion, at 8 Hooper Street, dates to 1728 and was built by Greenfield Hooper, a candle maker. The front section, with its elegant Georgian facade, was erected in 1745 by his son, Robert Hooper. As described in The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution (1910), by James H. Stark:

Robert Hooper, known as “King Hooper,” was born at Marblehead, June 26, 1709, son of the aforesaid Greenfield Hooper. He was married four times. Was a merchant who rose from poverty to apparently inexhaustible wealth, engrossing for years a large part of the foreign fishing business of Marblehead, which was very extensive about the year 1760. For awhile he purchased all the fish brought into that port, sent it to Bilboa and other parts of Spain and received gold and silver in return, with which he purchased goods in England. He owned lands in Marblehead, Salem, Danvers, and an extensive tract at Lyndeborough, N. H.. and elsewhere. He had a large and elegant house at Marblehead, and also a mansion at Danvers, where he did “royal” entertaining, rode in a chariot like a prince, and was ever after known as “King Hooper.” He was one of the wealthiest and most benevolent men in the colony.

Robert Hooper was also called “King” by the local sailors for his fairness and integrity. In 1819, the mansion was traded to Jason Chamberlain for the schooner Economy. Chamberlain’s heirs owned the house until 1888, using the front room as a dry goods store. It was next owned by the YMCA and then used as a tea room and an antique shop. Since 1938, the house has been owned by the Marblehead Arts Association. The King Hooper Mansion now hosts art exhibitions and can be rented for events.

Ropes Mansion (1727)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Salem

Built on Essex Street in Salem around 1727, the Ropes Mansion has been open to the public since 1912. It was built by merchant Samuel Barnard of Deerfield and sold by Barnard’s heirs to Judge Nathaniel Ropes II in 1768. He was a loyalist and died of smallpox as his house was being attacked by a mob of Patriots in 1774. His family went into exile, but reclaimed the house after the Revolutionary War. It remained in the Ropes family until 1907, when sisters Mary and Eliza Ropes bequeathed it as the Ropes Memorial. Various alterations have been made to the interior of the house over the years, most dramatically in 1894, when Colonial Revival modifications were made and the structure was moved back from the street. The building‘s current entryway dates to the 1830s and was inspired by Asher Benjamin‘s American Builder’s Companion (1827). The house also has formal gardens dating to 1912. The house has had several fires: Abigail Ropes burned to death after her dress caught fire in 1839; a disgruntled worker is believed to have started a fire which gutted an addition in 1894; and the third floor attic was damaged in a fire in 2009. Today, the Ropes Mansion is owned by the Peabody Essex Museum.

Wesley United Methodist Church, Salem (1888)

by Dan//Churches, Romanesque Revival, Salem

Wesley United Methodist Church, at 8 North Street in Salem, was designed by Lawrence B. Valk of New York and was constructed in 1888-1889. The local Salem contractors were J.F. Farrin, Joseph N. Parsons, and Joseph N. Peterson. As explained in the Visitor’s Guide to Salem of 1892, at that time Salem had two Methodist churches. One, the

“Lafayette St. Methodist Episcopal Church, at the corner of Harbor street, was built and dedicated in 1853. This society had previously occupied a smaller house of worship on Sewall street, which was again occupied in 1872, as Wesley Chapel, by members who withdrew from the Lafayette St. Society, and who, largely augmented in numbers, re-organized as […] The Wesley Church and, in 1888, erected the large brick and stone church edifice on North street a few doors from Essex. In construction this is quite different from any other church building in the city. By means of sliding doors, the seating capacity can be much increased by connecting the Sunday school rooms, which are on the street end of the building, with the large audience room. The windows of the church being of stained glass present a most beautiful appearance in the evening when services are being held, the brightly lighted interior reflecting attractively through the large gothic memorial window on North street.

The Lafayette Street United Methodist Church moved to a new building at 292 Lafayette Street in 1910 and in 1994 merged with the Wesley United Methodist Church. Since 2007, the Lafayette Street church building has been the First Baptist Church of Salem.

John J. Perry House (1856)

by Dan//Houses, Natick, Vernacular

The Perry House, located on Pleasant Street in South Natick, was built in 1856 by John Jones Perry. In 1834, he had married Mary, the daughter of Oliver N. Bacon, author of A History of Natick (1856). Perry also acquired a barn on the property and moved it back from the street where he used it to stable horses used in his coal business. In 1907, the house and barn were purchased by Anna Kneeland Haggerty Shaw, widow of Robert Gould Shaw. She gave the barn (now Shaw Gym) for use by the town and renovated the house to become a children’s home for the Unitarian Society in Boston. The house has since had other owners, who have used it as a private residence.

General John Glover House (1762)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Marblehead

John Glover was a Marblehead fisherman and merchant who rose to the rank of general in the Revolutionary War. His schooner Hannah was the first of many privateers authorized by George Washington to raid British shipping. Glover‘s Marblehead militia became the 14th Continental Regiment, known as the “Amphibious Regiment,” which evacuated Washington’s Continental Army after it lost the Battle of Long Island. His seafaring men would again man the boats for Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware in 1776. John Glover’s gambrel-roofed house at 11 Glover Street in Marblehead was built in 1762.