historic house blog

Joshua Silvester House // 1857

Buildings of New England5 Comments

This large house sits on Peabody Avenue in Danvers, Massachusetts, and is thought to be the oldest house built of cement in the United States! Joshua Sylvester Silvester (1803-1888), the house’s original owner, was born in Wiscasset, Maine, and began working in the shoemaking business, expanding his products in England, taking many business trips there. While in England, he is said to have particularly admired Charles Dickens’s estate, Gad’s Hill, and modeled his Danvers home after it. Joshua Silvester not only designed this house, but directly supervised its construction which is of hand-poured cement/stucco by two masons imported to town to work on the house. The fifteen-room residence with octagon-shaped barn was complete by 1858. In 1880, the property was purchased by Isaac B. Howe of Clinton, Iowa. Howe was a civil engineer who had helped to lay out the Transcontinental Railroad and had been superintendent of the Iowa division of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. Howe died within a year of moving to Danvers,
but his family continued to live in the house for many years.


Jeremiah Page House // 1754

Buildings of New England1 Comment

In 1754, a 32-year-old brickmaker Jeremiah Page built this large, gambrel-roofed Georgian house in Danvers, Massachusetts, for his young family. Jeremiah and his first wife, Sarah, raised nine children here and dreamed of liberty from England. Following the Tea Act, passed by British Parliament in 1773 that granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies, Page was said to have demanded that “none shall drink tea in my house.” One evening when her husband was out, Sarah Page is said to have invited several women from the neighborhood up to the porch atop the Page House’s gambrel roof to enjoy tea. Larcom quotes Page as telling her friends, “Upon a house is not within it,” thereby finding a loophole around her husband’s directive. This legend was enshrined in the poem “The Gambrel Roof” (1874) by Lucy Larcom, who knew Sarah Page’s granddaughter. Jeremiah Page would fight in the Revolution, serving as a Captain. The Page House remained in the family for two more generations, Sarah Page’s daughter in-law, Mary Page died in 1876 and her will put the property into a trust with the stipulation that once there were no longer any Page descendants to live there, the historic house was to be torn down. After Mary Page’s daughter Anne Lemist Page died in 1913, the trustee planned to demolish it according to her wishes. The Danvers Historical Society sprung into action and sued to oppose the will, fighting to preserve this significant home. They won, and relocated the home a block from Elm Street to its present site on Page Street, where it stands today. The Danvers Historical Society maintain the structure to this day, including the “porch” at the roof where the tea party once took place.

Brocklebank-Nelson-Beecher House // c.1661

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Brocklebank-Nelson-Beecher House is a First Period structure in Georgetown, Massachusetts, believed to have been built in the 1660s. The land on which the house stands was granted in 1661 to Samuel Brocklebank (1628-1676) , a surveyor who, with his widowed mother and brother, left England and were among the first settlers of Rowley in 1639. It was built by Lieut. Samuel Brocklebank who also owned a farm of 72 acres on the site. Lieut. Brocklebank was appointed captain in a militia and was killed with his entire company in Sudbury in 1676 during a raid by Native people during the period of the King Philip’s War. Samuel’s wife remarried and moved to Newbury, and his son, Samuel Jr., resided in the family home which remained in the Brocklebank family until 1754. The house became a tavern by owner Solomon Nelson, who purchased the property in 1765 and made substantial additions and renovations to the house in its current Georgian style. In 1858 the house was bought by Rev Charles Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher. An ardent abolitionist, he was the pastor of the town’s Old South Congregational Church. Today, the Brocklebank-Nelson-Beecher House is owned by the Georgetown Historical Society, who maintain and showcase the town’s rich history from this important early residence.  

Nelson House // 1797

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This residence sits on the historic Elm Street in Georgetown, Massachusetts, and is one of the best late-Georgian style dwellings in the town. The house was built in 1797 for Nathaniel Nelson (1767-1853), a banker who worked in Newburyport, just years after his marriage to Sally Chaplin. Nathaniel descended from Thomas Nelson (1615-1648), who was among the twenty families who had come to the New World in the winter of 1638 with the Puritan cleric Ezekiel Rogers (1590-1660). With Rogers most of these families settled at Rowley, incorporated in 1639 with Georgetown later setting off from Rowley, creating their own town in 1838. Nathaniel and many of his family worked as tanners, preparing the skins of animals into leather, and had shops in the area. Mr. Nelson was such an esteemed member of society, that when the War of 1812 broke out, he was asked to store money and gold from Newburyport in his basement, away from the coast, hiding it from the British forces. After successive ownership, the residence was purchased in 1936 by Everett A. and Mary A. Spaulding. A Georgetown native, Everett Augustus Spaulding made colonial revival furniture under the corporate name Spaulding Colonial Reproductions. The residence remains in spectacular condition, with its large central chimney, symmetrical façade, portico, and hipped roof punctuated by pedimented dormers.

Moody-Hall House // 1830

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Transitional Federal/Greek Revival style houses are among my favorite. You can see the emergence of Classical architecture blending with American architecture with features of both styles, which work well together. This example can be found on Elm Street in Georgetown, Massachusetts. The dwelling appears to have been built for Dr. George Moody, one of four physicians in Georgetown in 1840, who began his practice in town in 1830. In his first years there, he oversaw patients during Typhus and Dysentery outbreaks and was credited with having determined that a high sulphur content in the local water supply accounted for the increased cases. Dr. Moody died in 1866, and his widow continued to live in the house until her death in 1880, after which it was sold to Mrs. Charlotte Sawyer Hall, the widow of local shoemaker Seth Hall.

Rev. Samuel Foxcroft House // 1765

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Built in 1765 for Rev. Samuel Foxcroft (1734-1807), this grand two and a half story house was the first major frame dwelling in New Gloucester, Maine. Its large scale and such fine mid-18th century architectural features as the triangular doorway pediment  and quoins at the corners make this a house befitting  the community’s first minister. Born in Boston in 1735, Foxcroft was the son of the Rev. Thomas Foxcroft, pastor of the First Church of Boston from 1717 to 1769. The younger Foxcroft graduated from Harvard in 1754 and answered the call of the New Gloucester Congregationalists ten years later, a brand new town in the wilderness of Maine. He was ordained in the blockhouse, a defensive structure from attacking native peoples, in January of 1765 and continued his ministry in the town until 1793, having the first purpose-built meetinghouse completed in 1773. The last years of his life were spent in poor health and he died at his home in 1807 at the age of 72.

Whitman-Fessenden-Coombs House // c.1800

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This important Federal-period house sits in the middle of New Gloucester village in Maine, and dates to the early 19th century with mid-19th century alterations. The original owner was Obediah Whitman, who sold the house soon after to General Samuel Fessenden (1784-1869) lived here while practicing law in New Gloucester. He was an avid abolitionist who served as a congressman and in 1828, he declined the presidency of Dartmouth College. The General’s son, William Pitt Fessenden, resided there from ages three to fourteen. William later became a U.S. Senator and Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury. The third notable owner was artist, Delbert Dana “D.D.” Coombs, who used the second floor for his studio for some years. The update from the mid-19th century of the modest bracketed eaves and two-over-one windows showcases how later owners can update a home without diminishing the original design.

Nathaniel C. Allen House // 1793

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Nathaniel C. Allen House is a two-story Federal style residence located in New Gloucester, Maine. The house was built in 1793 by Shubael Marsh, a local builder (and father of Shubael Jr. (1797–1867), who moved to Texas with Stephen F. Austin) and sold to Nathaniel Coit Allen, an early settler in New Gloucester, who served as a General during the American Revolution. The property was purchased by Col. James Madison Thompson, then owner of the Glen House, an early White Mountains hotel in New Hampshire, who renovated the home by replacing the central chimney with two narrow ones and raised the ceilings and introduced Victorian interior woodwork. A subsequent owner added large Colonial Revival porches on the front and side entrances along with a new entry. The house showcases the changing tastes from Federal style to Victorian back to traditional tastes.

Morrill House // c.1830

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This stunning brick Federal style home sits in the center of Gray Village in Maine. The house dates to the early 19th century and was long-owned by members of the Morrill Family, seemingly first by William C. Morrill and remaining in the family for generations. The residence is a high-style example of the Federal style with recessed elliptical entrance with fanlight transom and sidelights with a Victorian-era front door. The house was likely built by a local mason or housewright who employed the designs of a Federal style plan book for the architectural detailing at the entry.

Samuel Perley House // c.1784

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Built around 1784 for Reverend Samuel Perley, this Federal style home is one of the finest in the town of Gray, Maine. Samuel Perley (1742-1830) was educated at Harvard College and while there, met and befriended John Adams, who would later become the second President of the United States. The two maintained a lifelong friendship. Perley came to Gray in 1784 as a pastor of Gray’s first church. He likely had this house built at the time or purchased an existing house and updated it and the house is said to have Moses Eaton stencilling inside. At one point, Rev. Perley and his wife lived on one side of the house while his son Isaac, his wife, and their twelve children lived on the other.