#86 - Clark-Fredrick House, 366 Hampshire Rd., Methuen

This house was built even before there was a town of Methuen

In 1700, Methuen didn't exist.

Haverhill's town line was about where Interstate 93 is today. The land in west Methuen between that border and the Dracut line was in no town, with no government and no taxes. Several wealthy Scotch families from Ipswich, taking advantage of the loophole, settled here on grants of several hundred acres.

It really was away from the known world in those days. The church in Haverhill, the center of community life, would have been at least 8 miles away over Indian trails or by boat down the river. The deed to this property, the Clark-Fredrick House, written about 1700, starts in Haverhill and lays out the route up the Merrimack River before turning inland. It refers to the property as 'bounded on the north by wilderness", what is now the Methuen-Pelham town line.

There are other references to the edge of Methuen being the frontier: Harris' Brook was once known as London Brook and Meadow, a corruption of an earlier name: Land's End Brook and Meadow. There is still a World's End Pond at the edge of Salem, NH, and Methuen. Wilderness, as the name implies, is connected to wild men and animals as well as the unknown. Choosing to live here away from society was not usual.

This house, probably not the first built on this site, is not easy to photograph with its full grown trees. As Hampshire Road curves past it, you can catch glimpses of its square shape, its massive center chimney and regular windows. That form - together with how it sits on the land - dates it to about 1720. We know it was remodeled about 1790. The return and overhang on the eaves indicate more updating was done about 1840.

#77 Smiley House, 994 Main Street, Haverhill

Why do we call it a Saltbox? Because it looks like one.

The next time you are stopped in traffic on Route 125 in Haverhill, enjoy the graceful entry on this house. The pilasters on each side of the door are slightly tapered with strong bases and capitals. The door is the style of the Federal period, not the 6 panel pattern we see today. The transom is made of bull's eye glass.

The house to at least 1768. It may be older. We know that James Smiley, a soldier in the Revolution, bought it and remodeled the exterior, adding the hoods over the windows and the front entry.

We call this house a 'salt box'. The name refers to the long back roof that sweeps down from the peak almost, it seems, to the ground. When houses like this were built, from the time of the Puritans until the Revolution, they weren't called by any name. The roof arrangement was simply a way to cover a house when the first floor needed to be larger than the second. It wasn't until almost 1900 that we Americans began to notice and label our Colonial past. A salt box, then, was a box for salt which hung on the kitchen wall with a hinged top, looking rather similar to this roof.

This is, more specifically, a 'broken salt-box' because the elan to roof has been added to the main roof at a slightly different angle. It is hard to know, without taking the house apart to look, if the lean-to was an addition, ar built at the same time as the original house.

James Smiley's descendents still live here. The Smiley School, across the street, was named for his grandson who was one of Haverhill's mayors.

#76 Pearson Bancroft House, 9 Bancroft Rd.

Andover house fine example of 18th- century Georgian work

When this house, the Pearson Bancroft House was built in 1790, there was no road here.

The house was set on the land to take best advantage of the site. It was placed half-way up the hill, facing south for the sun's warmth. It was high enough to catch a summer breeze and be out of the damp, swampy low land. It was low enough to let the hill to the north protect it from the winter north winds. The road was just a driveway down to Hidden Road. There was no South Main Street and only fields between this house and the cape at the top of the hill.

About 1805, South Main Street - the Essex Turnpike to Boston - was built and soon after the lane was extended across to Holt Road. The jog in the map shows where the new road had to curve around the cape.

At the Pearson Bancroft House the road went through the back yard. In fact it went through the back wing of the house. So the ell was moved around to the south side and the entrance vestibule was set on the north. Now the house faced the new street.

The road was called Gardner Street until about 1909. Then the Bancroft Reservoir was built. The road was renamed for the Bancroft family who lived here for four generations, from the early 1800's to 1960.

This is just a simple farm house. It is really old. Notice the sway in the left corner and how the entrance leans against the house. It is small, only one room wide. Its windows aren't even symmetrical with two on one side of the front door, one on the other. It is plain except for the finely detailed Georgian columns and entablature at the entrance. And yet, the proportions are pleasing: each part scaled to relate to the others and create a feeling of stability and permanence.

Note: I wrote this for a class at the Bancroft School. I don't think they ever saw it or discussed it.

#30 - 290 Andover St., South Lawrence

South Lawrence house, once a tavern, dates to 18th century

This is a big house, a large room on each side of the front door, two rooms deep on both the first and second floor, the homestead of a prosperous farmer.It is the oldest house still standing in South Lawrence, built about 1760 by Joseph Parker, tavern keeper and member of the colonial legislature.
What says this house is more than 200 years old?
First it has the balance and proportion of Colonial construction. Specifically the 5 bays ( 2 windows, centered door, 2 windows), the massive central chimney and the angle of the roof. Secondly, the placing and sizes of the parts. Remove the shutters and the sidelights at the front door (added after 1810) and you would see a spare, very simple facade with wide spacing between the side windows and the window centered over the door.
Finally, this house is sited in the traditional Colonial way, to the weather: face the sun, back to the north wind. Even the side door at the back of the house faces south. It doesn't sit square to the road because the road came afterwards, laid out to come to the house.
Once there were outbuildings and a barn. Now you have to imagine its fields and pastures under the streets of South Lawrence.
The house was regularly used as a tavern. Certainly it was at the right location at the end of the road to Salem , Route 114, the Salem Turnpike. It was here that the Lawrecne Masonic Temple was founded,and this photograph is partof an historic brochure the Masons printed for the dedication of their new temple on Jackson Street in April, 1923.

#15 Osgood Farm, 116 Osgood Rd., Andover

Historic farm started as half a house

In 1699, Hannah Blanchard married Stephen Osgood. Her father gave this land and his father gave the money for their first house. Originally it was only half a house, two rooms up and down, and a staircase. The door with the triangular pediment, and the part of the house to its left in this photo, are that original house.

Thirty years later, Hannah and Stephen's second son, Issac, inherited the farm. A captain in the French and Indian War, he wore a wig to remind people of this status. So in 1739, when he enlarged the house, he embellished it with both a triangular and a half-round pediment over the doors, and cornices (hoods) over the large windows. His expansion was really just the usual center chimney house set against the existing structure. The hip roof, not common in that day, was built to accommodate the intersecting roofs.

The original house had faced west, sited to the south of the road and highly unusual for those times. One theory is that the house may have been sited this way in order to stand over the well, which is still located under the floor in the dining room. There also appears to have been a door on the north side of the house toward the road. With the 1739 addition, the house faced west and south, with a view across the creek (which circles the knoll and winds over the meadows). But the visitor approaching down Osgood Street from Andover comes awkwardly to the back of the house.

Note that the two maple trees in the photograph will leaf out and shield the house from summer sun - shutters were also added in the 1900s. Since this photograph was taken, sometime in the late 1800's the house suffered a serious fire that destroyed the front door with its curved pediment. The scarred beams are still there.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia about the house - Jacob Osgood, son of Issac, invited James Otis, Revolutionary orator and lawyer, to convalesce at his home after a head injury. Mr. Otis lived there for two years and taught school. He was killed by lightening on May 23, 1783, while standing in the front door.

#8 - Thomas Eaton House, 156 Hampstead St., Methuen, c1720

1720 house has simple beauty

The Thomas Eaton House in Methuen is an example of the New England colonial farmhouse, a style that inspired many reproductions. Located at 156 Hampstead St., it was built about 1720 - because it was built when the United States was still an English colony, the style is called 'colonial'.

This is a quiet, stable house, sited on a slight rise, facing south with a view down the road and across the land. The large center chimney, serving fireplaces in each room, and the wood construction tell us of local conditions, cold winters and abundant forest. The house's simplicity tells us the owners had neither extra cash nor time - its beauty is created entirely by the placement and size of its pieces, mainly the door and windows. But their impact is further enhanced by the clapboard (here covered by oversize siding) and the relationship of the facade, roof, and chimney to one another. The settlers brought this symmetry and sense of proportion when they migrated from England.

Visually, the Thomas Eaton House can be dated at about 1720 because of its small scale. The windows, which sit right under the roof line, have small panes and are small overall, because glass was expensive and difficult to make. There is a story (unproven) that colonists were taxed by the size of their windows: If one were rich enough to afford a lot of glass, one would also pay more taxes. Other interesting details include that the front door has been updated (probably before the American Revolution) and the outbuildings are Victorian.

This house is still surrounded by its original field, but even when a town has grown in around such a house, you can pick it out as you drive up an old street - not just by its square solid shape and centered front door, but by the way it faces the sun and looks down the road, greeting the approaching traveler.

#47 - The Manning House, 37 Porter Rd., Andover, 1760

Gambrel designed roof may have come from England

This is the Manning House, a colonial farmhouse with a gambrel roof. Here is not a simple two-room cottage like that see in the last article (John Ward House), but a spacious home with room for an extended family, and ells for a summer kitchen, a weaving room, or a dairy.

The gambrel roof expands the attic space for storage and drying food. Where did this roof shape come from? Probably Essex, England, where the roof was often used for medieval farmhouses. But why are there so few roofs like this in the Merrimack Valley? Have those which were built been torn down over the years, or was the two part roof just more time consuming to build than a simple gable? Or was it simply a matter of wood? The answer is that while the shorter rafters used to build a gambrel made good use of scarce English lumber, here in the tree rich colonies we could easily cut rafters to any size.

Hezekiah Ballard built this house in 1760 and sold it in 1771 to Thomas Manning, a cordwainer (leather worker). The house has been owned by the Manning family ever since. This year the Andover Historical Commission joined with the Andover Historical Society to present the Mannings a Certificate of Appreciation for the care they have taken to maintain the house as it was built. It is part of our landscape, enjoyed by all of us who travel Porter Road.

On Merrimack Street in Methuen is another gambrel colonial, this one with a historic tale. The story goes that the owner was working in his attic when called to service during the American Revolution. He swung his ax into the rafter and there it stayed until he came home from the war.


Today, in 2008, I live in western NE where house construction was greatly influenced by the Dutch who settled along the Hudson River, and where the gambrel roof here is a natural expression of Dutch framing methods. So I am curious to look again at how the Merrimack Valley gambrel roofs were framed and compare them to what I see here.

#46 - John Ward House, 240 Water St., Haverhill, c1710-1740

Family who lived in original 2-room cottage lived simply

This is a simple house, one room on each side of the front door and two more under the eaves, not much space for a family. Imagine then how it would have been to live in only 2 rooms, because the right side is the original house, while the left side is a later addition.

Clearly the people in this house owned very little, lived very simply, and did not expect much privacy. They did, however, make the most of their attic space by building a gambrel roof. Because it is built of two parts - the flatter pitch at the chimney, the steeper sides to the eaves - the roof allows more usable floor area and gives room for an ample window in the gable giving good light.

This gambrel cottage is one of the buildings of the Haverhill Historical Society. It was on the land in 1750, moved to Eastern Avenue in the 1880's, the returned and restored by the Saltonstall family about 1906. Later, in the 1940's, more work was done. Unfortunately, records were not kept either time, so we cannot now know for sure what was restored, what was replaced, and what was added. Also, although the land ownership and use can be followed through successive deeds, the house is much harder to trace. There is no clear date when the original right half was built or when the left half was added. At one point the site was used for church services, but this house was not built for John Ward, the minister who came to Haverhill in 1641, as earlier historians wanted to believe. Like the other gambrel roofed cottages in the Valley, it was probably built between 1710 and 1740.

#86 - Clark-Fredrick House, Methuen, c1700 (05/03/92)

This home was built even before there was a town of Methuen

In 1700, Methuen didn't exist. Haverhill's town line was about where Interstate 93 is today, and the land in West Methuen between that border and the Dracut line was in no town, with no government, and no taxes.
Several wealthy Scotch families from Ipswich, taking advantage of the loop hole, settled here on grants of several hundred acres. It really was away from the known world in those days - the church in Haverhill, the center of community life, would have been at least 8 miles away over Indian trails or by boat down the river.

The deed to this property, the Clark-Fredrick House, written about 1700, starts in Haverhill and lays out the route up the Merrimack River before turning inland. It refers to the property as "bounded on the north by wilderness", (what is now the Methuen-Pelham town line). There are other references to the edge of Methuen being the frontier - Harris Brook was once known as London Brook, a corruption of an earlier name - Land's End Brook and Meadow. And there is still a World's End Pond at the edge of Methuen and Salem. Wilderness, as the name implies, is connected to wild men and wild animals, as well as the unknown; the people who chose to live here deliberately moved away. I wonder if they preferred wilderness to life in a society which tried its citizens for witchcraft?

This house, probably not the first built on this site, is not easy to photograph with its full grown trees. As Hampshire Road curves past it, you can catch a glimpse of its square shape, its massive center chimney and regular windows. That form - together with how it sits on the land - dates it to about 1720. We know it was remodeled about 1790, and the return and overhang on the eaves indicate more updating done about 1840.

#78 - 'The Old Red House' 56 Central St., Andover, 1704

Home of Andover colonists reveal family had little privacy

In 1692, 43 people in Andover were accused of being witches. In Salem, "witches" were killed. 300 years later, it is hard to believe that witchcraft was such a serious crime.
The local historical societies suggested I write about that time, and I liked the idea. But the landscape has become so altered over the last 3 centuries that there is almost nothing to photograph. I decided that perhaps these changes themselves might be a way to see what life had been like. So in the next several articles I'll try to touch on parts of ordinary life in 1692 in the Merrimack Valley.

"The Old Red House" was built in 1704 by John Abbott. Although it was built 12 years after the witch trials, the house shows how a family in those days expected to live. The gable on the right in the drawing is the original house: 2 stories, each floor a 20' x 20' room, with a stair entry and fireplace. As the picture shows, lean-tos and wings were added over the years. But they were not rooms for the family. With doors leading directly outside, and windows for light, not view, they were spaces for food storage, equipment and animals. The family - John Abbott, his wife and children - lived in the original 2 rooms. They had no privacy and did not expect it. This is partly because their lives were full of the labor which was necessary on a farm, but mostly because they had never known privacy. Our notions today that people need their own spaces would seem very strange to them. In 1858, the house was gutted by fire and then razed.

#21 - Peaslee House, 190 E. Broadway, Haverhill, c1710 (10/01/89)

Peaslee House: Bricks from 1710

Around 1710, this house was built by the Peaslee family in what is now East Haverhill - then a wilderness - uphill from the Merrimack River. At first glance it is the usual center entrance colonial home with two windows on either side of the door and five windows spaced evenly across the second floor. But the chimneys are on the ends, not centered in the middle of the roof, and the end walls are brick.

The whole house has 16 inch thick brick walls, but the front has been plastered. Houses built of brick as old as this are very rare in the Merrimack Valley, but three exist in Haverhill. The size and pattern in which the bricks have been laid comes from England, as did the settlers. Thomas Dustin, another early settler of Pentucket - the original name for Haverhill - was a brick maker by trade in a place where brick and lime for mortar were locally available. Note how small the end windows are, and the overhanging course of brick where the second floor begins. At the ridge, the brick does not come to a point, but curves in an arch. The chimneys are extensions of the brick wall, ending with the traditional British corbeling.

About 75 years after this house was built, the owners updated it by covering the brick with wood clapboard . Brick is fireproof but does not insulate as well as wood, so the new siding must have made the house warmer. The clapboard remained for at least 150 years.

Wait until a hard frost to drive past and take a look - the house is surrounded by a tall, magnificent lilac hedge. (here's a link to a map of historic places in Haverhill, including the Peaslee House - ed)

#17 - Hazen Garrison House, 8 Groveland St., Haverhill, 1724 (08/93)

If only rebuilder had kept records...photo courtesy of Haverhill Public Library





(current photo not original to the article, but it does a better job than the original at showing inset chimneys and smaller end-windows - taken by David Shultz, ed.)

Wallace Nutting, who took this photograph of the Hazen Garrison House in approximately 1920, rebuilt colonial houses at the turn of the 20th century. He had an eye for special houses – this is one of only three brick First Period (i.e., before 1725) houses built in Haverhill. Brick arches span the windows and reinforce the chimneys, and only 4 rooms large, the house feels bigger because the chimneys are built within the ends, as part of the brick walls. So, unlike a center chimney colonial with two windows on either side of the front door, here there are three – the third being a little window for the cubby hole by the fireplace. The chimney and fireplaces are set into the rooms because once they are warmed by fires; they radiate heat into the rooms. 

 

Wallace Nutting had no doubts about how this house must have looked originally. Discarding the existing windows - square paned traditional sash that slid up and down – he added the diamond paned hinged casements seen in this photograph, sure that the house had originally looked like an English medieval manor. He wanted the house to have been built before 1700. Today, we date it to about 1724. Nutting labeled it a ‘garrison’, referring to the last American Indian raid on Haverhill, which was in 1721. So this house may have been used as a refuge. The extended row of brick at the second and third floor is not an overhang of one floor over another, but a way of covering the ends of the wood joists, which tie into the brick wall there.

Historians today wish that Wallace Nutting had kept records of what he found as he rebuilt this house, so that we could agree or disagree with his vision of the original house.

(Here is a photo of the house in 1870 - I've added this as an example of how much he must have changed it. Both photos borrowed from this website. Here also is an interesting link to real estate website, which describes the house's history (both no longer active), and another to a Lawrence Eagle-Tribune newspaper story from 2007, about one of his descendants– ed)

More information, added 1/18/2014: I know of anther house in Haverhill with a lower level built as garrison with angled reveals on openings, similar to what one would  find in a castle wall. Perhaps the basement here was once partially above grade and had similar openings. The Peaslee House - which I have written about - is also reported to have been a garrison.
The Haverhill Public Library has extensive records and resources on Haverhill history.

#85 - Parson Barnard House, Osgood Street, North Andover, 1715

Historic parson’s home illustrates transition from medieval design

The Rev. Thomas Barnard, pastor of the North Parish church in Andover, from 1697 to 1718, built this house in 1715. A scholar would say that Parson Barnard’s house shows the transition in colonial architecture styles from medieval to academic. What this means is that the details added to the basic structure – the hoods over the windows and the pediments over the door – were copied from older buildings, here those of the Italian Renaissance. And that the builders were influences by the theories of learned architects such as Palladio. Indeed, this house feels organized and planned as earlier homes do not. Earlier Medieval houses were utilitarian. Doors were for going in and out, windows for light and air. The inhabitants were anonymous. Here the windows and doors create the design. Their proportions and their placement in the wall give the house life. The moldings focus attention on themselves and the individual who uses them. You can easily imagine that someone inside opens the door and, stopping to feel the sunshine and enjoy the view, stands under the pediment. He is then bracketed on each side by the pilasters as if in a picture frame. The individual, of little importance in the medieval world, becomes the center of attention in the renaissance. And in this house we can see it happening.

For 200 years, people thought this to be the house of Ann Bradstreet, the poet who lived in Andover in the 1600s. Several old histories refer to this house on Osgood Street as her home, and the North Andover Historical Society, now the owner, still gets calls asking for tours of the ‘Bradstreet House”. It is open to visitors Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, from May to September, and by appointment.

(here is an interesting link to the floor plans, from a web site called Traditional New England Style Houseplans - ed)

(photo from North Andover Historical Society web site)