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The Marblehead Summer House is a house in Marblehead, Massachusetts, in the United States. There is evidence of it having been constructed as a one-storey building in 1717, and it was later converted to become an early three-storey building.
It is likely the oldest existing three-story structure in Marblehead, and shows signs that it was raised from one to three stories. It is currently an inn located in the historic district of Marblehead in the old water front area. According to historical research done by Robert Booth, a noted area historian and Harvard graduate, the original structure was built by George Slocumb sometime prior to 1717. [1] No record of the construction itself has been found; however, the building and land was mortgaged October 30, 1717, to John Bowdoin, a merchant in Boston. This is the earliest known documentation of the structure. On March 15, 1720, Slocumb remortgaged to Bowdoin for 164 li (pounds). [2] Slocumb was a “shoreman” (one involved in the curing, salting, drying and storage of fish) and a “joiner” (carpenter) by trade. On June 24, 1728, he sold the house to Bowdoin for 400 li. [3] On September 8, 1756, Bowdoin's heirs sold the premises for 70 li to Capt. Samuel Glover, [4] the brother of John Glover, who later became the famous General John Glover who, with his Marblehead men, ferried George Washington across the Delaware River to attack the Hessians during the revolutionary war. Samuel Glover was also a “cordwainer” (shoemaker), as were a lot of men in Marblehead. He served as a captain in the French and Indian War but was referred to as captain locally due to his position on ship. He was also licensed to sell liquor which was reserved for only those of good standing and reputation. He apparently acquired some degree of wealth between his shoe making, commanding ships, and selling rum. [5] At the time of Glover's death in 1762, “his mansion house, warehouse and land, under and adjoining, situated in Marblehead” was valued at 400 li above his personal possessions. [6] Around 1757 Glover had a three-story house constructed on the property, “his mansion house”, mentioned above. While Booth assumes Slocomb's house was probably dilapidated by then, which it may have been, there is a good deal of physical evidence that the third floor of the current structure was built several years earlier than the first two floors and raised to its current location. Booth makes the following comment in his historical research of the property: “Between making shoes, commanding vessels, and selling Rum, Capt. Glover achieved a fair degree of affluence, and in 1756 he decided to buy the old Slocumb house and land, undoubtedly with the intention of raising a fine new house for himself and his family. Perhaps it was completed in time for the birth of Samuel and Mary’s fifth child, Edmond, in the fall of 1757. At the time it was one of the largest and most modish houses in town, which then had very few three-story homes.” [5]
There is evidence that the existing third story of the house was the original one-story structure on the property, built around 1717. Forty years earlier than the existing first and second stories of the house were constructed underneath it as it was lifted (raised) from the ground.
Like many other of houses built in the area at the time, the roofs on this colonial post-and-beam was much more complex than modern roofs made with trusses, plywood and asphalt shingles. It was made with a superstructure of large, hand-hewed timbers joined with long wooden spikes, purlins connected to the timbers, boards nailed on top of the purlins, and a covering of hundreds or thousands of handmade wooden shake shingles. This was a lengthy, difficult process which required a great deal of materials. Another reason it was preferable to raise the structure may have been that the posts in the existing structure could not be trusted to bear the weight of a second story built on top of it, especially if two new stories were to be added, as they appear to have been in this case, at what was once known as the “Samuel Glover Mansion”, now the “Marblehead Summer House”, at 27 Front Street, Marblehead, Massachusetts.:
Salem is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located in the North Shore region. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports in early American history.
Marblehead is a coastal New England town in Essex County, Massachusetts. Its population was 20,441 at the 2020 census.
The Crowninshield–Bentley House is a Colonial house in the Georgian style, located at 126 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts in the Essex Institute Historic District. It is now owned by the Peabody Essex Museum and open for public tours from June to October.
The Salem Maritime National Historic Site is a National Historic Site consisting of 12 historic structures, one replica tall-ship, and about 9 acres of land along the waterfront of Salem Harbor in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem Maritime is the first National Historic Site established in the United States. It interprets the Triangle Trade during the colonial period, in cotton, rum, sugar and slaves; the actions of privateers during the American Revolution; and global maritime trade with the Far East, after independence. The National Park Service manages both the National Historic Site and a Regional Visitor Center in downtown Salem. The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior.
The Jeremiah Lee Mansion is a historic house located in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is operated as a house museum by the local historical society. Built in 1768, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 as one of the finest Late Georgian houses in the United States. It features original wallpaper and finely-crafted woodwork.
John Glover was an American fisherman, merchant, and military leader from Marblehead, Massachusetts, who served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
The General John Glover House is a National Historic Landmark at 11 Glover Street in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is a 2+1⁄2-story gambrel-roofed colonial built in 1762 by John Glover (1732–1797), a local merchant, politician, and militia leader who gained fame for his military leadership in the American Revolutionary War. The house was declared a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, for its association with Glover, who lived here during the war years.
Fort Sewall is a historic coastal fortification in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is located at Gale's Head, the northeastern point of the main Marblehead peninsula, on a promontory that overlooks the entrance to Marblehead Harbor. Until 1814 it was called Gale's Head Fort.
The Harris Farm is a historic late First Period farmhouse in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is a rare example of a three-bay house from that period. It was built c. 1670 as a two-story structure with one room on each floor, and an integral leanto section in the rear. In the 18th century the leanto section was raised to a full two stories and the roof was rebuilt. Further additions in the 1950s added converted 19th-century sheds to the rear of the house, and the front door was replaced with a Colonial Revival style door.
The Marblehead Historic District is a 2,300-acre (930 ha) historic district roughly bounded by Marblehead Harbor, Waldron Court, Essex, Elm, Pond, and Norman Streets in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Among its notable features are Fort Sewall, a coastal fortification with origins dating to 1644, and two National Historic Landmarks, the General John Glover House, the Jeremiah Lee Mansion, and the Simon Bradstreet House.
The Robert "King" Hooper Mansion, built in 1728, is a historic house in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The oldest section of the mansion was built by candlemaker Greenfield Hooper, and his son, Robert "King" Hooper, expanded the house, adding it's three-story Georgian façade c. 1745. Hooper made his fortune through the transatlantic fishing business.
Children's Island, formerly known as "Cat Island" is an island off Marblehead, Massachusetts, and is part of the City of Salem, Massachusetts. The YMCA of the North Shore has owned and operated a children's day camp on it since 1955. The first written record of the island was in 1655 when it was granted to Governor John Endecott. It was then bought and sold several times until around the Revolutionary War when the Essex hospital was built as a smallpox inoculation site. The hospital was burned down by townspeople of Marblehead. By the end of the 19th century, the Lowell island house was established as a summer resort. This was run for about 30 years before being converted into a sanitarium for sick and crippled children until 1946. The island then lay unused until bought by the YMCA and converted into a day camp.
The Essex Institute (1848–1992) in Salem, Massachusetts, was "a literary, historical and scientific society." It maintained a museum, library, historic houses; arranged educational programs; and issued numerous scholarly publications. In 1992 the institute merged with the Peabody Museum of Salem to form the Peabody Essex Museum.
Bowdoin Square in Boston, Massachusetts was located in the West End. In the 18th and 19th centuries it featured residential houses, leafy trees, a church, hotel, theatre and other buildings. Among the notables who have lived in the square: physician Thomas Bulfinch; merchant Kirk Boott; and mayor Theodore Lyman. The urban renewal project in the West End in the 1950s removed Green Street and Chardon Street, which formerly ran into the square, and renamed some existing streets; it is now a traffic intersection at Cambridge Street, Bowdoin Street, and New Chardon Street.
The Essex Hospital was a privately built smallpox inoculation hospital on Cat Island where many people were effectively inoculated against smallpox in 1773–1774. About a year after it opened, it was burned to the ground by paranoid and angry townspeople of Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Lowell Island House was a nineteenth-century hotel on Lowell Island, which comprises a part of Salem, Massachusetts. The island is geographically closer to the city of Marblehead than it is to mainland Salem.
Azor Orne, sometimes spelled Azore, was a colonial American merchant, politician and patriot. In the years preceding the American Revolution, Orne built a controversial hospital to quarantine and help smallpox sufferers, became a militia colonel, and was a founding member of the Massachusetts Bay colony's committee of safety. As a scion of a powerful Marblehead, Massachusetts merchant family, Orne lent money to the continental cause but was never repaid. Orne was appointed major general of the wartime militia, and after the revolution, he signed his state's constitution and was one of those who approved the national constitution.
John Orne Johnson Frost, who signed his work as J. O. J. Frost, was an early 20th-century American folk artist. He began painting at the age of 70, without receiving any formal training. Frost considered himself a historian, not an artist, and his paintings portrayed daily life in the fishing village of Marblehead, Massachusetts, during the mid-19th century, as well as the town's colonial history.
The Joe Frogger is a type of cookie that has been popular in New England since the late 18th century. It is flavored with molasses, rum, and spices and has a soft, chewy center. Because the cookies kept well they could be taken on long sea voyages, and so became popular with fishermen and sailors. The original cookies were the size of pancakes and were cooked in an iron skillet; those made today are typically smaller, and baked in an oven.
Coordinates: 42°30′12.00″N70°50′58.04″W / 42.5033333°N 70.8494556°W
