Buildings

North Main Street from Pleasant Street, Concord, New Hampshire

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Looking north on North Main Street from the corner of Pleasant Street in Concord, New Hampshire, around 1874-1885. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The scene in 2022:

As these two photos show, much of downtown Concord has retained its historic architecture, with a number of buildings here that date back to the mid-19th century. Some have been altered over the years, but overall most of the buildings from the first photo are still standing here around 150 years later.

Starting in the foreground on the right side of the street is Moore’s Block at 4-12 North Main Street. This was built sometime around 1860, although over the years it has been altered almost beyond recognition. The main façade has been almost completely rebuilt, and today the only clue to its original appearance in this scene is the central window on the second floor, which is still topped by its granite lintel.

Beyond this building is the three-story Currier Block, which was also probably built in the 1860s, and the four-story Statesman Building, which was built around 1866-1867. The latter was originally the offices of the New Hampshire Statesman newspaper. Both buildings are still standing, and are still easily recognizable from their 19th century appearance.

On the far side of the Statesman Building is the corner of Depot Street, and then on the on the other side of the street was Bailey’s Block, which was built in 1874. Later known as Smith’s Block, it stood here until it was destroyed by a fire in 1960, and it was replaced by a one-story commercial building that now stands on the site.

Further in the distance in the first photo, with the tall windows on the upper floors, was Phenix Hall. This was an important city landmark in the second half of the 19th century, and its large auditorium served as a venue for many political gatherings, speeches, and other events. Perhaps the most notable visitor here was Abraham Lincoln, who delivered a speech here on March 1, 1860, several days after his famous Cooper Union speech in New York City. At the time, Lincoln was still a relatively obscure midwestern politician, but his speaking tour through the northeast helped to establish him as a major contender for the 1860 election.

The original Phenix Hall was destroyed by a fire in 1893, but true to its name it was soon rebuilt as the New Phenix Hall. Like its predecessor, it continued to be used as an event venue for many years, with prominent guests such as Theodore Roosevelt, who spoke here during his 1912 presidential campaign. The building was damaged by yet another fire in 1956, and was underutilized for many years during the second half of the 20th century. However, it is still standing, and is the subject of an ongoing restoration project.

On the other side of Phenix Hall, in the distant center of the first photo, is the three-story Phenix Hotel, which was built in 1857. It is difficult to tell now, but there are portions of this building that are still standing. As shown in the first photo, it originally had three stories and a flat roof, but it was later altered with the addition of a fourth story that was topped by a Mansard roof. This roof was eventually removed in 1947, and then seven years later all of the upper floors were removed, leaving only the one-story structure that stands today.

Further in the distance, the buildings become less discernable from this vantage point. However, there are a number of 19th century buildings that still stand today, including perhaps most notably the Eagle Hotel, which had been a favorite for New Hampshire politicians for many years.

Overall, the street itself could hardly be any different, with the horse-drawn carts on a rutted dirt road giving way to the cars that now pass through here on US Routes 3 and 202. However, most of the buildings from the first photo are still standing in some form or another, and the scene is still easily recognizable from the first photo. Because of this level of preservation, this section of North Main Street is now part of the Downtown Concord Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Derby House, Salem, Massachusetts

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The Derby House on Derby Street in Salem, probably sometime around the 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The house in 2019:

As explained in more detail in an earlier post, this house was built in 1762 by merchant Richard Derby as a home for his son Elias Hasket Derby and his newlywed wife Elizabeth Crowninshield. It has a brick, Georgian-style exterior with a gambrel roof, and it is believed to have been designed and built at least in part by Joseph McIntire, who was paid 40 shillings for work on the house.

The house was located directly across the street from Derby Wharf, where Elias could keep a close eye on the family merchant business. During the American Revolution he invested in a number of privateers that preyed on British shipping, and in peacetime he became one of the first American merchants to trade with China and southeast Asia. His career coincided with Salem’s peak of prosperity as an international port, and he was among the wealthiest merchants in New England at the time, which would later earn him the moniker “King Derby” in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter.

Elias and Elizabeth Derby would live here in this house until the early years of the Revolution, but they apparently moved elsewhere by 1778. In 1782 they moved into a house at the corner of Washington and Lynde Streets, and then to another house in 1799 on the present-day site of the Old Town Hall. In the meantime, this house here on Derby Street was owned by a series of other merchants and sea captains, including Henry Prince and Henry Ropes.

Salem’s status as a major seaport steadily declined in the 19th century, especially after the Embargo Act of 1807 and the subsequent War of 1812. This was reflected in the changing ownership of the Derby House. By the 1870s it was owned by Daniel Leahy, an Irish immigrant who worked as a stevedore. The Leahy family would live here until around the turn of the 20th century, and they subsequently rented it to several different immigrant families. The first photo was taken at some point during this time period, probably around the 1890s or early 1900s.

By the early 20th century the house was recognized for its historical and architectural significance, and it was eventually purchased by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in 1927 and restored to its original appearance. Then in 1937 it was transferred to the National Park Service, and a year later it became a part of the newly-established Salem Maritime National Historic Site. The house is still a part of the National Historic Site more than 80 years later, and it stands as one of the many well-preserved historic homes from Salem’s heyday as a prosperous seaport.

Custom House, Salem, Massachusetts (2)

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The Custom House in Salem, probably sometime around the 1890s. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The scene in 2019:

As explained in more detail in an earlier post, the Custom House is an important landmark in Salem, dating back to its heyday as a major seaport. It was built in 1819, and it was located directly across from Derby Wharf, the largest of Salem’s wharves. It was here that customs officials collected import duties on cargoes, which provided the vast majority of revenue for the federal government in the years before direct taxes such as income tax.

Although the Custom House played an important role in the maritime history of Salem, it is probably best remembered for its association with Nathaniel Hawthorne, who worked here from 1846 to 1849 as Surveyor of the Port of Salem. He obtained this appointment through his connections within the Democratic Party, and it provided him with some financial security at a time when he was still trying to establish himself as a writer. However, he did not particularly enjoy the work, and he ultimately lost the job after the Whig Party won the presidency in 1848 and dismissed Democratic officeholders such as Hawthorne.

Embittered by this experience, Hawthorne wrote a lengthy diatribe against Salem in general and the Custom House in particular, and he included it as the preface to his 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter. Although most of the novel is set in 17th century Boston, the Salem Custom House is the place where the fictional 19th century narrator of the story discovers the physical scarlet letter.

By Hawthorne’s time, Salem’s shipping industry was in decline. It had never fully recovered from early 19th century embargoes and the War of 1812, and by the middle of the century most of the international trade in the region had shifted to Boston. The Custom House would remain in use throughout this time, although the number of officials stationed here steadily dwindled.

In the long run, one of the positive side effects of Salem’s stagnant economy was that the early 19th century waterfront development remained largely intact. By the time the first photo was taken around the 1890s, this scene had not changed much since before Hawthorne’s time. The Custom House was still here, and beyond it was the Home for Aged Women, which had been built around 1810 as the home of Benjamin Crowninshield. Further in the distance was the Simon Forrester House, which had been built around 1790 at the corner of Derby and Hodges Streets.

Today, more than 120 years after the first photo was taken, this scene has still remained largely unchanged. All three of the buildings are still standing, although the Forrester House is hidden from view from this angle. The Custom House remained in use for its original purpose until 1913, when all of the customs districts in Massachusetts were consolidated into a single district based out of Boston. However, it was still used as offices for the Customs Service until 1936, and it was subsequently transferred to the National Park Service. Two years later, it became the centerpiece of the newly-created Salem Maritime National Historic Site. This was the first National Historic Site in the country, and it is comprised of a number of historic buildings here along the waterfront, including the Custom House.

Eagle Hotel, Concord, New Hampshire (2)

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The Eagle Hotel on North Main Street in Concord, around the 1860s-1880s. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

The scene in 2022:

As explained in more detail in the previous post, the Eagle Hotel was the leading hotel in Concord during the 19th century. It opened in 1852 on the site of the earlier Eagle Coffee House, which had burned in 1851, and it remained in business for over a hundred years. Because of its location across the street from the State House, it played an important role in state politics. Many legislators stayed here when the General Court was in session, and politicians would often gather here for meetings.

Several presidents visited the hotel, including Concord resident Franklin Pierce, who lived in the hotel for several months between his election to the presidency and his inauguration in Washington. Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison also stopped at the hotel during visits to Concord, as did Richard Nixon on two occasions in 1954 and 1959, when he was serving as vice president.

The first photo was probably taken in either the 1860s or 1870s, and it shows the original exterior appearance of the hotel. However, the building underwent major changes in 1890. It included interior renovations, such as the installation of an elevator and a central heating plant, and it also included exterior work. The original gable roof was removed, and it was replaced by a fifth story with a flat roof. The porches on the front of the building were also removed at some point during the 19th century, although this apparently happened before the roof, because there are other photos that show the building with no porches but with the original roof.

The hotel ultimately closed in 1961, but it is still standing as one of a number of historic 19th century commercial buildings here on North Main Street. Other surviving buildings in this scene include Stickney’s Old Block at 120-132 North Main Street. This was built in 1851, replacing an earlier building that had been destroyed in the same fire as the Eagle Coffee House. A portion of the building closest to the Eagle Hotel was demolished in 1885 to build the existing New Hampshire Savings Bank building, but aside from this the remaining sections of the older building are still standing. On the other side of the Eagle Hotel is the Merchants Exchange Block, which was also built after the 1851 fire. As was the case with Stickney’s Old Block, a portion of it was later demolished, but the part visible in this scene is still here. All of these buildings, including the Eagle Hotel, are now part of the Downtown Concord Historic District, which was added to the National Register in 2000.

Eagle Hotel, Concord, New Hampshire

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The Eagle Hotel on North Main Street in Concord, around 1907. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2022:

The Eagle Hotel, shown here in these two photos, is part of a well-preserved group of historic buildings that line the east side of North Main Street, directly across from the New Hampshire State House. This had previously been the site of the Eagle Coffee House, which opened in 1827. However, that building was destroyed by a fire in 1851, and it was subsequently replaced by the present-day building. It has undergone several major renovations since then, but it still stands as an important landmark in downtown Concord.

The new hotel was completed in November 1852, and it was featured in a November 10, 1852 article in the New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette. The article included the following description:

The main edifice occupies 115 feet front by 40 in width, four stories high. The roof is nearly flat, and tinned. The front of the lower story is of handsomely dressed Rattle Snake granite. The superstructure is of elegant pressed brick. It is ornamented with a handsome façade, embracing two piazzas, each forty feet in length, over the main entrance to the hotel. The windows are covered with green Venetian blinds. On the first story of the main building are the office of the hotel, with two spacious stores on either side. There is also an ell of brick, with tinned roof, in the rear of the main building, in which are the kitchen, gentlemen’s ordinary, and two stories containing sleeping chambers. The whole building contains about 100 rooms.

In the front of the second story of the main building are a pair of public parlors to be used for gentlemen, a large saloon, 40 by 30 feet, and another pair of parlors for ladies. The floors of the former are covered with elegant Brussels carpeting, and the latter with tapestry carpeting. The furniture is of the most elegant description. The windows are handsomely curtained, and the rooms filled with sofas, lounges and chairs, of every variety of shape, covered with brocades and velvets, mirrors, &c. The ladies’ parlors contain two new and superior pianos, one of Boston and the other of New York manufacture. The suits of parlors are connected by folding doors. The main entries run lengthwise of the building, and separate these parlors from the sleeping chambers in the rear, and a ladies’ ordinary on the same floor in which tables may be laid for 70 persons. The latter is so arranged that, by means of folding doors, it may be converted into two or three spacious parlors with bed-chambers adjoining.

The third and fourth stories are conveniently divided into parlors and sleeping rooms.—Some of the former are arranged with one or two bed-rooms adjoining, for the use of families.

In the first story, as we have already remarked, is the Office of the Hotel. The main entrance to it is from Main street; and one door north there is a private entrance for ladies to the parlors and rooms above. The Office is about 40 feet square. From this room, flights of winding stairs communicate with the stories above, leaving an oval space through which light is admitted from a sky-light of stained glass in the roof. The Reading-room is in the rear of these stairs, on the same floor and connected with the Office by arches. Both rooms, including the entries above, are warmed by a large furnace in the basement. Adjoining the Office, is a barber’s shop and wash-room, furnished with warm and cold water from a cistern below. These rooms, as well as all the dining-halls, parlors, entries, kitchen, &c. are to be lighted with gas as soon as the new gas works go into operation. In the Office, there are 70 bells connecting the various rooms; also speaking tubes connecting with the entries above, kitchen, &c.

The large kitchen in the basement of the ell is the great curiosity of the establishment. It is about forty feet square, and fitted up with a superior cooking-range, furnaces, ovens, sinks and other apparatus of the most modern improvements for promoting culinary operations. Adjacent to the kitchen, is the meat-room, pastry-room, a baking-room containing an extensive oven of the latest improvement, a wash-room with furnace, boilers and patent drying-rack, the ironing room, shed, &c.

The gentlemen’s ordinary is in the ell, immediately over the kitchen, and on the same floor with the Office. It has an entrance from the latter, and also by a wide stair-case from the parlors on the second floor. It is a spacious hall, 70 feet by 40, handsomely finished and will be lighted by three chandeliers. In it tables may be laid for about 180 persons. It is to be warmed by a large furnace below. The sleeping rooms are large and airy. The whole building is ventilated from the roof, and each of the rooms have an opening, which may be closed at pleasure, over the doors. The windows, also, throughout the house, are made to open at both top and bottom. There is a large water cistern in the attic by which water is to be supplied to all the rooms below.

The opening of the hotel came at an auspicious time in Concord’s history. Early in November 1852, Concord resident Franklin Pierce had been elected president, and he subsequently moved into a suite here in the Eagle Hotel prior to his inauguration. It was during this time that the Pierce family suffered a tragedy that would set the tone for a very difficult presidency. On January 6, 1853, Franklin Pierce, his wife Jane, and their only surviving child Benjamin were returning to Concord from Andover, Massachusetts, when their train derailed. Franklin and Jane escaped serious injury, but 11-year-old Benjamin’s skull was crushed in the accident, with the president-elect being the one to discover his son’s lifeless body in the wreckage. Pierce continued to live here in the Eagle Hotel until his departure for Washington ahead of his March 4, 1853, although Jane did not accompany him to the inauguration. Both would suffer severe depression from the tragedy, and it likely contributed to Pierce’s largely ineffective presidency.

Aside from Franklin Pierce, the Eagle Hotel had a number of other prominent visitors during its heyday. Because of its central location in the city and proximity to the state house, it played an important role in the political, social, and economic life of the city. Several other 19th century presidents would visit the hotel, including Rutherford B. Hayes, who stayed here on August 22, 1877 during a trip through New Hampshire, accompanied by his wife Lucy, Vice President William A. Wheeler, and several of his cabinet secretaries. Twelve years later, on August 15, 1889, President Benjamin Harrison would also visit the hotel, where he had lunch during a brief stop in Concord.

In the meantime, the hotel building underwent several changes during the 19th century. It was expanded in 1872, and then in 1890 it underwent another renovation, which included both internal and external improvements. The Eagle Hotel became the first building in the city to have a central heating plant, as well as the first to have an elevator. On the exterior, the most noticeable change was the addition of a fifth story, which replaced the original gable roof. As shown in these two photos, the fifth story has a different window configuration from the lower floors, and there is also a horizontal band of bricks beneath the windows, where the old cornice used to be. The two piazzas, which were mentioned in the 1852 article, were also removed at some point in the 19th century, as were the window shutters that had once been installed on the front façade of the building.

The renovated hotel continued to play an important role in New Hampshire politics throughout the first half of the 20th century. Many state legislators stayed here while the General Court was in session, and they often held meetings here. Among those legislators was Winston Churchill, an American novelist who was, at the time, the best-known Winston Churchill in the world. Aside from his literary career, he was elected to the state legislature in 1903 and 1905, and in 1906 he published Coniston, which became the best-selling American novel of the year. It was a novel about New Hampshire politics, and it included a number of fictional places that were obvious stand-ins for real locations. These included the Pelican Hotel, which represented the Eagle Hotel. It was there that the fictional political boss Jethro Bass ruled the state from his “Throne Room” in the hotel.

Also in 1906, Churchill sought the Republican nomination for governor as an underdog candidate. Ahead of the party convention, he booked rooms here at the Eagle Hotel to use as his campaign headquarters. He ended up performing surprisingly well at the convention for an inexperienced politician, but narrowly lost the party nomination. Churchill would try again in 1912, this time as the Progressive Party candidate, but he finished third in the general election. He subsequently retired from politics, and later gave up on writing novels. And, as it turned out, his fame would be dramatically eclipsed by a different Winston Churchill on the other side of the Atlantic, who was also a politician and writer.

Even into the 1950s, the Eagle Hotel would continue to be a focal point for New Hampshire politics. Richard Nixon—who was vice president at the time—made at least two visits to the hotel. The first was on September 29, 1954, when he came to Concord to participate in the Republican state convention in advance of the midterm elections. He returned here five years later, on October 3, 1959, when he was in the midst of his own presidential campaign ahead of the 1960 election. He attended a reception here at the Eagle Hotel, and he earned the endorsements of both of the state’s U.S. senators. By the time New Hampshire’s primary election kicked off the election season five months later, Nixon was essentially unopposed and carried nearly 90% of the state’s vote, although he would ultimately lose the general election to John F. Kennedy.

Nixon’s political career would rise and fall a few more times in the coming years, but his visit to Concord proved to be the last hurrah for the Eagle Hotel. By this point automobile travel had made it easier for legislators to commute to Concord during legislative sessions, so there was less demand for long-term lodging here at the Eagle. The hotel also fell out of favor among the general public, which was a common trend for historic downtown hotels throughout the region. With interstate highways and other road improvements, it was now easier for travelers to bypass busy city centers. And, when they did need a place to stay, they tended to prefer convenient modern motels, which were right off the highway and had ample parking, rather than aging hotels in crowded downtown locations.

The Eagle Hotel closed in February 1961, and it was subsequently converted into a nursing home. However, it did not have much success either, and it closed in 1976. This was a time when many cities were demolishing their old downtown hotels and other historic landmarks as part of urban renewal projects, but the Eagle Hotel managed to avoid such a fate. Instead it was preserved, and today its exterior does not look significantly different from its appearance in the first photo, aside from alterations to the ground floor. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and it is also a contributing property in the Downtown Concord Historic District, which was added to the National Register in 2000.

Fort Rodman, New Bedford, Massachusetts

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Fort Rodman on Clark’s Point in New Bedford, around 1906. Photographed by Blanchard, Young & Co., courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The scene in 2022:

These two photos show the old stone fort at Ford Rodman, located on Clark’s Point at the entrance to New Bedford Harbor. Construction of the fort began in 1857, using granite from nearby Fall River and also from Sullivan, Maine, but it was still incomplete in 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War. Concerned about the threat of marauding Confederate ships attacking the city’s whaling fleet, local officials took it upon themselves to build a small earthwork fort, which they named Fort Taber in honor of the current mayor. It was located directly to the west of the stone fort, in the distance on the left side of this scene. Fort Taber remained in use for about two years, until the stone fort was was completed enough to be usable.

As it turned out, the fort was never needed to fend off Confederate raiders, and the construction work was not completely finished before the end of the war. The work was halted, but then in the late 1800s the Army began to expand the facility by adding newer artillery batteries on the grounds near the stone fort, along with additional buildings. Although the stone fort did not officially have a name, it was often referred to as Fort Taber, since that name had been assigned to the earlier earthwork fort. However, in 1899 the entire facility was named Fort Rodman in honor of Lieutenant Colonel William Logan Rodman, the highest-ranking New Bedford native who was killed in the Civil War.

The first photo was taken soon after this, around 1906, and it shows the view of the fort from the south, facing toward the entrance to New Bedford Harbor. On the right side of the first photo is the old Clarks Point Light, a stone lighthouse tower that had been built more than a century later in 1804. It had been use until 1869, when a new lighthouse was constructed directly atop the walls of the fort. By the time the first photo was taken the lantern at the top of the tower had been removed, but the tower itself stood here until it was demolished in 1906, probably soon after the photo was taken.

Fort Rodman never saw any combat, but it remained in use as a coastal defense facility throughout World War I and World War II. It was later used as an Army Reserve site, before eventually being sold to the city of New Bedford in the 1970s. Many of the old fort buildings are gone now, and a wastewater treatment plant now occupies a portion of the grounds, but the original stone fort is still standing here. The area around it is now a public park, known as Fort Taber Park.