The Benjamin Holmes Jr. House at 395 Pleasant Street in Portsmouth, is a two-story, five-bay, residence with symmetrical facade with a central pedimented entry. In 1795, Benjamin Holmes (1768-1837) married Esther Lewis, and the couple moved into this residence. The late-Georgian house follows the typical form and finishes of many other coastal New England residences of the late 18th century and is in a great state of preservation.
The Joshua Wentworth House at 27 Hancock Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is a high-style Georgian residence built before the American Revolution, and was almost demolished in the name of “urban renewal.” The house has a side-gable roof with three broken-pediment dormers and a wood paneled door with segmental entablature, pilasters, and a five-light transom. Joshua Wentworth (1742–1809) the namesake of the house, was a grandson of John Wentworth (1671–1730), who had served as an early Lieutenant Governor for the Province of New Hampshire, and was himself, a merchant and State legislator. The house was originally located in the North End of Portsmouth, but in the 1970s, urban renewal and local politicians sought to raze portions of the town to “revitalize” the port town. If only they knew that Portsmouth would be the largest tourist draw in the state just for people to see historic, walkable neighborhoods! Businessman Harry Winebaum acquired the house and sought to preserve it. The solution: move the house by barge to the south side of town near Strawberry Banke. Luckily for us, the house was moved in 1973 and was restored. It is a private residence.
The Tredick House is located at 187 Marcy Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and was built in 1802 for Captain Jonathan Martin Tredick (1777-1803) and his new wife, Martha Marshall on land gifted to them by Jonathan’s father, William Tredick. In a tragic shift of fortune, Captain Jonathan Tredick never got to live in his new house as he died at sea, with accounts differing, either from fever or being swept overboard. At the time, Jonathan and Martha had two children, 2 year-old Catherine Marshall Tredick (1801-1822) and newborn Jonathan Marshall Tredick (1802-1875). Martha, a sudden widow at the age of 26 with two children, was aided by her family and that of her late husband, and operated a store nearby to supplement her income until her death at home in 1872, she was 96 and never remarried. The late Georgian style house features a hipped roof with central chimney, pedimented dormers and a pedimented entry and 9-over-six sash windows on the house.
This charming Colonial house is located at 51 Landing Road, overlooking the banks of the Jones River in Kingston, Massachusetts. The house is thought to date to 1760, and by 1800, was likely owned by Stephen Drew a prominent local shipbuilder from a family of shipbuilders who operated a shipyard near the property. In 1810, the property was owned by Joseph Holmes (1772-1863), who also would build a wharf and dock on the riverfront of the property. The property remained in the Holmes Family when it was inherited by Edward Holmes, who worked in shipbuilding until the decay of the industry. The house is a great example of a 18th century residence with a 4×2 bay two-story form, clad with wood clapboards
and shingles with a large brick chimney at the roof. In 2018, Jones River Landing, a non-profit, purchased the house and ‘seek to provide seasonal lodging and accommodations for visiting students, interns, scientists and advocates who are studying and working in environmental programs in our region’. While there were plans were to restore the house, the landscaping and peeling siding appear to show some deferred maintenance.
Built on the banks of the Jones River in Kingston, Massachusetts, this large residence is said to date to 1772 and was the home to a prominent ship-building family as well as to hundreds of destitute residents of the community who lived and worked here as the town’s poor house. Land (and possibly an earlier house) was acquired in 1772 by Zenas Drew (1735-1822), the son of Cornelius Drew, a wealthy shipbuilder who employed his many sons to work in the same industry, and the existing house was constructed for his family. From the house, numerous shipyards would be seen with large brigs travelling down the Jones River into Plymouth Bay and the Atlantic. After Zenas Drew’s death in 1822, the Town of Kingston acquired the property for use as the town’s almshouse or poorhouse, and likely expanded the property to its current Federal style configuration. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, almshouses were a reality for society’s most vulnerable people, where these locally run institutions provided living and working conditions in a time before Social Security, Medicaid and Section 8 housing became a reality. These facilities were designed to punish people for their poverty and, hypothetically, make being poor so horrible that people would continue to work at all costs. Being poor began to carry an intense social stigma, and increasingly, poorhouses were placed outside of public view, as was the case here in Kingston outside of the town center at the banks of the river. By the 1920s and 1930s, these institutions began to close, with Kingston’s closing in 1923. The property was sold to a private owner, and has remained as a single-family residence ever since.
The William Sever House is an architecturally and historically significant residence in the town center of Kingston, Massachusetts. A prosperous merchant, owner of ships involved in coastal and international trade and member of the colony’s House of Representatives, William Sever (1729-1809) was prepared to erect a home of appropriate status when he married his cousin, Sarah Warren, in 1755. Sever joined his father Nicholas Sever’s commercial shipping business after graduating from Harvard College in 1745 and in 1754, was elected to the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s House of Representatives. In 1769, Squire Sever was elected to the Governor’s Council, a position he held until 1774 when he joined the Provincial Congress. Due to his experience and seniority, Sever was appointed to head the Congress and was declared “President of Massachusetts” and endowed with the governor’s executive powers. After his death in 1809, the house remained in the Sever family for generations, including as a summer residence for James W. Sever, the namesake of Sever Hall at Harvard University. The residence is well-preserved and showcases the telescoping nature of some of these early Colonial-era properties, with the main house adjoined by a barn and carriage house and diminutive ells and was thoroughly documented in the 1930s through the Historic American Buildings Survey, with detailed drawings, plans, and photographs of the exterior and interior spaces.
The Samuel J. Nutter House on Indian Pond Road in Kingston, Massachusetts, is a fairly rare example of a half-cape Georgian-era home in New England. Local history states that the house dates to before the American Revolution and was constructed as an early half-cape, with an off-center door flanked by two bays of windows. The small house form would allow the owner to add on additional bays to make it a 3/4- (has a door with two windows on one side and a single window on the other) or full-cape (with a central door and two windows on each side) as the family and prosperity grew. This house was built as a half-cape and has not changed in its over 275-year existence, besides the addition of a barn and one-story connecting addition to it. The house was originally located elsewhere in town, but was relocated to the site in about 1830 by Samuel Nutter (born Nutt and changed his name in 1825), who married Mercy Washburn that year. The Nutter Family farmed here until the early 1900s.
This stately Georgian style house on Main Street in Kingston, Massachusetts, was originally built in nearby Marshfield and later moved to its current location just decades later. The house was built on the Winslow estate in Marshfield in about 1774 by either Dr. Isaac Winslow or his brother, Maj Pelham Winslow. In 1796, the property was purchased by Bildad Washburn, a noted gravestone carver, and the house was moved to its present site. Reports state that the house was moved by boat and oxcart to its current location, where it became a tavern and residence of Mr. Washburn. In 1804, the house was sold to Major George Russell, a merchant and town clerk, who later served in the War of 1812, who converted the ell into a store where he sold, East and West India goods from his ships. After his death, his daughter ran a dame’s school from the house. The Washburn Tavern is significant as a large Georgian-era house that remains in a great state of preservation.
The General John Thomas House at 156 Main Street in Kingston, Massachusetts, is significant as a pre-Revolution Georgian style residence and for its connections with a notable Patriot. General John Thomas (1724-1776) was born in Marshfield and later studied medicine, completing his studies in 1746 at the age of 22. He practiced medicine until being appointed in March 1746, as assistant surgeon by Governor William Shirley in Samuel Waldo’s regiment. Liking military service, in 1747 he traded his post as surgeon for that of a lieutenant. By the time of the French and Indian War he had risen to colonel in the militia. After the war, he married Hannah Thomas in 1761 and either built or moved into this house in Kingston, where he practiced medicine. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, John Thomas was a Brigadier, and briefly resigned from the ranks, disappointed that while four major generals were named, he was not on the list. Congress was then trying to name no more than one major general from each state, and Artemas Ward was given preference. George Washington implored him to remain, and John Thomas returned to service. The Congress resolved that he would be given precedence over all other brigadiers in the army. On the night of March 4, 1776, he led his division to fortify the Dorchester Heights, overlooking the south harbor at Boston, by using cannon that Henry Knox had brought from Fort Ticonderoga. From that position, he threatened the British fleet and the British were forced to withdraw, evacuating Boston on March 17. Thomas was finally named a major general. Soon after, Thomas was assigned to command in Canada and take charge of the Canadian invasion. He joined the army besieging Quebec and remained there until he died of Smallpox in June 1776, not living long enough to see a free America. The John Thomas House is a lasting and important physical vestige of his legacy.
The Cobb-Bartlett House at 240 Main Street in Kingston, Massachusetts, was built around 1754 for Gershom Cobb (1717-1799) where he raised his family. The gambrel-roofed Georgian house was built before the revolution, and may have originally been a half-cape and expanded to a full-cape in the late 18th or early 19th century. The property was sold by Cobb in 1768 to Captain Joseph Bartlett, and the property remained in the family for generations after his death in 1788. The house is a well-preserved example of a Cape style house with large, central chimney and clad with cedar shingle siding and roof.
Buildings of New England 