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.
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