JAMES B. PEABODY

The Building of Trinity Church, Boston 53

TRINITY CHURCH was the last in the trinity of Episcopal churches to be built in Boston in Colonial times. King’s Chapel in the central part of town was largely built in 1688, although the first services were probably not held there until June 30, 1689. Christ Church, Salem Street, in the North End had its cornerstone laid on April 15, 1723, and it was opened for worship at the end of that year. Things took longer in the South End. There the cornerstone of Trinity Church was laid on April 15, 1734, six years after land bounded by Summer Street and Bishop’s Alley, later called Hawley Street and now the site of Filene’s basement, was deeded to build a church. It was not for another ten years that we can say that the church was completed. Of these buildings only Christ Church remains standing today as the oldest ecclesiastical building in Boston still in use. The original wooden structure of King’s Chapel was torn down in 1749 when the present fine Palladian stone edifice designed by Peter Harrison was erected on its site. After nearly a hundred years the first Trinity Church was also torn down and replaced by a Gothic stone building on the same spot in 1829. This structure in turn became a victim of the great fire of 1872, almost exactly forty-three years later, but after planning had already begun for the third church edifice in Copley Square, one of the key monuments of American architecture in the Romanesque style designed by H. H. Richardson, where the sixteenth Rector of Trinity was installed by the Bishop on the 6th of October, 1974.

It may be helpful to begin by describing Trinity Church’s first building in a verbal sense, by which is meant the construction of the church as we can follow it in the original records of the Proprietors and the Vestry.54 It will then be appropriate to discuss the building in a substantive sense, in the course of which the reader can ponder some descriptions of the outside as well as the inside of the church taken from the written accounts of people who visited the building, and also pictorial representations by people who presumably saw it.

If one understands how the church was built, he will learn more about a versatile and fascinating but unfortunately obscure Bostonian called William Price. Turning to the Church Records one finds that a majority of the purchasers of the land, bought in order to build the church, selected, at a meeting in Luke Vardy’s tavern in Boston on October 17, 1733, five trustees to be a building committee. This committee consisted of Peter Luce, merchant; Thomas Child, distiller; Thomas Greene, merchant; William Price, cabinetmaker; and Leonard Vassall, a wealthy landowner, who was chosen treasurer. All these men were prominent members of King’s Chapel, and it may be mentioned that William Price, who was born in 1684 in England and died in Boston in 1771, was a particularly ardent churchman who retained pews in all three Episcopal churches, was at various times a Warden and Vestryman in both Christ Church and Trinity, and was a generous contributor to all three churches. In his will he left a sum of money for a lectureship to King’s Chapel, which eventually passed to Trinity, the principal sum of which amounted to $1,309,965 as of December 31, 1973.

The first question one might well ask is: Was there a plan drawn by an architect, or anyone else, for the first Trinity Church? This is a particularly apt question because to William Price has sometimes been ascribed the drawing of the plans for Christ Church, Salem Street, and Trinity Church in Newport, Rhode Island. Nothing has been found in the Church Records to show that a plan for the church was drawn in advance by anyone, although there is considerable evidence in the same documents showing that various plans for different parts of the building were made as the work proceeded.

On November 6, 1733, the Building Committee noted the following: “We sent for John Indicott and Conversed with him about the most Proper Methods for carrying on the work. Agreed that there be 44 Large Windows and 16 small windows.” On November 8, 1733, it was:

Agreed that there be three doors in front of the church and one door on the East side of the alter to answer to the Eastermost Ile. That there be one small window made in the front over the ceiling. That Mr. John Indicott having received an Account of everything that is to be done, be desired to give in an Account what he will do the Work and find the Stuff for.

So an account or description, not a plan, was apparently given to John Indicott, master carpenter and housewright, and from this description he must have prepared his own plan. It was John Indicott who built the first steeple for Christ Church, Salem Street, in 1740, probably after a draught by William Price. Indicott also built the school in School Street for the Wardens and Vestry of King’s Chapel in 1748 when they were getting ready to build the present King’s Chapel.

Although a contract was signed with John Indicott for the carpentry work the Building Committee made a separate contract containing specific measurements with Mr. John Goldsmith for the masonry work involved in the foundations, and on April 15, 1734, the cornerstone was laid by the Reverend Mr. Roger Price, Bishop’s Commissary and Rector of King’s Chapel.

On April 30, 1734, the Building Committee “Voted that there be one Seller door made in Bishop’s alley . . . and that there be another door made under the Great Window that is over the Alter to go into the Seller.” The word “alter” in the Church Records frequently means that part of the chancel where the wooden altar table was to be placed.

On June 25, 1734, there is recorded a significant change in the original concept of the Building Committee: “Voted that there be air holes left in the wall instead of the Windows we formerly agreed for.” This suggests that a third tier of windows on both sides of the church was omitted at this point from the original plan.

On August 4, 1735, it was:

Voted that Mr. John Indicott be ordered to clear everything out of the Church and to pull down the old House and lime Shed that are before the Church as quick as Possable and that he be desired to erect a Pulpit a Reading desk and a Desk for the Clerk and to make as many Ruff Benches as shall be convenient.

On August 15, 1735, the first religious service was held in the church in the presence of the Royal Governor, Jonathan Belcher, and a dinner was provided afterwards by Mr. Withered, mine host at the Bunch of Grapes, the most popular punch house in town.

Even though the first service had been held the church was still far from finished. Glass didn’t go into the windows until October and the first pews were not built nor was the inside of the church plastered until August of the following year.

On June 12, 1738, we find this interesting entry in the records of the Building Committee:

Voted that the Ceiling of the Alter be done after the Moddle made by William Price. Voted that John Indicott do woodwork for the Arching part, purchase Stuff for the same, and for fluted columns, floor and Rails for the alter as cheap as possible.

And on October 4, 1738, the Building Committee recorded that “We drew the plan on the spot for the steps, floreing and rails at the alter with the pillasters and gave Indicott directions to do work conformable to said plan.”

On February 22, 1738, William Price was desired: “to treat with a carver about the Corinthian Capitols.” A few days later, on February 28, Mr. Price reported that

he had been with Mr. Redding the Carver about the Cappitals, who said he would not Carve them well under Ten Pounds a piece. Therefore voted that Mr. William Price be desired to agree with said Redding for the Corinthian Cappitals and that he be paid £30 for them by a Note on a good Shop. The rest of the trustees desired Thomas Greene to treat with Mr. Robert Kenton about Plaistering the Remaining Part of the Alter and make report as soon as possible.

At a meeting of the trustees at Mr. William Price’s on March 5, 1738,

Thomas Greene reported that he had tawlked with Robert Kenton about his finishing the Plaistering of the Alter. His answer was he could do it as well [as] Any man in Boston. Upon which Thos. Greene was desired by the rest of the Committee to employ said Kenton immediately to do said work with all convenient speed and said Greene is hereby impowered to provide Stuff for said Kenton and likewise to Direct Mr. Indicott to Provide Proper Scaffolds.

On June 1, 1739, the Building Committee “Voted that Mr. John Indicott be desired to make a Table for the Alter of Pine to be five feet long and three feet broad,” and within two weeks’ time, on June 17, 1739, the records of the Vestry, which had been elected in April of that year in order to select a minister for the church, report that

Sunday June 17th being Trinity Sunday the Holy Communion or Sacrement of the Lord’s supper was administered in Trinity Church (being the first time) by the Reverend Addington Davenport, the Revd Mr. Saml Seabury assisted.

Earlier in this same year the Church Wardens had noted in a memorandum to their agent in London, to whom they were writing to seek assistance from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to help pay the salary of the minister they had not as yet chosen to be their Rector, that Trinity Church was far from being finished. “The Church wants,” they wrote, “a Tower spire [and] Bell besides inner work.”

Although the church was not finished, the members of the Building Committee delivered all their papers to the newly elected Vestry on May 8, 1740. There still remained to be built a permanent pulpit, reading desk, clerk’s desk, and a sounding board. In addition there was the vestry room and a gallery around the interior of the church to be supported by fluted columns with carved Corinthian capitals on which additional pews would be built. On September 1, 1740, William Price was desired to give his advice with respect to the gallery. On October 13 “a draft for the galleries, pillars and arches was laid before the Vestry,” and an agreement was made with John Indicott to do the work.55 The work on the gallery, the vestry room, and two extra pillars under the organ loft was completed by May 4, 1742. A successful subscription having been completed that year, the Church Wardens ordered from London in early 1742 a pipe organ to be made for them such as “Dr. Berkely (now Bishop of Cloyne) presented the Church in Rhode Island which has mett with great approbation.” They also sent the following measurements to London for the benefit of the organ builder:

a Church which is of the following dementions viszt. 90 feet in length 60 in width 28 feet high in the Stud besides an Arch 10 feet high and 28 broad which makes the whole hight from the floor to the top of the Arch 38 feet. The Organ Gallery is 12 feet from the floor and from the Gallery floor to the top of the Arch is 25 feet, the front of the Organ Gallery is 15 feet and 12 foot deep.

The organ, made by Abraham Jordan and tested by the great Handel in London, arrived in Boston early in 1742. It was soon set up, and Peter Pelham, Jr., became in that year Trinity’s first organist.

In August of 1742 Governor Shirley delivered the handsome George II church silver he had received from the King’s bounty for the church as well as a “large Royall Bible,” prayer books, altar and pulpit cloths, and “cushons of Crimson Damask.”

By 1744 one can confidently conclude that Trinity Church was substantially complete, just ten years after the cornerstone had been laid and sixteen after the land had been bought. It was calculated by the church authorities that the expense had been £2087 sterling. But still in the minds of the Vestry the church was not complete; and it is appropriate to mention briefly a few important additions and changes to the building that occurred or were contemplated by the Vestry in the latter part of the eighteenth century.

First of all it appears that a change of taste was registered in the vote of the Vestry on July 17, 1753, when it was:

Voted that we proceed on to painting the inside of the Church of Mahogany Collur, the pillars marble, the Capitols guilt and the alter decorated as farr as the Money Subscribed will go at the discretion of the Comitee to be chose.

Previous accounts in the Church Records reveal substantial sums paid for whitewashing the church. No indication is given of any other color being used.

On December 11, 1759, it was:

Voted that a Bell Col. George Williamson of his Majesty’s Regiment of Royal Artillery hath Brought from Quebeck (which he took at the reduction of that place last Summer) that it be purchased and erected on this Church as soon as may be [and] that a Subscription be made for the payment of the bell.

As a substantial bill was paid that year to Mr. William More, partner of John Indicott, for “work and Stuff framing and hanging the same,” it appears certain that, at least for some years, perhaps until the Revolution, Trinity Church had a bell in some sort of a belfry on its roof.

In July 1784 it was voted to recover the outside of the church with new clapboard and to paint it a stone color, and on May 17, 1789, a very handsome clock was presented to the church which was “fixed up in the front of the Organ Gallery.”

In the last decade of the century the Vestry, apparently sensing a certain lack of dignity or grandeur in the exterior of their church, appointed a committee “to get a Plan of a porch or Portico with a colonade for the South End of the Church.” On April 28, 1793, the

Plan for a colonnade for the South End of the Church was laid before the Proprietors and approved. But in answer as the expense of carrying the same into effect is estimated at three thousand dollars which sum appears to be more than can be easily raised.

Voted that the matter subside for the present.

Voted to make suitable returns to Mr. Bullfinch for his elegant and much admired plan.

N.B. Mr. Bullfinch refused to accept any pecuniary reward for his trouble.

Having traced the construction of Trinity Church in its records it is illuminating to read the descriptions left by people who actually saw the building in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century before it was torn down. These descriptions, do not, curiously, tally with some contemporary pictures of the church, which show Trinity as the proud possessor of an elaborate tower and steeple, architectural elements the first Trinity Church probably never possessed.

On the 9th of September, 1750, Francis Goelet of New York, Captain of the “Tarter Galley” put into Boston to repair damage done by a storm to his vessel before proceeding on to London. During his stay of almost three months he kept a diary in which he noted on October 14, 1750:

went to Trinity Church and was introduced by Mr. Coffin into his Piew. The Parson Mr. Hooper Gave us an Excellent Discourse on the following text (the Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom). This build is very Plain without, with Large Sash Windows, But within Verry Neat and Comodius, the Architect Modren, with a Very Neat Little Organ Prettily Embellished. This Church having no steeple looks more like a Prespetarian Meeting House.56

Nor was there a steeple to be seen in 1817 when Charles Shaw described Trinity Church as

a large plain wooden building. . . . The inside has a show of the Corinthian style, but the building has nothing to recomend it but its roominess and convenience for worship. . . . The chancel is ornamented with some handsome paintings, and the choir is furnished with a large, well toned organ. It has three doors in front, without porches, and has no bell nor steeple.57

Finally, turning to the iconography of Boston, we find in the so-called “Price-Burgis View of Boston as revised, 1743” a clearly marked tower and steeple for Trinity Church even taller and more prominent than the tower and steeple of Christ Church, Salem Street (Fig. 21). On an impression in the British Museum of the first state of this plate, now believed to have been made in 1723, there are paper “pasters” altering the skyline as it might have been in 1736. One “paster” shows Trinity with a prominent tower but no spire, suggesting the progress being made in the construction of the church (Fig. 22). On the other hand, two views of Boston by James Turner, which appeared in the same month that William Price first advertised the 1743 view just mentioned, do not show a spire for Trinity Church.58 These views show the spires of the three churches in the South End which it is known did have spires, namely the Old South Meeting House, still standing, the New South Meeting House at the junction of Summer Street and Blind Lane, and the Hollis Street Meeting House toward Boston neck. To deepen the mystery, however, both Paul Revere’s “Prospective View of Boston of 1770” and his “View of the Town of Boston in 1774”59 as well as an engraving from a drawing supposedly done by Governor Thomas Pownall before the Revolution from Castle William60 seem to show four steeples in the South End. Two possible answers to this unsatisfactory iconography are either:

1) a confused perspective, or
2) the fourth steeple belongs to the Irish Meeting House located near the corner of Summer Street and Marlborough Street opposite Winter Street.

21. Detail of the Price-Burgis South East View of Boston, Mass., as revised in 1743, showing Trinity Church (third from right). Courtesy American Antiquarian Society.

22. Detail of “paster” with tower of Trinity Church minus spire, added in 1736 to the 1723 state of the Price-Burgis South East View of Boston.

What seems fairly certain is that in the Price-Burgis view of 1743 the clearly marked pictorial representation of Trinity Church, with its handsome tower and steeple, is only an exuberant expression of the hopes and dreams of Mr. William Price, cabinetmaker, print-maker, musician, and Vestryman of Trinity in 1741 and 1751, and Junior Warden of Trinity from 1745 to 1750.

The early nineteenth-century woodcut of the first Trinity Church by Abel Bowen (Fig. 23) may confirm in some minds the following judgment of the Reverend Phillips Brooks, ninth Rector of Trinity, that “the old pictures of it show us an exterior of such exemplary plainness, as would delight the souls of those who grudge the House of God the touch of beauty.”61

Without venturing further aesthetic judgment one may suppose that William Price, from whatever heavenly cloud he may be looking down upon his beloved Trinity Church, is undoubtedly much gratified by the present church’s great imposing central tower and numerous turrets, almost gleaming today in their original splendor. And, if we listen carefully, we may hear him as he wafts gently by, carefully avoiding the obtrusive John Hancock Tower, plucking the strings of his celestial harp to the tune of “O How amiable are Thy dwellings, Thou Lord of Hosts.”

23. Trinity Church. Wood engraving by Abel Bowen. Proof from printer’s scrap-book as published in The American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, vol. i, no. 1 (Boston, 1834), p. 18.

1. This paper is in large part a distillation of two research reports prepared for the Paul Revere Memorial Association which remain in manuscript form: “History of the Property of Paul Revere Memorial Association,” by William Lebovich, 1973; and “The Early History of the Paul Revere House, North Square, Boston,” by this author, 1974. Both reports are heavily documented; copies of both are available for reference at the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Material drawn from these reports will not be specifically footnoted here; footnotes will be limited to the identification of the sources of direct quotations and the documentation of material not included in either of the earlier reports. Readers interested in a structural analysis of the Revere House (as opposed to the documentary study summarized here) are referred to two reports prepared for the Paul Revere Memorial Association by Frederic C. Detwiller, Architectural Historian, Consulting Services Group, SPNEA: “Paul Revere Association Properties, 19–31 North Square, Boston, Massachusetts, Architectural-Historical Analysis,” Feb. 1976; and “Paul Revere House, Structure Report,” 2 vols., July 1976. Copies of both are available for study at SPNEA.

2. Joseph Everett Chandler, the architect who restored the house in 1907–1908, speculated on purely physical evidence that the house was built sometime between 1650 and 1680. See his “Notes on the Paul Revere House,” in the Handbook of the Paul Revere Memorial Association (Boston, 1950), p. 18. Later historians, benefiting from documentary research, have usually placed the date between 1676 and 1681. Among the most authoritative of these: Hugh Morrison, Early American Architecture (New York, 1952), pp. 59–62, says c. 1676; while Esther Forbes, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In (Boston, 1942), p. 169, Harold Comer Read, “A Brief History of the Paul Revere Memorial Association and the Paul Revere House,” in the Handbook of the Paul Revere Memorial Association (Boston, 1950), p. 5, and Walter M. Whitehill, Boston: A Topographical History, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), p. 15, all say about 1680. Another recognized authority, Fiske Kimball, does not include the Revere House in his Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and the Early Republic, reprint ed. (New York, 1966), presumably because it failed to meet his rigorous standards for documentation.

3. Forbes and Morrison both suggest John Jeffs as the original owner; Chandler, Read, and Whitehill hazard no guesses.

4. Chandler, in his “Notes,” suggests that the ell predates the main house; Morrison, in Early American Architecture, assumes the ell to have been a later addition; and the staff of SPNEA, in the two reports for the Paul Revere Memorial Association mentioned in note 1, assumed the main house and ell to have been built in one campaign. This was also the consensus reached by the approximately twenty members of the New England Chapter, Society of Architectural Historians, who examined the Revere House during a special meeting held there on Dec. 3, 1974.

5. What information was turned up on the question of original form supports the single-build theory (see note 21 and the section of text to which it pertains for a discussion of this material). A final answer to this question, however, will probably have to await either the discovery of some conclusive structural evidence in the house itself, or the development of a satisfactory dendrochronological sequence for New England, by which means the timbers in the two sections of the house can be accurately dated.

6. Suffolk County Deeds, xiii, 86, Nov. 2, 1681, Turell and Walker to Howard.

7. Increase Mather Family Records, in the John Cotton Bible, Special Collections (Massachusetts Historical Society).

8. Increase Mather Family Records.

9. Increase Mather, “Diary, 1675–6,” Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, 2nd ser., xiii (1900), 373–374.

10. Increase Mather Family Records.

11. Suffolk County Probate Records, New Series, ii, 352, Dec. 12, 1678, will of Nathaniel Blague.

12. “Records of the Second Church,” ms, iii (Massachusetts Historical Society).

13. “Records of the Second Church,” ms, iv.

14. “Records of the Second Church,” ms, iii.

15. Chandler Robbins, A History of the Second Church, or Old North, in Boston . . . (Boston, 1852), and Increase Mather, “Autobiography,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, lxxi, pt. ii (1962), 300–301, 310.

16. Elna Jean Mayo, Mayo Genealogy . . . (Pueblo[?], Colo., 1963), pp. 2–3.

17. The contract for a house of comparable size built for John Williams in the North End in 1678/79 (published in the “Records of the Suffolk County Court, 1671–1680,” pt. ii, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Collections, xxx [1933], 1125–1126) was taken at £130 “current mony of New England.” Assuming the construction cost of the Revere House to have been roughly similar, that leaves perhaps £150–£170 of Howard’s £300 purchase price to be accounted for by the value of the land and/or the profit of the church. It does not seem that the land alone could have been worth much more than £100–£125. Consider that the Revere House lot, as Howard purchased it in 1681, contained roughly 3000 sq. feet, with 30 feet of frontage on North Square. In comparison: in 1683, Howard purchased an adjoining interior lot containing about 4000 sq. feet with no buildings upon it, for £65 (Suffolk County Deeds, xiii, 84, July 19, 1683, Martin heirs to Howard); and, in 1689, Howard purchased the parcel next north of the Revere House, containing some 2000 sq. feet with a 20-foot frontage, and with a dwelling house with leanto standing upon it, for £110 “current money of New England” (Suffolk County Deeds, xxviii, 182, May 22, 1689, Paine and Woodbry to Howard). The inference I am drawing is that land values on the west side of North Square were not particularly high in the 1680’s; the Second Church seems to have gotten a pretty good price for its house and lot.

18. There is a very slight possibility that this man was lodging with Increase Mather; more probably, he was renting the house next north to Mather’s. See pages 29–33 of my report to the Paul Revere Memorial Association for a thorough discussion of this point.

19. Boston Record Commissioners, First Report: Boston Tax Lists etc., 1674–1694, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1881), pp. 91–133, gives the complete 1687 tax schedules for all eight Shawmut precincts and the two outlying precincts at Muddy River and Rumney Marsh (now Brookline and Chelsea, but then parts of Boston).

20. I included the figures from Muddy River and Rumney Marsh in my calculation of the town-wide average tax figure, but I purposely left out the Precinct 6 figures, as there seems to have been some confusion in those records. (The figures in the “Acres” and the “Houseing, Mills and Wharfs” columns appear to have been reversed in some sections of Precinct 6.) The deletion of the Precinct 6 figures lowered the total number of individuals taxed for buildings by perhaps 150–170, and similarly lowered the total of those taxed 20d. or more by about 20. If these dubious Precinct 6 figures had been included, they would have had a negligible effect on the 7d. average tax-assessed figure, and would have raised the percentage of individuals taxed 20d. or more by about one percentage point.

21. As a check against the possibility that Howard might have bought a rather modest house from the Second Church and then radically enlarged or improved it between 1681 and 1687, an attempt was made to determine which of the thirty-two other individuals assessed for exactly 20d. under the “Houseing, Mills and Wharfs” head in 1687 could be satisfactorily demonstrated to have owned just one dwelling house in the late seventeenth century. An attempt was then made to establish the price that each of these individuals had paid for that specific house and lot. I am reasonably confident that this procedure has succeeded in two instances—those of William Coleman in Precinct 1, and Isaac Walker in Precinct 3. Coleman purchased his house and land for £260 “current money of New England” in 1679 (Suffolk County Deeds, xii, 24, Sept. 29, 1679, Thacher heirs to Coleman), and Walker paid £300 “lawful money of New England” for his in 1675 (Suffolk County Deeds, ix, 187, May 5, 1675, Edwards to Walker). These prices are right in line with the £300 “current money of New England” paid by Howard, and suggest that, in 1687, Howard’s house remained largely as constructed by the Second Church.

22. Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic (New York, 1922), pp. 283–284.

23. Ibid., p. 39.

24. John H. Hooper, “The Royall House and Farm,” The Medford Historical Register, iii (1900), 143.

25. Middlesex County Probate Records, 1st ser., docket no. 19545.

26. Samuel Blake, The Blake Family: A Genealogical History of William Blake of Dorchester and His Descendants . . . (Boston, 1857), pp. 15–16.

27. Thomas C. Simonds, History of South Boston (Boston, 1857), pp. 31, 264.

28. James H. Stark, The History of the Old Blake House (Boston: Dorchester Historical Society, 1907).

29. Mrs. George A. French, The Dorchester Historical Society and Its Three Houses (Boston: Dorchester Historical Society, 1960), p. 18.

30. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 2305, p. 30.

31. Ibid., vol. 2066, p. 303.

32. Suffolk County Probate Records, vol. 650, p. 210.

33. Norfolk County Probate Records, docket no. 20436, inventory dated Feb. 4, 1843.

34. Norfolk County Deeds, vol. 151, p. 113.

35. Ibid., lxxxvi, 167, and lxxxvii, 235.

36. Ibid., xciii, 199.

37. Suffolk County Probate Records, vol. 127, p. 339.

38. Ibid.

39. Norfolk County Deeds, xcvii, 198.

40. Suffolk County Probate Records, lxxii, 33, and lxxiv, 16.

41. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 143, p. 53.

42. Ibid., vol. 121, p. 143.

43. Suffolk County Probate Records, xli, 451.

44. Ibid., xxi, 555.

45. Ibid., xiv, 192.

46. Samuel Blake, The Blake Family, pp. 12–13.

47. Fourth Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 1880, Dorchester Town Records, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1883), p. 162.

48. Samuel Blake, The Blake Family, pp. 15–16.

49. Minutes of the Dorchester Historical Society, ms, i, 44–45, 50–51.

50. “Dorchester’s Settlement Appropriately Celebrated,” Dorchester Beacon, undated clipping (June 1916?) in the collections of the Dorchester Historical Society.

51. Ibid.

52. “Blake House Is Restored,” Boston Herald, Boston, Mass., July 3, 1911.

53. Mr. Peabody’s paper, as presented here, was prepared for publication before his untimely death on March 22, 1977.

54. The Colonial records of Trinity Church are being published at the present time by The Colonial Society of Massachusetts in its regular series of publications. The page proofs of the records are at the printers, and it is, therefore, impossible to give page and volume references to the selections quoted from these records.

55. A summary account in the Church Records entitled “The Cost of the Building of Trinity Church” contains the following entries for 1741:

for Building the Gallery
viz. Jno. Indicott & Will More their Bill wholle Work & Stuff per agreement	[£]1057. 0.0
Will Coffin 31m^o lath nails	17.12.6.
Will Hunstable plaistering 430 yds @1/9
hair and nails 8:11/	46. 3.6.
Thos. Fillebrown 150 bush. Lime & Lath	33.15
Johnson Jackson 50 bush lime @ 2/9	6.17.6.
Cash for Carting £4.15.6 lath & timber 9:4/6	14. 0.0
Willm. Price cutting freeze for Organ loft	6.
Willm. Burbank Carving Capatols	152. 0.0
	[£]1333. 8.0

56. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xxiv, 55.

57. Charles Shaw, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston, 1817), p. 265.

58. “Boston Prints and Printmakers, 1670–1775,” Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Publications, 46 (1973), 43–44.

59. Ibid., pp. 46–49.

60. Samuel G. Drake, The History and Antiquities of the City of Boston (Boston, 1854), opposite p. 654.

61. Phillips Brooks, Trinity Church in The City of Boston 1733–1933 [Historical Sermon] (Boston, 1933), p. 32.

62. Marshall Davidson, American Heritage History of Colonial Antiques (New York, 1967), p. 153. Here the information on the Hancock House is entitled “Lost Landmarks.”

63. Franklin Webster Smith, Designs, Plans and Suggestions for the Aggrandizement of Washington (Washington, 1900, Senate Document No. 209), pp. 37–39. Here Smith, in advocating retention of the White House as the executive mansion, uses the obvious earlier example of the Hancock House demolition.

64. Walter Kendall Watkins, “The Hancock House and Its Builder,” Old-Time New England, xvii (1926–1927), 3–19. Among these are the following: staircase in Greeley Curtis House, Manchester-by-the-Sea; balusters, one from stair and one from roof, two carved capitals in Essex Institute, Salem; larger carved pilaster cap from “Loer Rume” at National Museum, Independence Hall, Philadelphia; modillion from cornice at Massachusetts Historical Society; pendant from staircase, pilaster caps, and additional modillions at SPNEA; front door at the Bostonian Society; balcony at John Hancock Insurance Company, Boston; carved corbel at Martine Cottage, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, home of R. Clipston Sturgis; stone steps at Pinebank, Jamaica Plain, a house designed by John Sturgis in 1869. Many other elements survive as well.

65. For example, architectural measured drawings were the subject of a symposium on November 16, 1973, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), which was established in 1933 using measured drawings as a prime documentary tool.

66. Arthur Gilman, “The Hancock House and Its Founder,” Atlantic Monthly, xi (1863), 692–707. One of the most important architects in Boston, Gilman (1821–1882) had designed the Arlington Street Church in Boston (1859) and laid out the plan for the Back Bay. With his partner J. F. Gridley Bryant he had just designed the Boston City Hall (1862). He left Boston for New York and Washington in 1867.

67. Ibid., pp. 692, 694, 706. This sort of poetic approach to old architecture is not without parallel. See, for example, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables (1851), Chapter I.

68. Gilman, “The Hancock House and Its Founder.” Descriptions of the house used in this article are based on Gilman unless otherwise noted.

69. Watkins, “The Hancock House and Its Builder,” p. 19. Here it is specified that the east wing, or ballroom, was removed to Allen Street in Boston’s West End by 1818. Its exact date of construction is not documented but may well have been shortly after John Hancock inherited the house from his uncle (who died in 1764) just prior to the Revolution. Figure 1 showing the house without wings is a lithograph published in 1848 after a drawing of the house by A. J. Davis, the New York architect, who may have executed it as early as 1827–1828 on his well-known sketching trip to Boston.

70. “Surely I Did Not Run Away with the Property of the College,” Harvard Bulletin, x (June 1973), 72.

71. John Sturgis was in partnership with Bryant and Gilman in Boston 1861–1866. He was also designing independently during this period.

72. Charles Brigham to John Hubbard Sturgis, Letters to England, April 5, 1869, and April 18, 1870, Sturgis Papers, The Boston Athenæum. The Hancock staircase was stored in the shop of one Poland, a Boston mason who did considerable other work for Sturgis and his partner Charles Brigham (1841–1925). One of these jobs was “Pinebank” in Jamaica Plain (1869), where the stone steps from the Hancock House are now located. This suggests Sturgis may also have purchased the steps. The Post Office building referred to here (destroyed in the fire of 1872) was designed by Arthur B. Mullett, then architect of government building. Arthur Gilman collaborated with Mullett on the design of the State War and Navy Building in Washington 1871–1875.

73. John Sturgis was visiting with his father Russell Sturgis of Boston, who had settled permanently in London as senior partner of Baring’s Bank. The enterprising Brigham was from Watertown, Massachusetts, where he continued to live all his life. Capital for the architectural partnership, which lasted 1866–1886, was provided by Sturgis.

74. For information on Van Brunt, a pupil of Richard Morris Hunt, see William A. Coles, ed., Architecture and Society, The Selected Essays of Henry Van Brunt (Cambridge, 1969).

75. Bainbridge Bunting, “The Greeley Curtis House,” in Architecture of H. H. Richardson and His Contemporaries in Boston and Vicinity (Philadelphia, 1972), pp. 46–47.

76. See Sturgis Papers. Brigham’s letters make clear that Henry Van Brunt’s academic orientation annoyed him.

77. Adolf Placzek, Librarian, Avery Architectural Library, Paper delivered at HABS Symposium on Architectural Measured Drawings (Washington, D.C., November 1973).

78. Vincent Scully, The Shingle Style (New Haven, 1955), pp. 19–33.

79. James K. Colling Sketchbooks (London, RIBA Drawings Collection). Also see James K. Colling to Russell Sturgis, London, March 6, 1867 (Sturgis Papers). Here Colling discusses making measured drawings of Russell Sturgis’ home Mount Felix in Surrey (1838) by Sir Charles Barry at John Sturgis’ request.

80. See, for example: Edmund Sharpe, The Rise and Progress of Decorated Window Tracery (London, 1849) or The Seven Periods of Gothic Architecture (London, 1851); Samuel Carter Hall, The Baronial Halls and Picturesque Edifices of England, 2 vols. (London, 1848).

81. Asa Briggs, William Morris: Selected Writings and Designs (Baltimore, 1962), pp. 13–26. Concern for architectural preservation in England was well advanced by 1877, and Morris, artist, designer, Pre-Raphaelite, poet, and novelist, first formalized the movement.

82. Margaret Henderson Floyd, “A Terra Cotta Cornerstone for Copley Square: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1870–1876, by Sturgis and Brigham,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxxii (1973), 83–103. Here is further information on Sturgis’ training and on J. K. Colling.

83. Edward W. Hooper was Treasurer of Harvard College and brother-in-law of Henry Adams. Arthur Astor Carey was a grandson of John Jacob Astor and an instructor of English at Harvard. Both men were on the Committee for the Foundation of the Museum of Fine Arts, Copley Square, for which Sturgis was architect. The Cambridge Historical Commission has kindly shared its research with the author on these points.

84. Scully, The Shingle Style, passim. Here the nineteenth-century evolution of the living hall with both staircase and fireplace is extensively documented and the early Colonial Revival discussed.

85. Sturgis used a terra cotta parapet in a similar design on his Charles Joy house, 86 Marlborough Street, Boston (1872), and also on Pinebank, Jamaica Plain (1869).

86. Wheaton A. Holden, “The Peabody Touch: Peabody and Stearns of Boston, 1870–1917,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxxii (1973), 114–131.

87. American Architect and Building News, ii (1877), 133–134. Scully, The Shingle Style, p. 42. Peabody’s comment was made famous within the context of Scully’s landmark volume, where it is reproduced under discussion of the Colonial Revival.

88. Report of the Massachusetts Board of World’s Fair Managers, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893 (Boston, 1894), pp. 31–33.

89. Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), p. 35.

90. Boston Sunday Herald, July 31, 1949, p. 12.

91. George F. Willison, Saints and Strangers (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1945), p. 425.

92. Kimball, Domestic Architecture, p. 14.

93. Frank A. Demers, “Progress Report No. 1, Chronological Identification of 17th Century New England Oak Timbers through Tree-Ring Analysis” (August 21, 1968), ms, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

94. Historic Houses in Andover, Massachusetts, Compiled for the Tercentenary Celebration, 1946, house no. 23–ii.

95. Essex County Deeds (North District), Lawrence, Mass., vol. 572, p. 242.

96. Ibid., vol. 1244, p. 313.

97. Alice G. Lapham, The Old Planters of Beverly in Massachusetts . . . (Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, 1930), p. 12.

98. Essex County Registered Land, Doc. no. 4235 (Certif. of Title, no. 2070).

99. Ibid., Doc. no. 26323 (Certif. of Title, no. 9473).

100. Sidney Perley, “Beverly in 1700, No. 1,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, lv (1919), 88.

101. Ibid.

102. Beverly Town Records, ms, City Clerk, Beverly, Mass., ii (1685–1711), 68.

103. Notes on the Hale House, Beverly, 1903, by Robert Hale Bancroft and Ellen Bancroft, Archives, Hale House Committee, Beverly.

104. Essex County Deeds, vol. 3117, p. 137.

105. Suffolk County Deeds, iv, 313; M. Halsey Thomas, ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ^c1973), i, 28.

106. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Statistics of the United States’ Direct Tax of 1798, as assessed on Boston . . . (Boston, Mass., 1890), pp. 188 (Gibbs Atkins) and 199 (Eliza Phillis).

107. Samuel Adams Drake, Old Landmarks and Historic Personages of Boston (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1906), opp. p. 158.

108. Boston Building Department Records, City Hall, Boston, Mass., Permit no. 127 (J. G. Carlson).

109. Suffolk County Probate Records, vii, 115.

110. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 178, p. 220.

111. Caleb H. Snow, A History of Boston . . . (Boston, 1825), p. 244. See also, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, A Topographical and Historical Description of Boston (Boston, Mass., 1871), pp. 649–662.

112. Suffolk County Deeds, xvii, 341.

113. Ibid., xxi, 270; The Boston Globe, Oct. 28, 1931.

114. Suffolk County Deeds, xx, 544; xxiv, 109.

115. Ibid., xxxii, 46; xxviii, 102.

116. M. Halsey Thomas, ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ^c1973), i, 28.

117. Suffolk County Deeds, xiii, 86.

118. Ibid., vol. 116, p. 128.

119. Ibid., vol. 196, p. 291.

120. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Statistics of the United States’ Direct Tax of 1798, as assessed on Boston . . . (Boston, Mass., 1890), p. 201.

121. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 3221, p. 172. See also, Handbook of the Paul Revere Memorial Association (Boston, Mass.: Printed for the Assoc., 1954), pp. 17–25.

122. Thomas Hutchinson, The History of the Colony of Massachusetts-Bay . . . (Boston, Mass., 1764–1828), i, 349n.

123. Boston city directories.

124. Daily Evening Traveller (Boston, Mass.), July 10, 11, 1860. See also Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The Old Feather Store in Boston,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 172 (Apr.–June 1958), pp. 85–104.

125. Middlesex County Deeds, ii, 152.

126. The Register Book of the Lands and Houses in the “New Towne” . . . (Cambridge Mass., 1896), p. 167.

127. Middlesex County Probate Records, first ser., docket no. 5172.

128. Middlesex County Deeds, vol. 3694, pp. 333, 335 and 338.

129. See “The Repairs on the Cooper-Austin House,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 8 (Feb. 1913), pp. 12–18.

130. Middlesex County Registered Land (North District), Lowell, Mass., Land Registration Book, lxiv, 215 (Certif. of Title, no. 12308).

131. “Some Reminiscences of Elizabeth (Prince) Peabody,” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society, xxv (1937), 37–38.

132. Essex County Deeds, vol. 6173, p. 29.

133. Sidney Perley, “Center of Salem Village in 1700,” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society, vii (1919), 46.

134. Ibid., p. 47.

135. Essex County Deeds, vol. 1915, p. 180.

136. Ibid., vol. 2779, p. 410.

137. Sidney Perley, “The Plains: Part of Salem in 1700,” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society, vii (1919), 120.

138. Sidney Perley, “The Plains: Part of Salem in 1700,” The Historical Collections of the Danvers Historical Society, vii (1919), 113.

139. Ibid.

140. Don Gleason Hill, ed., The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636–1659 . . . (Dedham, Mass., 1892), p. 28; A Plan of Dedham Village, Mass., 1636–1876, published by the Dedham Historical Society (Dedham, Mass., 1883), pp. 3, 4 and 13.

141. Suffolk County Probate Records, v, 112.

142. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 103, p. 8, and vol. 104, p. 73.

143. Norfolk County Deeds, vol. 975, pp. 602 ff.

144. Alvin Lincoln Jones, Under Colonial Roofs (Boston, Mass., ^c1894), p. 234.

145. Fourth Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 1880, Dorchester Town Records, 2nd ed. (Boston, Mass., 1883), p. 162.

146. Plot dated Apr. 22, 1748, ms, Collections, Dorchester Historical Society.

147. Samuel Blake, Blake Family . . . (Boston, Mass., 1857), pp. 15–16.

148. Fourth Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 1880, Dorchester Town Records, 2nd ed. (Boston, Mass., 1883), p. 58.

149. Suffolk County Probate Records, xxxvii, 162.

150. Ibid., lxvii, 176 and 174.

151. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 8205, p. 204.

152. Essex County Deeds, vol. 3577, p. 74.

153. Ibid., vol. 4235, p. 230.

154. Ibid., vol. 5972, p. 412.

155. George Francis Dow, ed., The Probate Records of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem, Mass.: The Essex Institute, 1916–1920), iii, 63.

156. Essex County Deeds, vol. 5290, p. 327.

157. Ibid., vol. 6128, p. 363.

158. Essex County Deeds, i (Ipswich), 240.

159. Ibid., v (Ipswich), 596.

160. Ipswich Town Records, ms, Town Hall, Ipswich, Mass., iii (1696–1720), 221.

161. Essex County Deeds, xxxiii, 64.

162. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 350, p. 156.

163. John J. Babson, History of the Town of Gloucester . . . (Gloucester, Mass., 1860), p. 230.

164. Essex County Deeds, lxxix, 199.

165. Ibid., vol. 3714, p. 16.

166. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 3747. (See will of Nathaniel Brown; deed referred to therein not on file.)

167. Essex County Deeds, iii (Ipswich), 68–69.

168. Ibid., iv (Ipswich), 373–374.

169. William Sumner Appleton, “Annual Reports of the Corresponding Secretary . . .,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 18 (Nov. 1918), p. 29.

170. Notes by William Sumner Appleton on the Brown House, Hamilton, Mass., Sept. 25, 1916, Corr. Files, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

171. Essex County Deeds, iv (Ipswich), 533.

172. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 304, pp. 10 and 14.

173. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2150, p. 327.

174. Suffolk County Probate Records, viii, 24.

175. For correct identification of site with present house see Suffolk County Deeds, xv, 198, and vol. 148, p. 47, and Suffolk County Probate Records, xxv, 450.

176. Plymouth County Deeds, vol. 1429, p. 18.

177. Suffolk County Deeds, x, 83.

178. Suffolk County Probate Records, xiv, 294.

179. Ibid., lxxxiii, 630–632.

180. Ibid., docket no. 21875.

181. C. Edward Egan, Jr., ed., “The Hobart Journal,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 121 (1967), 18.

182. Suffolk County Deeds, ii, 161.

183. Ibid., xxi, 341.

184. The title as recorded by Thomas F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 358 (Philip Call lot), is incomplete.

185. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 4528.

186. Essex County Deeds, xxvi, 176.

187. Ibid., xlii, 79.

188. Ibid., vol. 163, p. 117.

189. Essex County Registered Land, Certif. of Title, no. 36484.

190. Essex County Deeds, ii (Ipswich), 128.

191. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 303, pp. 84–85 and 154.

192. [Thomas F. Waters], “Thomas Dudley and Simon and Ann Bradstreet,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, xii (1903), 15.

193. Essex County Deeds, vol. 4298, p. 52.

194. Essex County Deeds, xv, 115.

195. Ibid., vol. 137, p. 212.

196. Thomas F. Waters, “A History of the Old Argilla Road . . . ,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, ix (1900), 17.

197. Essex County Deeds, xi, 216.

198. The Celebration of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary . . . of the Town of Ipswich . . . (Boston, 1884), next to frontispiece.

199. Notes by William Sumner Appleton on the Thomas Burnham house, Ipswich, Mass., Sept. 17, 1914, Corr. Files, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

200. Essex County Deeds, vol. 1678, p. 438; see also vol. 1682, p. 515.

201. Ye Olde Burnham House . . . kept by Martha Lucy Murrary (promotional pamphlet, no publisher, no date), unpaged; see also, Thomas F. Waters, “The Old Bay Road . . .,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, xv (1907), 2n.

202. Ibid.

203. Ralph Ladd to author, Feb. 27, 1954, Corr. Files, American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

204. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2466, p. 256.

205. Secretary’s Files, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

206. Essex County Deeds, xi, 92.

207. Ibid., xxiii, 76; xli, 265, and lxxix, 185.

208. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 331, p. 136.

209. Essex County Deeds, lxxxv, 229.

210. Thomas F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 482.

211. Essex County Deeds, vol. 5307, p. 173.

212. Thomas F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 481.

213. Essex County Deeds, i (Ipswich), 169.

214. Ibid., iv (Ipswich), 501.

215. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 14024.

216. Essex County Deeds, vol. 1682, pp. 241–242.

217. Ibid., vol. 2857, p. 369.

218. Essex County Deeds, v, 338.

219. Ibid., xliv, 218.

220. Ibid., vol. 4974, p. 196.

221. George A. Schofield, ed., The Ancient Records of the Town of Ipswich. . . (Ipswich, Mass., 1899), unpaged.

222. Ibid.

223. George Francis Dow, ed., Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem, Mass.: The Essex Institute, 1911–1975), i, 308.

224. Essex County Deeds, xi, 147.

225. Ibid., xxi, 188.

226. Ibid., vol. 5451, p. 705.

227. The title of this house is confused by Thomas F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 358 (Cartwright lot).

228. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 17017.

229. [Thomas F. Waters], “Thomas Dudley and Simon and Ann Bradstreet,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, xii (1903), 5 and 8.

230. Essex County Deeds, xxiv, 236.

231. [Waters], op. cit., p. 10.

232. Essex County Deeds, vol. 5156, p. 235.

233. Incorrectly identified by Thomas F. Waters as having been built by Job Harris before 1751; Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 355.

234. Essex County Deeds, iv (Ipswich), 74.

235. Ibid., v (Ipswich), 492.

236. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 26839.

237. Essex County Deeds, v (Ipswich), 590.

238. Ibid., xvii, 21.

239. Ibid., vol. 2334, p. 585.

240. Essex County Deeds, xvii, 108.

241. Ibid., xxxv, 104–105. See also, Thomas F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 389–390.

242. Essex County Deeds, vol. 5384, p. 592.

243. Essex County Deeds, vol. 809, p. 196.

244. Thomas F. Waters, “Jeffrey’s Neck and the way leading thereto . . . ,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, xviii (1912), 4–5, 8–11.

245. See Russell H. Kettell, “The Reconstruction of the Captain Matthew Perkins House . . . ,” Scrapbook, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

246. Ibid.

247. Daniel S. Wendel, in conversation with the author.

248. Essex County Deeds, lxxi, 131.

249. Ibid., lxxii, 269.

250. Thomas F. Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Ipswich, Mass.: The Ipswich Historical Society, 1905–1917), i, 448.

251. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2583, p. 304.

252. Thomas F. Waters, “The John Whipple House in Ipswich, Mass . . . ,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, xx (1915), 1–2.

253. Essex County Deeds, i (Ipswich), 89.

254. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 304, p. 10.

255. Ibid., vol. 313, p. 458.

256. Essex County Deeds, vol. 1549, p. 6, and vol. 1561, p. 534.

257. Essex County Deeds, iii (Ipswich), 285.

258. Ibid., v (Ipswich), 182.

259. Ibid., ix, 287.

260. Ibid., xv, 109.

261. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 315, p. 307.

262. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2793, p. 246.

263. Harriette M. Forbes, “Some Seventeenth-Century Houses of Middlesex County, Massachusetts,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 95 (Jan. 1939), pp. 97–99.

264. Middlesex County Deeds, vol. 12800, p. 721.

265. Essex County Deeds, ii, 92.

266. Essex County Deeds, ix, 3.

267. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 319, p. 31.

268. Sidney Perley, “Marblehead in the Year 1700, No. 5,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, xlvii (1911), 68.

269. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2461, p. 585.

270. “Re: House 15 Glover Street, Marblehead,” undated notes by William Sumner Appleton, Corr. Files, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

271. Essex County Deeds, xxii, 210.

272. Norfolk County Deeds, vol. 1604, p. 301.

273. John H. Hooper, “Some Old Medford Houses . . . ,” Medford Historical Register, vii (1904), 49.

274. Joshua Coffin, A Sketch of the History of Newbury [Massachusetts] . . . (Boston, Mass., 1845), p. 391.

275. See James W. Spring, “The Coffin House in Newbury, Massachusetts . . . ,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 57 (July 1929), pp. 16–18.

276. Ms Collections, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

277. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2798, p. 446.

278. Essex County Deeds, vol. 4094, p. 504.

279. Joshua Coffin, A Sketch of the History of Newbury [Massachusetts] . . . (Boston, Mass., 1845), p. 375.

280. Essex County Deeds, iii (Ipswich), 215, and x, 17.

281. See ibid., xviii, 48; xxxi, 61; and xxxviii, 18; and Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 19766 (inventory).

282. Essex County Deeds, xcv, 192.

283. Ibid., vol. 104, p. 10.

284. William Sumner Appleton, “The Ilsley House,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 4 (Aug. 1911), p. 10.

285. John J. Currier, “OuId Newbury” . . . (Boston, Mass., 1896), pp. 196–197.

286. Essex County Deeds vol. 194, p. 233.

287. Ibid., vol. 2088, pp. 301 and 306.

288. William Sumner Appleton, “Annual Report of the Corresponding Secretary,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 14 (May 1916), pp. 5–9.

289. John J. Currier, History of Newburyport, Mass., 1764–1909 (Newburyport, Mass.: Printed for the Author, 1909), ii, 54.

290. Essex County Deeds, xiv, 108.

291. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 316, p. 289.

292. Essex County Deeds, xiv, 107. See also, John J. Currier, “Ould Newbury” . . . (Boston, Mass., 1896), pp. 119 and 142.

293. Essex County Deeds, vol. 167, p. 306.

294. “The Benaiah Titcomb House,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 4 (Aug. 1911), pp. 15–18; William Sumner Appleton, “Annual Report of the Corresponding Secretary,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 7 (July 1912), p. 16, and “Annual Reports of the Corresponding Secretary . . . ,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 18 (Nov. 1918), p. 29.

295. Essex County Deeds, xxix, 94.

296. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 1788.

297. Essex County Deeds (North District), Lawrence, Mass., vol. 742, p. 359.

298. See Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The Parson Barnard House,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 166 (Oct.–Dec. 1956), pp. 29–40.

299. See Quincy Patriot Ledger, Oct. 22, 1959, p. 14.

300. M. Halsey Thomas, ed., The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674–1729 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ^c1973), i, 101.

301. John Marshall, Diary, ms, The Massachusetts Historical Society.

302. Middlesex County Deeds, xii, 162.

303. The Parker Tavern . . . , pamphlet, printed by the Reading Antiquarian Society, 1930, pp. 9–10.

304. Middlesex County Deeds, xxiii, 259.

305. See the Reading Chronicle, June 27, 1930.

306. Allen Chamberlain and Thomas Williams, The Old Castle . . . (Pigeon Cove, Mass.: Village Improvement Soc., 1939), p. 8.

307. Ibid., p. 9.

308. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2663, p. 125.

309. Essex County Deeds, ii, 83.

310. Sidney Perley, “Salem in 1700, No. 16,” The Essex Antiquarian, vii (1904), 114–116.

311. Essex County Deeds, iv, 103.

312. Corwin Family mss, American Antiquarian Society.

313. See Sidney Perley, “Where Roger Williams lived in Salem,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, lii (1916), 97–111.

314. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 6946.

315. William P. Upham, “An Account of the Dwelling-Houses of Francis Higginson, Samuel Skelton, Roger Williams, and Hugh Peters,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, viii (1866), 258.

316. Collections, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

317. Essex County Deeds, vol. 537, p. 45.

318. Ibid., vol. 3400, p. 437.

319. Ibid., vol. 3585, p. 340.

320. Suffolk County Deeds, i, 56.

321. Essex County Deeds, i, 31.

322. Ibid., xxxi, 95.

323. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 24147.

324. Essex County Deeds, vol. 104, p. 164, and vol. 105, pp. 36 and 57.

325. Sidney Perley, “Salem in 1700, No. 21,” The Essex Antiquarian, ix (1905), 168.

326. The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. . . . (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), i, 248.

327. Ibid.

328. Ibid., ii, 25–26.

329. Sidney Perley, “Salem in 1700, No. 21,” The Essex Antiquarian, ix (1905), 169.

330. Essex County Deeds, ii, 96–97.

331. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 302, pp. 125–126.

332. Ibid., vol. 312, p. 9.

333. Essex County Deeds, vol. 4943, p. 46.

334. Ibid., vol. 5431, p. 291.

335. Essex County Deeds, xxxiii, 245.

336. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 357, p. 366.

337. Essex County Deeds, xiii, 54. See also, The Essex Antiquarian, ii (1898), 173.

338. Essex County Deeds, iii, 55.

339. Ibid., iv, 152.

340. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 14656.

341. Essex County Deeds, xciv, 248; xcvi, 22; and vol. 103, p. 236.

342. Ibid., vol. 137, p. 177.

343. Ibid., vol. 5221, p. 117.

344. Essex County Deeds, vi, 76.

345. Ibid., p. 82.

346. Sidney Perley, The History of Salem, Massachusetts (Salem, Mass.: Sidney Perley, 1924–1928), iii, 65–66.

347. Sidney Perley, “Part of Salem in 1700, No. 5,” The Essex Antiquarian, iv (1900), 169.

348. Essex County Deeds, ii, 75.

349. Pickering Family papers, Pickering House, Salem.

350. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 303, p. 208.

351. Pickering Family papers.

352. Ibid.

353. Essex County Deeds, i, 35.

354. Ibid., ii, 55.

355. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 22069.

356. Ibid., vol. 302, p. 27.

357. Essex County Deeds, xviii, 162.

358. Ibid., vol. 5215, p. 421.

359. Ibid., vol. 5649, p. 629.

360. Sidney Perley, “Part of Salem in 1700, No. 3,” The Essex Antiquarian, iv (1900), 22 (Capt. Manasseh Marston House).

361. Essex County Deeds, iii, 49. See also, Sidney Perley, “Salem in 1700, No. 23,” The Essex Antiquarian, x (1906), 62–65.

362. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 303, pp. 98–99.

363. Ibid., docket no. 28367.

364. Ibid., vol. 328, pp. 326–339.

365. The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. . . . (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), ii, 463.

366. Essex County Deeds, vol. 1109, p. 288.

367. Ibid., vol. 1927, p. 225. See also, Caroline O. Emmerton, The Chronicles of Three Old Houses (Boston, Mass.: Thomas Todd Co., Printers, 1935), pp. 7–39.

368. Essex County Deeds, vol. 3098, p. 361.

369. Essex County Deeds, vii, 14. See also, Barbara M. and Gerald W. R. Ward, “The John Ward House . . . ,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, 110 (1974), 3–32.

370. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 319, pp. 489–490.

371. Suffolk County Deeds, i, 69–71.

372. Essex County Deeds, xi, 240–241; George Francis Dow, ed., Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts (Salem, Mass.: The Essex Institute, 1911–1975), ii, 89, and viii, 201.

373. Massachusetts State Archives, 59/188.

374. Essex County Deeds, iv (Ipswich), 452.

375. Ibid., vi, 98.

376. Ibid., ix, 5.

377. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 27301.

378. Essex County Deeds, vol. 118, p. 258.

379. Ibid., vol. 157, p. 117.

380. Ibid., vol. 2287, p. 364.

381. Ibid., vol. 3394, p. 535, and vol. 3382, p. 583.

382. Ibid., vol. 5693, p. 519.

383. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Boston Records from 1660 to 1701 (Boston, Mass., 1881), p. 120. See also, Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The ‘Scotch’-Boardman House . . . Part I,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 151 (Jan.–Mar. 1953), pp. 57–73.

384. Suffolk County Deeds, xxiv, 21.

385. Suffolk County Probate Records, xi, 190.

386. Suffolk County Deeds, xxiv, 142–143.

387. Essex County Probate Records, vol. 368, p. 110; Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 218, p. 72.

388. Essex County Deeds, vol. 2258, p. 37.

389. See Abbott Lowell Cummings, “The ‘Scotch’-Boardman House . . . Part II,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 152 (Apr.–June 1953), pp. 91–102.

390. Middlesex County Deeds, vol. 9868, p. 367.

391. Essex County Deeds, xix, 148.

392. Ibid., xix, 18.

393. Notes by William Sumner Appleton on the Blaney House, Swampscott, Apr. 21, 1914, Corr. Files, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

394. George Francis Dow, ed., Town Records of Topsfield, Massachusetts (Topsfield, Mass.: The Topsfield Historical Society, 1917–1920), i, 44.

395. Donald Macdonald-Millar to Bertram K. Little, Dec. 6, 1958, Corr. Files, Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities.

396. The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. . . . .(Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1962), iv, 287.

397. Essex County Registered Land, Doc. no. 2266 (Certif. of Title, no. 1203).

398. John H. Towne, “Topsfield Houses and Buildings,” The Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society, viii (1902), 22.

399. Essex County Deeds, xv, 257.

400. Essex County Probate Records, docket no. 10156.

401. Essex County Deeds, xxxii, 289.

402. Ibid., vol. 2375, p. 370.

403. William Sumner Appleton, “Annual Report of the Corresponding Secretary,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 21 (July 1920), 21–22.

404. Essex County Deeds, liv, 13, and lxi, 269.

405. Ibid., xxxiii, 139.

406. Ibid., lxiii, 262.

407. Ibid., vol. 122, p. 13.

408. Ibid., vol. 2609, p. 133.

409. Middlesex County Probate Records, first ser., docket no. 2941.

410. Watertown Records . . . , Prepared for publication by the Historical Society (Watertown, Mass., 1894–1900), ii, 141. See also, Catharine W. Pierce, “The Brownes of Watertown and the date of the Abraham Browne House,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 98 (Oct. 1939), pp. 67–72.

411. Middlesex County Deeds, xxix, 194.

412. Ibid., vol. 4259, p. 594.

413. Wenham Town Records (Published by the Wenham [Mass.] Historical Society, 1930–1940), i, 39.

414. Essex County Deeds, xli, 184.

415. Wenham Town Records, i, 157.

416. Essex County Deeds, vol. 125, p. 202.

417. Ibid., vol. 2501, p. 501.

418. See William Sumner Appleton, “A Description of Robert McClaflin’s House,” Old-Time New England, ser. no. 44 (Apr. 1926), pp. 157–167.

419. Essex County Deeds, xi, 205.

420. Wenham Town Records (Published by the Wenham [Mass.] Historical Society, 1930–1940), i, 178.

421. Essex County Deeds, liv, 102.

422. Ibid., vol. 178, p. 242.

423. Frank Chouteau Brown, “The Interior Details and Furnishings of the William Haskell Dwelling . . . ,” Pencil Points, xx (1939), 113–128.

424. Essex County Deeds, vol. 3098, pp. 389–391.

425. Second Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, 1877 (Boston, Mass., 1877), p. 30.

426. Ibid., p. 168.

427. Suffolk County Deeds, xxxiv, 245.

428. Mellen Chamberlain, A Documentary History of Chelsea . . . (Boston, Mass.: Printed for the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1908), i, 193, and plan opposite.

429. Suffolk County Deeds, vol. 841, p. 87.

430. Ibid., vol. 3182, p. 590.

431. Essex County Deeds, ii, 75.

432. Harrison Ellery and Charles P. Bowditch, The Pickering Genealogy . . . (Cambridge, Mass., 1897), i, 22.

433. Essex County Deeds, vol. 144, p. 149.

434. George Francis Dow, ed., “Salem Commoners Records, 1713–1739,” Essex Institute Historical Collections, xxxvi, 176.

435. Collections, The Essex Institute.

436. Pickering Family papers, Pickering House, Salem.

437. George R. Curwen to Henry FitzGilbert Waters, Oct. 26–Nov. 19, 1885, Waters Family papers: Henry FitzGilbert Waters (1833–1913), Corr. Box 2, Folder 3, The Essex Institute.

438. Gloucester Commoners’ Books, ms, City Clerk, Gloucester, Mass., Bk. ii.

439. Essex Quarterly Court Files, Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court for Essex County, Salem, Mass., v, 51.

440. Edward Everett Hale, Jr., ed., Note-Book kept by Thomas Lechford, Esq., Lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638, to July 29, 1641 (Cambridge, Mass., 1885), pp. 302–303.

441. Minutes of the Council of Massachusetts Bay reveal that license was granted to Thomas Banister on Mar. 20, 1701, “to erect a building of timber and brick” at the south end of Boston. Cecil Headlam, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1701 (London: Published by His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1910), p. 138.

442. Charles F. Montgomery, “Thomas Banister on the New Sash Windows, Boston, 1701,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxiv (1965), 170.

443. Suffolk County Court Records, Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, Boston, Mass., docket no. 1916.

444. Edward Everett Hale, Jr., ed., Note-Book kept by Thomas Lechford, Esq., Lawyer, in Boston, Massachusetts Bay, from June 27, 1638, to July 29, 1641 (Cambridge, Mass., 1885), pp. 51–57.

445. A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston, Containing the Records of Boston Selectmen, 1701 to 1715 (Boston, Mass., 1884), pp. 11–12, 17, 23, 28 and 79.

446. Lane Family papers, privately owned.

447. Suffolk County Court Records, Office of the Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court for Suffolk County, Boston, Mass., docket no. 1833.

448. Unrecorded deeds, etc., 1721–1840, Peabody-Osgood Family papers, The Essex Institute.

449. Sidney Perley, ed., “Boxford Town Records, 1685–1706,” The Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society, v (1899), 101.

450. Essex Quarterly Court Files, Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court for Essex County, Salem, Mass., xxiv, 115.

451. A Report of the Record Commissioners Containing Charlestown Land Records, 1638–1802, 2nd ed. (Boston, Mass., 1883), pp. 171–172.

452. Ibid., pp. 174–175.

453. A Report of the Record Commissioners Containing Charlestown Land Records, 1638–1802, 2nd ed. (Boston, Mass., 1883), pp. 172–173.

454. Charles B. Rice, Proceedings at the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the First Parish at Salem Village, now Danvers, October 8, 1872 . . . (Boston, Mass., 1874), p. 21.

455. Don Gleason Hill, ed., The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1659–1673 . . . (Dedham, Mass., 1894), pp. 165–166.

456. Essex Quarterly Court Files, Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court for Essex County, Salem, Mass., xli, 10.

457. Essex Quarterly Court Files, Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court for Essex County, Salem, Mass., vi, 70–71.

458. Winthrop Papers (Boston, Mass.: The Massachusetts Historical Society, 1929–1947), iv, 11–12. See also Thomas F. Waters, “A History of the Old Argilla Road in Ipswich, Massachusetts,” Publications of the Ipswich Historical Society, ix (1900), 23–29.

459. Franklin P. Rice, ed., First Records of Marlborough, Massachusetts (Worcester, Mass.: Published by Franklin P. Rice, 1909), pp. 12–13.

460. Middlesex County Probate Records, first ser., docket no. 7724.

461. Corwin Family mss, American Antiquarian Society.

462. Jonathan Corwin, Account Book, ms, vol. for 1656–1679, American Antiquarian Society.

463. Jonathan Corwin, Account Book, ms, vol. for 1656–1679, American Antiquarian Society.

464. Essex Quarterly Court Files, Office of the Clerk of the Superior Court for Essex County, Salem, Mass., vi, 85–87.

465. Henry W. Belknap, Trades and Tradesmen of Essex County, Massachusetts . . . (Salem, Mass.: The Essex Institute, 1929), p. 56.

466. Robert W. Lovett, ed., Documents from the Harvard University Archives, 1638–1750 (Boston, Mass.: Published by The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1975), p. 22.

467. “Towne Family Papers,” The Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical Society, xviii (1913), 4–5.

The Building of Trinity Church, Boston53

The Building of Trinity Church, Boston 53