ABBOTT LOWELL CUMMINGS

Massachusetts and Its First Period Houses: A Statistical Survey

IN 1956, in connection with a documentary history of the Parson Thomas Barnard House in North Andover, formerly known as the Anne Bradstreet House, the writer published certain statistics having to do with the First Period dwellings of Massachusetts, those structures erected between 1620 and 1725. The tabular figures were concerned fundamentally with demonstrating the fact that from the nineteenth century onwards the average lay person and many historians as well had tended to assign earlier dates than were justified to a significantly large number of houses built during the first century of Massachusetts’ settlement in a homogeneous style consistent with what the English scholar defines as post-medieval. Fiske Kimball, writing early in this century, was sufficiently concerned with the problem to confine his study of the period to only a small group of firmly documented buildings, and to warn his readers further against acceptance of dates found in the documents which prove little more than that there was a dwelling house on a given site in the early years. Any dates prior to 1650, he concluded, “must be advanced with extreme caution. Thus in the case of the Fairbanks house at Dedham . . . it is rash to maintain the very year of Jonathan Fairbanks’s admission as a townsman, 1636–7, as the date of the building of the central part of the existing house.”89 His choice of this example to prove a thoroughly justifiable point was a poor one, for the traditional date of the Fairbanks House has recently been confirmed through structural and dendrochronological examination, and this celebrated landmark now ranks as the earliest in the State. It is assuredly our oldest building in point of style.

Nevertheless, there are a surprisingly large number of houses in Massachusetts which have been advertised as earlier than they actually are, and the statistical analysis to which we have referred reveals an interesting correlation. Material for the table is taken from the 1937 Federal Writers’ guide to Massachusetts which lists extensively the historic houses in the Commonwealth whether open to the public or privately owned. The dates given are based mostly on unverified tradition and include a number of structures which are not of our period at all. Yet because of this the figures reflect even more critically the popular desire to make the house as old as possible. Dividing the century between 1620 and 1725 into four quarters and grouping the number of structures accordingly a curious graph line develops:

1620–1649	twenty-seven
1650–1674	forty-three
1675–1699	fifty-three
1700–1725	thirty-eight

There was clearly a mystique in the 1930’s and even now associated with a construction date in the more romantic-sounding 1600’s. Nor had it been sufficiently appreciated that houses of the first quarter of the eighteenth century belong, generically, to that style period which we have too loosely labelled “seventeenth century.” Thus, a good many later houses (like the Parson Barnard House) had long masqueraded under much earlier dates.

No amount of argument, it seems, can disabuse proud house-owners of the fond conviction that theirs is the first or second oldest in town. This kind of pride, in fact, is indulged in by whole communities. One village north of Boston has boasted in connection with an “open house” day that ten seventeenth-century houses would be on view when actually there is but a single structure remaining within its corporate limits which may have been erected before 1700.90

Even the most authoritative documentation has seldom succeeded in changing many minds. A significant cross section of the public continues to side with the mid-nineteenth-century newspaper editor in Plymouth who, having learned that because of the calendar reform of 1752 the town had been observing the first landing of the Pilgrims for nearly a century on the wrong day, stoutly resisted a local movement to change the date of celebration, declaring that “we much prefer established error to novel truth.”91

In 1922 Fiske Kimball was limited by the “rigorously established” system for dating which he had accepted to some ten houses in Essex County (not all of which even then were correctly authenticated).92 This fundamental group of documented buildings has been considerably enlarged through more recent scholarship, including new methods by which one can make defensible assumptions about the date of a building. Contemporary documents, especially those relating to the title, remain when carefully considered one of the principal sources of verification, but tend to be less effective for the earlier years of the seventeenth century where the danger becomes intensified that we may be confusing a valid First Period structure with an older house described in the records as occupying the same site. More recently a dendrochronological study in eastern Massachusetts, initiated in 1968, has produced sufficient correlation with documentary evidence to suggest the validity for this area of dates based upon treering analysis.93 And further, through structural comparison of vernacular buildings erected in old and New England during the seventeenth century and carpenters’ joints in particular, it is now possible to suggest some chronological relationships at least for many of the houses which have hitherto lacked adequate evidence as to the time of erection.

Much of this enlarged historical data as it relates particularly to Massachusetts Bay has been summarized in the Appendix and will have the additional advantage of shedding some light on the dimensions of the writer’s forthcoming study of the framed houses of that area built during the first century of settlement. For the purposes of the present study, however, all domestic structures of framed and masonry construction between 1620 and 1725 and for all counties of the Commonwealth have been included.

We begin then with the raw statistics themselves, divided into four chronological categories: First, those houses which can be accepted without reservation as having been erected before 1660. The cutoff date may seem somewhat arbitrary, but there are good reasons, architecturally speaking, for establishing a boundary marker here, and it is interesting to note that several recent scholars, concerned more with seventeenth-century social and political history, have acknowledged a turning point more or less at this moment in time when the first immigrant generation of preponderantly younger settlers had come to full maturity.

Our second category includes houses erected between 1660 and 1700, at the close of which period there are discernible evolutionary developments in terms of style which lead directly into the third category, those houses built in the final quarter of the First Period between 1701 and 1725. In the case of some buildings, however, authentication has not been possible, for which reason a fourth category has been established. Here will be found all those houses which, because an insufficient amount of the original structure is exposed for inspection, or because the documentary evidence is equivocal (or for the moment unexamined) and the building looks both forwards and backwards in style, have been lumped together under the heading “Circa 1700.”

The revised statistics, therefore, are as follows:

10 extant houses in Massachusetts were built before 1660 as structural evidence clearly indicates; of these, 6 have been firmly documented and only 2 might conceivably be any later.
61 extant houses in Massachusetts were built between 1660 and 1700, and here it should be added parenthetically, only one structure in this category has given any pause: What does one do with the Hart House in Ipswich? Of genuine early date, the house was restored just after 1900 by Ralph Burnham, at which time molded sheathing from another seventeenth-century Ipswich house was introduced. Then, in the mid-1930’s the oldest room and its chamber were completely dismantled, the parlor to be reassembled in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the chamber at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum in Delaware. This left only a portion of the old house in situ, to which a modern replica of the missing elements was attached! Query: Is the Hart House extant or is it not?

In a more serious vein, it should be noted here that nonexisting houses, of which portions survive in museums, have been counted nevertheless as no longer extant, and these structures are caught up in another set of statistics altogether.

Proceeding then to our third category:

103 houses in Massachusetts survive from the period 1701 to 1725 of which a few at least may conceivably be retarditary First Period houses whose date of construction is somewhat later than 1725.

Finally, in the fourth category:

83 as yet undocumented houses in Massachusetts can be accepted on the basis of style, and for the reasons mentioned earlier, as having been built either just before or just after 1700, with the larger percentage falling probably in the latter classification.

Thus the graph line becomes entirely predictable for the three major subdivisions: 10 – 61 – 103, which together with category four gives us a total of 257 known First Period houses now surviving in the Commonwealth, a claim which it is unlikely that any other state in the Nation could make.

Now for some further refinements of these figures. What, for example, is the record of individual counties? Essex County leads by a generous margin with a total of 151 among all houses erected between 1620 and 1725. The exact breakdown by chronological category is as follows:

Before 1660	5
1660–1700	39
1701–1725	53
Circa 1700	54

Ipswich, in Essex County, has always claimed the highest density of seventeenth-century houses, and the statistics readily bear this out, especially when we include all houses of the First Period. It is clear, however, that in categories 1 and 2 alone, Salem trails very closely behind:

Houses erected before 1701
Ipswich	12
Salem	9

Middlesex County is second to Essex with a total of forty-three extant houses. Then follow in order Suffolk County (as originally defined, including the more recent Norfolk County taken out of it and portions of the modern Plymouth County) with a total of twenty-nine existing houses; Plymouth, Bristol, and Barnstable Counties (the Old Colony) with twenty-two; the Island of Nantucket with nine; and the original counties of Hamden and Hampshire with three.

At which point one might well ask, are these data complete and definitive, and the answer is, of course, negative. The writer cannot claim to have blanketed the entire area. On the other hand, he has examined most of the town histories and published historical society records for the older communities of Massachusetts (where the earliest houses erected by the settlers are almost always a subject of discussion), and he has persistently inspected in person as many so-called First Period houses as have been brought to his attention. Here, we have recently seen a significant improvement in terms of quantitative analysis as more and more communities have undertaken professional inventories of their historic architectural assets. Beverly is an excellent case in point where a large area, both urban and rural, has been thoroughly canvassed by a well-informed Historical Commission, and virtually every early house flushed out.

In light of these intensified surveys, will there be any unusual surprises, and if so, where? The figures for Middlesex County, with a present known total of forty-three First Period houses, will probably be subject to greater revision than those of any other county. Despite the efforts of the late Harriette M. Forbes, who sought to inventory all the county’s seventeenth-century houses in the 1920’s and 1930’s, the area has been neglected by students until very recently, and the writer’s own investigations here have lagged somewhat behind those for the other historic counties which constituted the original Massachusetts Bay Colony.

For that always exciting possibility, the discovery of an early house buried within the frame of a later structure, the outlook is certainly less sanguine than seems to be the case in England where buildings which reflect outwardly the prosperity of Queen Elizabeth’s reign and even later periods are continually being found to have earlier, medieval cores. Americans on the whole seem to have been more prone to replace their earliest dwellings. Dramatic discoveries will certainly continue to be made, two of the more interesting in recent years being the uncovering within the shell of the late eighteenth-or early nineteenth-century-appearing house at 250 Sandwich Street in Plymouth of a story-and-a-half seventeenth-century planked frame with crossed summer beams, and in Salem, at the corner of Charter and Liberty Streets, within the envelope of a nondescript tenement with late Mansard roof, a structure dating to about 1680 with carved posts as handsome as any yet discovered in the Salem area and rare evidence for a fireplace having a Tudor-like four-centered arch. These hitherto unsuspected rarities had gone totally unnoticed as far as recorded history is concerned.

Up to this point we have been dealing entirely with the subject of houses which are standing. It is important, however, that some effort at least be made to document the sad and not so gradual loss of First Period houses in Massachusetts since the development of photography in the mid-nineteenth century. For this purpose an entirely new set of data has been compiled, and one need hardly add that the figures are more tentative than those we have advanced for extant houses. The reason, of course, is simple: It is difficult, if not largely impossible, to assess the precise age of a house which is known only from a photograph or written description. The figures presented, therefore, are conservative. Included only, in fact, are nonexisting houses for which a date before 1726 has been determined by personal observation, either on the writer’s part or that of a trustworthy architectural historian, or houses for which the photographs reveal at least some unmistakable evidence of an early date. The figures, arranged roughly by each quarter-century, are as follows:

Before 1875
(and following the introduction of photography)	9
1876–1900	22
1901–1925	18
1926–1950	9
1951–1977	14

It is not surprising that the destruction of more First Period houses cannot be documented before 1876 when the Centennial at Philadelphia focused attention upon our past glories, and made the passing of an ancient landmark henceforward a more noteworthy matter. Otherwise, and particularly in light of the overall small sampling, only one significant fact emerges from our table, namely, that between 1926 and 1950, during which period the Nation experienced a major depression and was deeply involved in World War II, fewer early houses were demolished, on the one hand because the demolisher could not afford to build anew, and on the other presumably because of wartime preoccupations. It is further typical of conditions in this period that at least one of the nine houses rotted down through neglect and decay during the 1930’s.

Aside from this one-quarter-century interval, it might appear that the loss of First Period houses had progressed at a relatively stable rate. One could argue also from the table that a heightened awareness of the rarity of structures erected during the first century of our country’s settlement has had only modest impact upon contemporary thinking in light of the figures for 1951 to the present. Of the fourteen houses lost during this period, however, twelve, representing the majority, went down before 1964, which makes the record of the past ten or fifteen years look much better (no more than two First Period houses demolished)! Thus it might be safe to say that the process of erosion has been checked for the moment, and as suggested earlier, to the local historical commissions belongs much of the credit for an increased blanket of surveillance.

Among the total of seventy-two unquestioned First Period structures in Massachusetts, for which the cause of destruction since the introduction of photography is known, fifteen have been lost through fire and only four by neglect and decay. Of the balance, forty-seven, or nearly 70%, have been demolished for street widenings, for school playgrounds, for replacement with more up-to-date structures—in short, for those many reasons which have always grouped themselves around the banner of Progress.

To recapitulate, then, there remain standing today in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts some two hundred fifty structures or more built before 1726. At least seventy-two houses of the same age have been lost since the middle of the nineteenth century, though this figure represents only a modest fraction of the real losses which can never be accurately estimated.

And finally, a word about Boston, the leading seaport and urban center among our thirteen original colonies throughout the seventeenth century. As the twentieth century dawned, there still remained on the old Shawmut Peninsula, wholly or in part, at least ten structures of First Period vintage, four of them wooden buildings dating to the seventeenth century. Today, three-quarters of a century later, we have but a single wooden seventeenth-century structure left, the Paul Revere House, and three early eighteenth-century brick houses which together with portions of a fourth give us a bare total of five First Period buildings, or just one-half of what had survived into the twentieth century. Among these, and here in conclusion let me emphasize as strongly as possible what raw statistics can never show, is to be numbered the Province House, built originally in 1679, and by the 1920’s little more than a remnant of its former glory. However, those who will take the time to examine the photographs published in a recent issue of Old-Time New England, exposed when the house was demolished, may judge for themselves the startling importance of this imposing seventeenth-century mansion, and ponder whether or not its loss was indeed to be reckoned first among all the others.

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.