#79 - Victorian farmhouse, Dracut Rd., Methen, c1890

Victorian shows how Americans' desire for living space grew

Here is a late Victorian farmhouse in a shape that been popular since at least 1850. It is a story and a half, with a steep roof gable facing the street. Its pleasing shape (the relationship between the size of the roof and the walls), wide roof overhang and balanced 2nd floor windows on the front were all standard details for the time. The bay window and porch and the dormer window with its detailed roof date it to around 1890.

So, why am I writing today about a house built at the end of the 19th century when I said in the last article that I would focus on what it was like to live at the time of the witch trials in 1692?
Because what a farmer expected to have in his home in 1890 contrasts sharply with what a farmer built 200 years earlier in the witch trial era.

The Old Red House of the last article, built in 1704, had just one room up and one down, a stair and an entry. It had a shed tacked onto the back and a lean-to set against one side. Our Colonial ancestors felt no need to distinguish kitchen space from the parlor or separate their household from its surroundings. By contrast, this house stands apart from its barns and outbuildings - the Victorian farmer who build this wanted his dwelling space separated from his working space.
In addition, although the house pictured here isn't big, it has a front room, a kitchen, a front hall, a back entry, and at least 2 bedrooms upstairs as well as one on the first floor - amazingly ample when compared to the two room Old Red House.

#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.

#82 - Parson Capen House, 1 Howlett St., Topsfield, MA, 1683 (03/01/92)

House Puritans built for parson was best in 1683 Topsfield

The Puritans came to New england to create a new world, a utopia based on their religious convictions. So, in 1682, when the Puritans of Topsfield asked Joseph Capen to be their new minister, the most important position in town, the house they built for him was one of the biggest and best. One indication of this was the glass in the windows - it had to be brought all the way from England by boat.

The style of the four room house was that of the medieval cottages the Topsfield citizens remembered from England, with steep roofs and massive chimneys. Those cottages provided simple shelter - the door was just an opening, as were the windows. The ornaments -wooden drops - were placed at the corners of the house, at the second floor and roof overhangs, drawing attention to the mass of the house, not the elements. The whole, whether that be the house, the family, or the community, was what mattered, not the individual.

This historic house is now open to the public in the summer. Visitors can look out across part of the 12 acres of land the Topsfield community gave their new minister. In England only the lords owned the land, but here the people could own the land they worked and be independent. For example, widows did not have to remarry, but could maintain themselves on their own land. Many of the women accused of witchcraft at the Salem witch trials in 1692 were widows living independently.

#80 - 3 West Lowell St., Lawrence, MA, 1922 (02/02/92)

Roaring '20s Colonial Revival alive and well in Lawrence

E.O. Steinert, a Lawrence contractor, built this house at 3 West Lowell Street in Lawrence in 1922. When I first saw it on a sunny day, all those fancy cut rafters, brackets and railings cast marvelous shadows across the face of the house. This is a fine example of Colonial Revival architecture with its ordered windows and columned porch presenting a formal face to the world.

I want to compare the way this house talks to the world with the way our colonial ancestors saw themselves within the community, since I said I would try to show something of how people lived here in the Valley at the time of the witch trials. Imagine you were invited here for tea, 70 years ago. You wouldn't just walk in the door, but would come through the stone wall, across the front lawn, and wait on the front porch to be welcomed by your hostess who would usher you into one of the front rooms. On the other hand, the delivery man, bringing tea cakes, went around to the back door. Neither you nor he would see the whole house - the family here could show outsiders what they chose.

That sense of separation from the world would have bewildered families living here in 1692. Back then, people walked into each other's houses regularly, and because families lived mainly in one room, one's whole life was open to inspection when a neighbor stopped in. A 'Good Wife' - a title of respect - believed it was her duty to visit her neighbors to insure that they were conforming to the moral code of the community. Our sense of privacy is something they simply would not have understood.

(50 people from Andover were accused of witchcraft, not 43, as I wrote earlier. But none from Andover were killed. Those killed were usually hung.)

#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.

#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)