USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts : a guide to its places and people > Part 39
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5. The Witch House (open daily in summer 9.30-5; fee 10g), 31012 Essex St., once the residence of Judge Corwin of the notorious witchcraft trials, has, unfortunately, been altered by the addition of a modern drugstore in front; but the interior remains very much as it was in 1692.
6. The Ropes Memorial (open Tues., Thurs., and Sat. 2-5; adm. to garden any day except Mon .; adm. free), 318 Essex St., is a stately gambrel- roof building (1719) enclosed by a graceful wooden fence with carved posts. The upper slope of the roof is outlined by a railing. The house was owned and occupied by Judge Nathaniel Ropes (1726-74) and his descendants for four generations. It contains a rare and valuable col- lection of Canton, Nanking, and Fitzhue china and Irish glass.
7. The Salem Athenaeum (adm. by invitation of a member), 339 Essex St., contains, among other rare editions, the Kirwan Library, taken by a privateer from an English vessel and used as the basis for his studies by Nathaniel Bowditch, the famous mathematician and navigator, a native of Salem.
8. Behind a graceful wooden fence decorated with carved urns, at 393 Essex St., is the Rev. Thomas Barnard House, a large and delightful gambrel-roof dwelling with a pedimented doorway, and two great chim- neys.
Retrace Essex St .; R. from Essex St. into Flint St .; L. from Flint St. into Chestnut St.
9. Chestnut Street, laid out in 1796, has been called one of the finest streets, architecturally, in America. Most of these Federal houses, among which are some designed by McIntire, are three-story, of mellow brick, with beautiful exterior detail of porches, columns, and Palladian windows. In the rear are charming gardens and picturesque buildings which form an
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Salem
appropriate background. Almost every house deserves study. Among them, and selected almost at random, are the Pickman-Shreve-Little House, No. 27 (1816), with a classic porch below a Palladian window; the similar Dodge-Shreve House, No. 29 (1817), with balustraded hip roof, cornice set with modillions, and classic porch; the Mack and Stone Houses, No. 21 and No. 23 (1814-15), simple in detail but with elliptical colonnaded porches and keyed marble lintels.
IO. Hamilton Hall, on the corner of Cambridge St., was designed by McIntire in 1805. Although somewhat altered, it retains some character- istic detail such as the five Palladian windows on the side, each with a paneled insert above containing a carved ornament. The famous Mc- Intire eagle is preserved in the center panel.
R. from Chestnut St. into Cambridge St .; R. from Cambridge St. into Broad St.
II. The Pickering House (private) stands at the corner of Pickering and Broad Sts. Built in 1660 (altered), it is said to be the oldest house in Salem proper. The house has been extensively altered, and its medieval core is now veiled by excessive 'carpenter Gothic' work.
R. from Broad St. into Flint St .; R. from Flint St. into Federal.
12. The Cook-Oliver House (private), 142 Federal St., benefited greatly by that architectural tragedy, the destruction of the Elias Hasket Derby Mansion. After Derby's death, McIntire, who began this dwelling for Captain Samuel Cook in 1804, persuaded the Captain to buy the gate- posts and much beautiful wood finish of the unoccupied Derby man- sion. The fence, with its elaborate gateposts decorated with urns sur- mounted by the flame motif, is probably the best of McIntire's many de- lightful fences. The house is typical McIntire - square, three-story frame, hip roof, a heavy cornice with large dentils along the eaves, a horizontal band, vertically fluted, along the second floor line, finely wrought entablatures above the windows, and a porch and doorway
SALEM MAP INDEX
I. Gardner-White-Pingree House
2. Essex Institute
3. Peabody Museum
16. Statue of Roger Conant
17. Hawthorne Monument
5. Witch House
6. Ropes Memorial
7. Salem Athenaeum
8. Rev. Thomas Barnard House
9. Chestnut Street
IO. Hamilton Hall
II. Pickering House
12. Cook-Oliver House
13. Assembly Hall
14. Pierce-Nichols House
15. Washington Square
4. Old Town Hall
18. Narbonne House
19. House of the Seven Gables.
20. J. C. B. Smith Swimming Pool
2I. U.S. Coast Guard Air Station
22. Richard Derby House
23. Custom House
24. Hawthorne's Birthplace
25. Forest River Park
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Main Street and Village Green
notable even among the many beautiful doorways of Salem for McIn- tire's free interpretation of the classic orders.
13. The Assembly Hall (not open), 138 Federal St., an historic McIntire building of 1782, has been remodeled for private use but the elaborate match-boarded façade, Ionic pilasters on the second story, and fanlight are unchanged. The porch, added later, is elaborately decorated with scrolls, festoons, and a heavy grapevine frieze.
14. The Pierce-Nichols House (owned by Essex Institute), 80 Federal St., is one of the most interesting houses, architecturally, in Salem. This magnificent dwelling, built in 1782, the first flower of McIntire's genius, has with its outbuildings been called one of the finest architectural groups executed in wood in the United States. The square, three-story exterior is of classic simplicity with a Doric pedimented porch and fluted Doric pilasters at the corners. Notable is the roof treatment with its balus- traded parapet and belvedere. The urns on the gate-posts were carved out of solid blocks of wood by the hand of the master.
L. from Federal St. on North St .; R. from North St. into Bridge St .; R. from Bridge St. into Winter St .; R. from Winter St. into Washington Square.
15. The stately houses of Washington Square, surrounding Salem Common, perpetuate the charm and dignity of Salem's past. Included among many of architectural interest are the Hosmer-Townsend-Waters House, No. 80 (1795), by McIntire, known for its lovely, enclosed side porch and its hip roof rising to a massive central chimney; the Boardman House, No. 82 (1785), of beautiful proportion and detail, with an enclosed porch; the Baldwin-Lyman House, No. 92 (1818), with its symmetrical arrangement of great chimneys joined in pairs; and the distinguished hip- roofed Andrew-Safford House, 1818, which uses roof balustrades, heavy cornice, and fluted columns on a side portico for decoration, but centers its emphasis upon an elaborate Corinthian entrance porch below a Palladian window.
16. The Statue of Roger Conant, founder of the city, Washington Square and Brown St., was executed by Henry Hudson Kitson.
TOUR 2 - 4 m.
South from Washington Square into Hawthorne Boulevard.
17. The Hawthorne Monument by Bela Pratt, at the head of Hawthorne Boulevard, is appropriately placed near the scenes chiefly associated with Salem's great literary figure.
Retrace Hawthorne Blvd .; R. from Hawthorne Blvd. into Essex St.
18. The Narbonne House (private), 71 Essex St., stands almost opposite Washington Sq. E. Built before 1671, its steep pitched roof and great central chimney proclaim its period. The Dutch door of the lean-to was formerly the entrance to a 'Cent Shop,' as described by Hawthorne.
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R. from Essex St. into Turner St.
19. The House of the Seven Gables (open daily 10-5; fee 25g), 54 Turner St., is, as the supposed setting of Hawthorne's novel by that name, perhaps the most celebrated spot in all historic Salem. Unfortunately for sen- timent, there is some grave doubt whether this house is actually the one described by Hawthorne. There is even more doubt as to how much of the building is authentic. It was certainly greatly restored in 1910, and it has been said that a good deal of imagination went into the restoration. Its present appearance is weather-beaten and rambling, with seven gables, huge chimneys, a lean-to, and a second-story overhang adorned with pendrils; it shows strong medieval influence. It was probably built in about 1668.
The House of the Seven Gables is one of three 17th-century dwellings clustered about a garden, the others being the Hathaway House (parlor and kitchen open; included in the original fee), built in 1682 and, with its overhanging second story and small diamond-paned windows, beauti- fully preserved; and the Retire Becket House (open during summer as tea- house), built in 1655.
Retrace Turner St .; R. from Turner St. into Derby St. Straight ahead into Fort Ave .; R. from Fort Ave. into Winter Island Road.
20. The J. C. B. Smith Swimming Pool is a large and inviting salt-water cove made by damming the head of Cat Cove.
R. around swimming pool to Winter Island.
21. The U.S. Coast Guard Air Station (open 3 to sundown on weekdays; 1 until sundown on Sat. and Sun .; guide) is a modern, completely equipped depot, which includes airplane hangars.
Retrace Winter Island Rd .; L. from Winter Island Rd. into Fort Ave .; straight ahead into Derby St.
22. The Richard Derby House (open daily 9-5; fee 20g), 168 Derby St., built in 1762 and now owned by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, is the oldest brick house in Salem. Except for its gambrel roof, it is American Georgian in style, with dentiled cornice, pedimented doorway, and four-end chimneys joined in pairs. From its small-paned windows, the first of the line of merchant princes could watch his vessels unloading almost in his dooryard, or follow with his glass their topsails receding beyond the horizon.
23. The old Custom House, 178 Derby St., built in 1819, where Nathaniel Hawthorne once dreamed over his ledgers, looks down along the granite finger of Derby Wharf that once beckoned home the vessels of the Derby family but which now points only to a harbor empty of ships. In architec- ture it is akin to the Federal dwellings of Salem. The Palladian window above the Ionic, balustraded portico, the round-headed first-floor win- dows, the balustraded parapet, and the cupola are the outstanding archi- tectural features. Surmounting the parapet rail is a carved eagle.
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R. from Derby St. into Union St.
24. Hawthorne's Birthplace (private), 27 Union St., is a gambrel-roofed house built before the witchcraft year, 1692. It is said that the author was born (1804) in the left-hand chamber of the second story. In the shadows of the old house he spent a shy, solitary boyhood. Though he was city port surveyor in 1846, he was a mystic and a recluse by nature and entirely unfitted by an abnormal sensitiveness for his duties at the Custom House. He realized that actualities must be insisted on in America, but his genius reached its full fruition only when he turned to romantic fiction. Three volumes of short stories, besides 'The Scarlet Letter,' 'The House of Seven Gables,' 'The Blithedale Romance,' and 'The Marble Faun,' are works of major significance. He created one of the best sustained prose styles in American literature.
Retrace Union St .; R. from Union St. on Derby St .; L. from Derby on Lafayette St. (State 1A); L. from State 1A into Clifton Ave.
25. Forest River Park overlooks the harbor and sea, almost at the city limits. Three acres of this park are devoted to Pioneers' Village (open until dusk, adults 25¢, children 15¢), an accurate reproduction of typical units of a Puritan community of about 1630, ranging from dugouts and primitive cabins to the 'Governor's Fayre House' with its huge central chimney and vast fireplace. Here can be seen the village life in epitome: a blacksmith's forge, a saw-pit, a brick kiln, as well as the grim whipping- post and stocks; in the garden are the same flowers and herbs that grew in the dooryards of the pioneers.
Below are briefly listed other buildings in Salem worth a visit for their architectural significance.
'The Studio'
1826
2 & 4 Chestnut St.
Mansfield-Bolles House
1810
8 Chestnut St.
Hodges-Peele-West
1804
12 Chestnut St.
Goss-Osgood House
1810
15 Chestnut St.
Hawthorne's Residence
1846-1847
18 Chestnut St.
Peabody-Rantoul House
1810
19 Chestnut St.
Mack and Stone Houses about
1814
21 & 23 Chestnut St.
Hoffman-Simpson House about
1827
26 Chestnut St.
Hodges-Webb-Meek House before
1802
81 Essex St.
Col. Benjamin Pickman House
I743
165 Essex St. Rear
Lindall-Gibbs-Osgood House
I773
314 Essex St.
Cabot-Endicott-Low House
1748
365 Essex St.
Salem Public Library
370 Essex St.
Wheatland House before
1773
374 Essex St.
Peabody-Silsbee House
1797
380 Essex St.
Stearns House (East India Inn)
1776
384 Essex St.
Captain Edward Allen House
1780
125 Derby St.
Home for Aged Women (Benjamin W. Crowninshield House) (Samuel McIntire) 1810
County Commissioners Building
City Hall (eagle by McIntire)
93 Washington St. Washington & Derby Sts.
Railroad Station
1847
Bertram Home for Aged Men (Colonel George Peabody House)
1818
29 Washington Sq.
Silsbee-Mott House 1818
180 Derby St. Federal St.
35 Washington Sq.
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SOMERVILLE . Traditions of Trade
City: Alt. 41, pop. 100,773, sett. 1630, incorp. town 1842, city 1871.
Railroad Stations: North Somerville, off Broadway near Boston Ave .; Somer- ville, Park St .; Somerville Junction, 114 Central St .; Winter Hill, Gilman Square, for B. & M. R.R.
Accommodations: One hotel.
Information: Chamber of Commerce, 59 Union Square.
ONE of the independent municipal spokes radiating from the Boston hub, Somerville is a type of the many industrial-residential communities that press upon the borders of the capital of the Commonwealth and which, proud of their own identity, have stood their ground against annexation to Boston. The city is the center of a network of highways reaching all New England, and its railroad facilities are unusually good.
Although part of Charlestown until 1842, Somerville has had a past that is distinctly its own. Traditions of trade dominated the early settlers. For the early Somervillite, there was little of the frivolous diversion of concern about one's neighbor's conduct and beliefs so characteristic of his Boston neighbor.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century, Somerville took on dis- tinct individuality. The building of the Cambridge and Charlestown bridges to Boston had established the city as an important outpost on the direct route from Boston to the north; but it was the opening of the Middlesex Canal through Somerville in 1803 that gave impetus to its industrial development. By 1822 the canal had been outmoded by the turnpikes, and by 1835 Somerville was a regular stopping-place on the new Boston and Lowell Railroad.
With such transportation advantages, it was not long before the town entered upon an era of expansion. Three-fourths of the meat-packing of the Commonwealth is carried on in the six packing-houses of the city. In the order of their importance, other leading industries are: slaughtering, bakery products, confectionery, foundry and machine-shop products, beverages, structural iron and steel, printing, automobile assembling, coffee-roasting, furniture making, and household and photo- graphic equipment.
Because of its definitely residential character, self-rule is prized in Somer- ville. It is this love for self-government that gives the city its vigor and its virility.
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MOTOR TOUR - 12.2 m.
N. from Union Square into Bow St., straight ahead into Summer St.
I. St. Catherine's Church, 183 Summer St., designed by Maginnis and Walsh and executed in 1892 in gray brick with white marble trim, shows the influence of the Byzantine style of northern Italy, and of the Gothic. It has been termed by authorities one of the most beautiful churches in America. The basement is treated as a crypt, its arched vaulted ceiling supported by heavy piers.
Retrace Summer St .; L. from Summer St. into Washington St.
2. The James Miller Tablet stands at the spot where James Miller, aged 65, was slain by the British retreating from Concord and Lexington, April 19, 1775. 'I am too old to run,' he said.
L. from Washington St. into Medford St .; L. from Medford St. into Pros- pect Hill Ave. to junction of Munroe St.
3. The Prospect Hill Tablet commemorates the raising, Jan. 1, 1776, of the first American flag of 13 stripes. It was unfurled here over the main American fortress covering the siege of Boston, where the British were entrapped, except for egress by sea, for 11 months.
R. from Prospect Hill Ave. into Munroe St.
4. The Memorial Tower crowns the site of the fortress (Point 3). At the base of the tower are five small tablets, one of which reads: 'The flower of the British army, prisoners of war who surrendered at Saratoga, were quartered on this hill from November 7, 1777, to October 15, 1778.' They numbered about 4000 men, of whom half were Hessians. The winter was very cold, firewood was scarce, and hardship was extreme.
L. from Monroe St. into Walnut St .; R. from Walnut St. into Aldersey St .; R. from Aldersey St. into Vinal Ave .; R. from Vinal Ave. into Highland Ave.
5. At Central Hill Park is a Civil War Monument, the work of Augustus Lukeman, depicting an angel as bodyguard for a marching soldier. Adjoining it, directly in front of the Public Library, is a simpler Spanish War Monument, by Raymond Porter, in which the treatment of both soldier and sailor are markedly realistic. This monument includes com- memoration of Americans in the Boxer Revolt in China in 1900, being one of the few to do so.
6. The Public Library (open weekdays 9-9), 35 Highland Ave., contains in its central hall a full-size copy of the frieze of the Parthenon at Athens. As was the case in the original, the frieze has been tinted in blues and greens. Of note, also in the entrance hall, is a bas-relief portrait of Sam Walter Foss, author of the poem, 'The House by the Side of the Road,' and former librarian (1898-1911).
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Retrace on Highland Ave .; R. from Highland Ave. into Sycamore St.
7. The Oliver Tufts House (private), 78 Sycamore St., was originally built on Barberry Lane (Highland Ave.) by Peter Tufts, grandson of the Peter Tufts who emigrated to America in 1646, and who operated a ferry from Charlestown to Malden. The house was the headquarters of General Lee of the American Army during the siege of Boston. Some 50 years later Charlotte Cushman, the noted Boston actress, spent her childhood holidays at 'Uncle Oliver's Farm.'
R. from Sycamore St. into Broadway.
8. Ploughed Hill is the site of a celebrated and distressing incident of social history, the burning by an anti-Catholic mob in 1834 of the Ursuline Convent. Broadway below the hill, traversed at this point, was in 1775 a narrow neck of land enclosed on two sides by water. It was the last hostile territory crossed by the British on their retreat from Concord and Lexington, before they plunged into present-day Charlestown, then held by them. Here was also the start of the Middlesex Canal.
L. from Broadway into Union St .; L. from Union St. into Mystic Ave .; R. from Mystic Ave. into Middlesex Ave.
9. The Ford Motor Plant (visitors by permission), Middlesex Ave., corner of Fellsway, is a model assembly unit of the Ford system, capacity 300 cars daily.
IO. A Marker at junction of Middlesex Ave. and Fellsway indicates where Governor John Winthrop built a bark of 36 tons, named 'The Blessing of the Bay,' which was launched July 4, 1631. This was probably the first vessel built in Massachusetts.
Sharp (L.) from Middlesex Ave. into Fellsway; R. from Fellsway into Puritan Rd.
II. The Site of Ten Hills Farm, now covered with modern residences, extended from Shore Drive to the Fellsway. Here Governor Winthrop spent his first winter in America, afterward maintaining a town house in Boston, but frequently visiting his country estate, of which he was very fond.
L. from Puritan Rd. into Shore Drive; L. from Shore Drive into Mystic Ave .; R. from Mystic Ave. into Temple St .; R. from Temple St. into Broad- way.
12. The Magoun House (private), 438 Broadway, is a two-and-a-half- story gray wooden dwelling, remarkable for its delicate arched fanlight, one of the best Colonial specimens remaining in Greater Boston. In this house the first printing press in Somerville was operated.
13. The Old Powder House (L) (not open), facing Powder House Square, a circular field-stone structure 40 feet high, with cone-shaped shingled roof, was a storm-center of Revolutionary history. Here, on September 1, 1774, General Gage seized the 250 half-barrels of gunpowder stored in it, thereby provoking the Great Assembly of the following day on Cam-
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bridge Common, when thousands of patriots met ready to fight at once if called upon. Judicious counsel postponed the event till the following April at Lexington. In 1775 this Powder House became the magazine of the American army besieging Boston. The structure was built in 1703 as a gristmill.
SOUTH HADLEY . Milk, Butter, and Ideas
Town: Alt. 260, pop. 6838, sett. about 1659, incorp. 1753. Transportation: Busses to Holyoke, Granby, Belchertown. Accommodations: Two inns open all year round; one in summer only. Information: College Inn and Book Shop Inn, South Hadley Center.
SOUTH HADLEY is a farming and college community on the Con- necticut River below the low foothills of the Holyoke range of mountains, which give variety to the town's northern horizon. It is characterized by shaded streets, broad lawns, and quiet homes, and in the outskirts by elm-bordered sunny pastures, on which farms produce milk and butter for near-by manufacturing districts.
Early development was slow. The first meeting house, begun in 1732 and still standing, took five years to complete, owing to a violent controversy as to its site, during which the opposing parties several times removed structural timbers from the frame and hid them. The first minister was presently dismissed, but took no notice of his removal, and eventually had to be forcibly ejected from the pulpit with a handkerchief stuffed in his mouth, to prevent him from praying en route.
The local Indians, the Norwottucks, were peaceable, but the cruelties of invading tribes in the Connecticut Valley, especially at Deerfield, were never far out of mind, and the South Hadleyites did not feel safe until the Norwottucks were reduced to begging at scattered farmhouses for food or cider.
The Revolution found South Hadley active in the patriot cause. In 1774 the citizens voted to 'chuse four men to inspect the District about drink- ing East India tee.' Two shillings a day were voted 'for training men to go at a minute's warning.'
After the Revolution the town became interested both in manufactures and in the development of river navigation by means of locks and canals. By 1831 a map of the town shows at South Hadley Falls, a sawmill, a gristmill, a button factory, two paper mills, a tannery, and a large
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South Hadley
popular tavern. The leading industry continues to be paper-making, on a moderate scale, but farming is a close second. A large Irish immigration in the 1840's revived the town's agricultural interests. French-Canadians followed, taking to the mills, and there are smaller colonies of German and Polish descent.
For the past century, however, South Hadley has been best known as the seat of Mount Holyoke College for women, the oldest of the seven leading colleges for women in New England, and the mother of five colleges at home and five abroad, notably Mills College in California and the Inter- national Institute at Madrid. It has now (1937) one thousand students. Courses in the liberal arts are chiefly emphasized, but the curriculum in- cludes also excellent courses in science.
Mary Lyon, founder of the college, was born in 1797 on a farm in near-by Buckland, and began teaching at the age of seventeen. She early dis- played a scholarship remarkable for those times, as well as earnest con- victions relating to the betterment of her sex through intellectual develop- ment. While she was teaching at Ipswich in the early 1830's she envisaged a permanent seminary for the thorough education of young women of moderate means. Her organization of Wheaton Seminary in 1834 (see NORTON) was the first step toward her goal. In 1837 Mount Holyoke opened its doors as a seminary with Mary Lyon as principal and with eighty students, who filled its four-story brick building to capacity. Co-operative management of the dormitories was an immediate feature which still exists, the students giving one hour's service each day to their household tasks, with the primary purpose of furthering training and self- reliance in household arts. In 1893 a new charter was issued to Mount Holyoke College. From 1900 to 1936, its President was Mary Emma Woolley, best known to the general public as an American delegate to the International Disarmament Conference at Geneva, the first time in history that any woman other than a reigning ruler has been admitted to participation in such an international conference.
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