Years

Reuben Brown House and Saddler’s Shop, Concord, Massachusetts

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The houses at 77 and 69 Lexington Road in Concord, around 1895-1905. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show a pair of houses on the north side of Lexington Road, just east of the town center of Concord. Although located on separate parcels now, the histories of these homes are closely connected. The house on the right, at 77 Lexington Road, was evidently built around 1720. At one point it was believed to have been constructed around 1667, but this is not supported by architectural evidence inside the house, which suggests an early 18th century date.

According to the building’s MACRIS documentation, the house’s early 18th century ownership is difficult to untangle, but it appears to have been owned by the Bulkeley family, including Colonel Joseph Bulkeley and his son John Bulkeley, before being sold to Francis Fletcher in 1725. Exactly which owner built the house is uncertain, but it appears to have been built by the time Fletcher purchased it. He then sold the property to Edward Emerson in 1737, whose widow Hannah later sold it to Henry Gould in 1750.

Gould was a saddler, and he lived in the house on the right, but he may have had his saddler’s shop in the house on the left. It was likely also built sometime around the 1720s, and historical evidence suggests that it was originally a manufacturing shop, before being converted into a residence in the 19th century. After Gould’s death, his widow sold the entire property to another saddler, Reuben Brown, who may have been Gould’s apprentice.

These buildings are perhaps best remembered for their involvement with the events of April 19, 1775, during the Battles of Lexington and Concord. During their brief occupation of the Concord town center, British soldiers looted Brown’s shop. They commandeered his chaise and used it to transport wounded soldiers, and they helped themselves to saddles, bridles, stirrups, and cartridge boxes. They also started a fire in his shop. It may have been accidental, and it was soon extinguished, but it was one of only two buildings in town that were damaged by fire on the day of the battle.

Despite having property damaged and stolen at the start of the Revolution, the war ultimately proved lucrative for Brown. He produced various leather products for the army, and by the 1780s he was able to afford a major expansion of the house, which had previously been much smaller. He and his wife Polly lived here for the rest of their lives, until her death in 1823 and his death in 1832, and their son Reuben Brown Jr. subsequently inherited the property.

The younger Reuben died in 1854, and both the house and the saddler’s shop were then purchased by George Clark, who lived here with his wife Julia. It was apparently during their ownership that the saddler’s shop on the left was converted into a residential building. The Clarks lived in the former saddler’s shop, and they operated both buildings as boarding houses. Among the people who are said to have rented rooms here include Transcendentalist author Ralph Waldo Emerson and abolitionist John Brown.

After George Clark’s death in 1871, Julia continued to run the boarding house here in both buildings, but in 1886 she sold the larger house at 77 Lexington Road to the Concord Antiquarian Society, which used the house as its museum. Julia remained in the house on the left at 69 Lexington Road until her death in 1899, and her daughter Harriet Warren subsequently inherited it.

The top photo was taken at some point around the turn of the 20th century, when the Concord Antiquarian Society was still located in the house on the right. However, in 1930 the organization moved down the street to a new, purpose-built museum building. Now known as the Concord Museum, it is still located there today.

After the museum moved out of 77 Lexington Road, the house was sold and operated as a restaurant and inn for many years, before eventually being converted back into a private residence in 1955. In the meantime, the former saddler’s shop on the left went through a variety of owners over the course of the 20th century, and remains a private residence.

Today, more than a century after the top photo was taken, this scene still looks largely the same. There have been some landscaping changes, including the retaining wall in the front yard of 77 Lexington Road, and the house itself has seen some modifications, including the triple windows on the third floor and an addition to the ell on the south side of the house. Neither of the houses still have shutters, although these were likely 19th century additions, as colonial New England houses generally did not have exterior shutters. Overall, these two homes survive as important witness houses to the events of April 19, 1775, and they are among the many historic homes that line this portion of Lexington Road.

Richard Manning House, Salem, Massachusetts

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The view looking north on Herbert Street in Salem, around 1890-1910, with the Richard Manning House at 10 1/2 Herbert Street in the center of the scene. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show the scene on Herbert Street, a narrow side street that extends northward from Derby Street in the historic seaport area of Salem. Both photos show a number of historic late 18th and early 19th century buildings, but the most significant one is the three-story house in the center of both photos. It was built around 1790 as the home of Richard and Miriam Manning, the maternal grandparents of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, and it was Hawthorne’s home for much of his childhood and early adulthood.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem on July 4, 1804, in a house that once stood nearby on Union Street, which is the next street over on the left side of this scene. He lived there with his family until 1808, when his father Nathaniel—a merchant ship captain—died of yellow fever in Suriname. The young Nathaniel, his two siblings, and their mother Elizabeth then moved into this house with Elizabeth’s parents. He went on to spend much of his childhood here, and then later lived here as a young adult, after graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825.

It was here that Hawthorne wrote some of his earliest works, including many of the stories that were later published in Twice-Told Tales and The Snow-Image. He lived in a room on the third floor, and in 1840 he reflected upon this room, writing:

Here I sit, in my old, accustomed chamber where I used to sit in days gone by. Thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character  were formed, and here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat for a long, long time waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all—at least until I were in my grave. And sometimes it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But oftener I was happy, at least as I then knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me forth,—not, indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather with a still, small voice—and forth I went, but found nothing in the world that I thought preferable to my old solitude till now. And now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and have been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude encounter with the multitude. But living in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart.

This passage characterizes the love-hate relationship that Hawthorne seemed to have with not just his childhood home, but also Salem in general. After his marriage to Sophia Peabody in 1842, the couple lived at the Old Manse in Concord until 1845, when they returned to Salem. Hawthorne was appointed as Surveyor of the Port of Salem in 1846, which he obtained largely because of his friendship with fellow Bowdoin College classmate and future U.S. President Franklin Pierce. For the next three years he worked at the Custom House on Derby Street, and he and Sophia lived in several different houses during that period, including one at 18 Chestnut Street and another one at 14 Mall Street.

However, he was dismissed from his position at the Custom House after the Whig Party took control of the White House in 1849, and he subsequently channeled many of his frustrations into an essay called “The Custom-House,” in which he criticized the Custom House in particular but also Salem as a whole. It became the introduction to Hawthorne’s most famous work, The Scarlet Letter, which he wrote at his Mall Street house in 1849 and early 1850. He would leave Salem for good after this, and lived in Lenox for a time before returning to Concord, where he and Sophia lived with their children at The Wayside until his death in 1864.

In the meantime, his childhood home in Salem was still owned by the Manning family as late as the 1850s, but it subsequently saw a number of different owners throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of these owners appear to have used it as a rental property for immigrant families. In 1900, for example, it was the home of Eva Morel, a 31-year-old French-Canadian immigrant who lived here with her three young children.

The top photo was taken around this time, probably sometime between 1890 and 1910. It shows Hawthorne’s childhood home in the center of the scene, surrounded by other 18th and 19th century houses. The house just beyond it, at 10 Herbert Street, was built in 1874, and the one across the street in the foreground on the right side, at 11 Herbert Street, was built around 1840.

Today, more than a century after the top photo was taken, much of this scene is still recognizable. The house on the far left was replaced by the present-day house in 1912, the yard in the foreground is now a parking lot, and Hawthorne’s house has seen some alterations, including the removal of the large central chimney. However, most of the houses from the top photo are still standing. And, quite remarkably, the large tree in the foreground is also still here. Depending on its exact age, it is quite plausible that this tree might have been a young sapling when Hawthorne was living across the street.

Chestnut Street from Summer Street, Salem, Massachusetts

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The view looking west on Chestnut Street from the corner of Summer Street in Salem, around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show the view looking west on Chestnut Street from the east end of the street, at Summer Street. As described in previous posts, the street was developed in the early 19th century as an upscale residential neighborhood. At the time, Salem was a major seaport, and Chestnut Street became home to many of Salem’s merchants and sea captains. Most of the houses feature Federal-style architecture, although there are also some examples of later 19th century styles, including the Italianate home on the right side, which was built in 1853.

The top photo was taken around the turn of the 20th century by Frank Cousins, who documented many of the historic homes and streetscapes in Salem. Since then, very little has changed aside from the paved street and the parked cars. Overall, the street is one of the best-preserved examples of a Federal-style neighborhood in New England, and it is part of the Chestnut Street District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Gregg-Stone House, Salem, Massachusetts

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The house at 8 Chestnut Street in Salem, around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The house in 2023:

According to the MACRIS documentation for this house, it was built around 1805 by Daniel Gregg, and was originally a one-story building. It stood adjacent to the South Church, which was later lost in a fire, and it was used as a store. However, it was later purchased by John Stone, who expanded it around 1829 by adding the upper stories. He used it as a rental property for about a decade, before moving into the house in 1839.

During the second half of the 19th century, the house had a number of different owners and residents. The top photo was taken sometime around the turn of the 20th century by Frank Cousins, a photographer who used his camera to document the many historic homes in Salem. Not much has changed in this scene since then, and today the house still looks essentially the same as it did more than a century after the top photo was taken.

Chestnut Street from Cambridge Street, Salem, Massachusetts

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The view looking west on Chestnut Street from the corner of Cambridge Street in Salem, around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show the view looking down Chestnut Street, which was developed in the early 19th century as an upscale residential neighborhood for Salem’s merchant class. Most of the homes feature Federal style architecture, and some of the ones in this scene have been highlighted in previous posts, including the James B. Bott House, the John C. Lee House, and the Captain Jonathan Hodges House.

Closest to the foreground, at the corner of Cambridge Street, is the house at 10 Chestnut Street, which was built around 1808 as the home of merchant Nathan Robinson. He lived here until his death in 1835, and the house was subsequently owned by several other families before being purchased by artist Philip Little in 1888. He was living here when the top photo was taken around the turn of the 20th century, and he remained here until his death in 1942.

Today, very little has changed in more than a century since the top photos was taken. All of the houses are still standing, and most have remained relatively unaltered. The street is one of the best surviving examples of a Federal-style residential neighborhood anywhere in New England, and it is part of the Chestnut Street District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Captain Jonathan Hodges House, Salem, Massachusetts

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The house at 12 Chestnut Street in Salem, probably around 1890-1910. Image courtesy of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negatives Collection.

The house in 2023:

This house was built around 1804 as the home of Captain Jonathan Hodges, his wife Mary, and their six children. Hodges was a merchant, and the early 19th century was the height of Salem’s prosperity as a seaport. During that time, this area around Chestnut Street was developed as a fashionable residential area for the city’s merchants and other wealthy residents. Many in the neighborhood were designed by architect Samuel McIntire, including this one, although this is the only house on Chestnut Street itself that is documented to McIntire.

It was originally built as a two-family home, and from 1805 to 1811 the Hodges family shared it with Jonathan Hodges’s former apprentice, Nathaniel Bowditch. As a boy in the 1780s, Bowditch had been indentured to Ropes & Hodges Chandlery, where he gained experience in bookkeeping. He later taught himself algebra and calculus, sailed as a ship’s clerk and later as a captain, and eventually published his famous book, Bowditch’s American Practical Navigator. By the time he moved into this house he was about 32 years old, and was married to his second wife Mary. They had an infant son, Nathaniel Ingersoll Bowditch, and over the years they would have seven more children.

The Bowditch family eventually moved to a different house, but Hodges remained here for the rest of his life. In 1829 he sold the house to his niece, Sally F. Orne, but eh continued to live here until his death in 1837. According to the house’s MACRIS documentation, subsequent 19th an early 20th century owners included Jonathan Willard Peele, Nathan Nichols, and Emily C. F. West. Emily West owned the house when the top photo was taken around the turn of the 20th century, and it remained in her family until 1941.

Today, more than a century after the top photo was taken, not much has changed in the exterior appearance of this house or the surrounding streetscape. Even the tree on the far left side of the photo is still there from the top photo, standing in front of the adjacent John C. Lee house. Overall, the house survives as a good example of early 19th century Federal-style architecture, and along with the rest of the street it is now part of the Chestnut Street District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.