Historic Structures

Year built: 1668
Style: Jacobean/Post Medieval
Built for: John Turner I

The seaside mansion known as The House of the Seven Gables was built in 1668 for Captain John Turner I, the head of one of the most successful maritime families in the New England colonies. The industriousness of Turner and his descendants in the fishing, trading and mercantile businesses came to define the economy of Puritan New England. The House of the Seven Gables is one of the largest timber-framed mansions in North America still on its original foundation.

The original part of the home featured a two-over-two floor plan around a large, central chimney. This floor plan was typical of post-medieval English dwellings. Turner’s success in business allowed him to construct two additions before his death in 1680, including the great ell that featured grand proportions, high ceilings and enormous windows.

John Turner II and his family modernized the décor of the home in the Georgian style. Wood paneling was added to the walls of the parlor, great chamber and dining room chamber. Many of the 17th-century beams were cased in wood. All of the work was painted in the most modern of palettes. Today, these enhancements are considered some of the finest examples of high-style Georgian paneling.

Captain Samuel Ingersoll, a wealthy ship captain, purchased the property in 1782 from the third generation of Turners. Captain Ingersoll removed four of the gables to create a boxy Federal home more in keeping with the fashion of the time. After his death in 1804, his daughter Susanna Ingersoll inherited the property. The mansion was both her home and central to her successful business dealings in Salem. Miss Ingersoll was the second cousin of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne visited her often when he worked at the Custom House in Salem from 1845 through 1849. The appearance of the house and his cousin’s tales inspired him to write his famous novel, The House of the Seven Gables, in 1851.

Ingersoll’s adopted son, Horace Connolly, lost the house to creditors in 1879. The building was owned by absentee landlords until 1883. The Upton Family purchased the home and used it as both a residence and business. They were the first to offer tours of the mansion. Henry O. Upton was a well-known musician and taught dance lessons around Salem. His son, J. Henry Upton, offered lessons for the organ and piano-forte. His daughter, Henrietta, was an instructor in oratory and physical culture. Ida Upton, a well-known artist, painted a “Witch Cup” that she sold after tours at the mansion. It has been said to be “the first typical souvenir in the world.”

The Uptons sold the property after moving to the Salem Willows neighborhood. Caroline Emmerton, a philanthropist and preservationist, founded The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association to assist immigrant families who were settling in Salem in the early 20th century. Inspired by Jane Addam’s Hull House, she purchased the “old Turner Mansion” in 1908 and worked with architect Joseph Everett Chandler to restore its perceived original appearance. Chandler was a central figure in the early 20th-century historic preservation movement and his philosophy influenced the way the house was preserved.

Emmerton’s goal was to preserve the house for future generations, provide educational opportunities for visitors and use the proceeds from the tours to fund her settlement programs. Thanks to Emmerton and Chandler, the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, known popularly as The House of the Seven Gables, has survived with many of its original period features spanning four centuries of American architectural history.

Because of Emmerton, Chandler and countless supporters over the years, The House of the Seven Gables has survived with many unique architectural features intact. The house represents the legacy of Salem’s maritime wealth, the fame of Nathaniel Hawthorne and service to the Greater Salem region. The House of the Seven Gables is one of the largest timber-framed mansions in North America still on its original foundation

Year built: c.1687
Style: Jacobean/Post Medieval
Built for: John Beckett
Moved to current site: 1924

The Retire Beckett house is the oldest building on the site. It was built c.1655 by John Beckett, the first in a long line of famed Salem shipbuilders. The most well-known of these shipbuilders was Retire Beckett, for whom the home is named. The home was originally located on Beckett Street (less than a half mile from the museum campus). Caroline Emmerton had the house moved to Derby Street in 1924 to save it from demolition.

While less prolific than his forefathers, Retire Beckett’s ships were masterpieces and usually attributed with being the “first” to accomplish great feats. He built his first ship, Recovery, to visit Arabia. Cleopatra’s Barge was considered the first American yacht. The Margaret was one of the first ships to visit Japan. His ship Mount Vernon is best known for brazenly outrunning a French fleet and was depicted in many portraits by Salem maritime painter Michele Felicé Corné.

Today, the Museum Store occupies the first floor. While inside the building, look for “checking” or splitting in the oldest beams and note that at some point these were filled with plaster. There are two beams introduced in the modern era, probably after moving the house to this site in 1924. In the back room there are still some remnants of 18th-century paneling and a cupboard around a restored fireplace.

Year built: 1682
Style: Jacobean/Post Medieval
Built for: Benjamin Hooper
Moved to current site: 1911

Benjamin and Ellenor Hooper built the southern side of this house in 1682, a year after their marriage. Benjamin was a cordwainer, or shoemaker, and Ellenor had formerly been an indentured servant. The house was originally constructed near the North River on what is today the eastern side of Washington Street. The land was purchased in 1682 from Zerubbabel Endicott, the son of John Endicott, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The location of the house led to speculation that four carved posts in the great hall were salvaged from Endicott’s “Fayre Dwelling,” the first English-style house built in Essex County. The four posts have carved shoulders which do not match in height or design. Dendrochronology conducted in 2020 to date the wood was inconclusive, as there was not enough material to state conclusively when they had been felled.

At the time of Benjamin Hooper’s death in 1718, the house was valued at £80, a good amount, but his personal effects were minimal. The youngest son of the second generation, James Hooper I, and his wife, Mary Feild [sic] Hooper, owned the property for fifty years, expanding the house with a Georgian addition on the northern side before 1756. James Hooper I worked as a boat builder, as did his son, James Hooper II. Hooper II and his wife Sarah owned the home from 1768 until 1780. The house was divided by Hooper heirs until 1795, when father-and-son merchants Henry Rust I & Henry Rust II purchased it. The two were founders of Norway, Maine, where the younger Rust moved in 1803.

In 1822, the home was purchased by Elizabeth Rowell, shortly before her marriage to John Gardner. 11 years earlier, Rowell had borne merchant prince George Crowninshield’s child, Clara. Clara later married art historian Louis Thies and became a friend of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and William Cullen Bryan. When Elizabeth Rowell Gardner died in 1862, she split the house with her younger half-brother, George A. Gardner.

From 1865 to 1894, the Hathaway family owned the house, converting it into a bakery which came to be known as the “Old Bakery” by Salemites. The final 17 years before its preservation and moving, the house was owned by carpenter John Lummus and his wife,

Letitia. In 1911, the Koen Brothers purchased the property, intending to demolish it for the creation of a movie theater. Caroline Emmerton purchased the house at the urging of Historic New England founder William Sumner Appleton, and had it removed to the campus of The House of the Seven Gables.

Though the home was restored in the Colonial Revival style, it still retains several excellent Jacobean details including its original exterior overhang with carved girts and specially preserved plaster treatments in the great hall. The beams in the great hall feature a cyma, or double-curved profile, and a scalloped fillet, or banding.

In 1912, the house was opened to the public with two period rooms on the first floor and classroom space for The House of the Seven Gables Settlement House. In the early part of the twentieth century, after the expansion of Turner Hall for settlement activities, the upper floors of Hooper-Hathaway were used as a bed-and-breakfast by the museum. Today, it houses our preservation workshop, offices, and period rooms used for functions and educational programs.

Year built: 1750
Style: Georgian
Built For: Unknown
Moved to current site: 1958

The Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace was originally located on Union Street. It was purchased by The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association and moved to the museum campus in 1958 under the guidance of Abbott Lowell Cummings, a noted architectural historian and conservator.

Compared with the high-style features in The House of the Seven Gables, the Hawthorne Birthplace is a more modest example of Georgian architecture. Jonathan Phelps, a blacksmith, and his wife, Elizabeth, built the house around 1745 to 1750. They used salvaged materials from the seventeenth century, likely from the c. 1685 home the Pickman family had built on the site. Today, many of the framing members, boards, and even interior doors are decades older than the house itself.

The Phelps’ daughter, Rachel, married ship captain and privateer Daniel Hawthorne in 1756. In 1772, Daniel purchased the house on Union Street from his father-in-law. Rachel and Daniel’s sixth child (of seven), Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sr. was born in the house in 1775, the same year the American Revolution began. Hawthorne, Sr. married his neighbor, Elizabeth Clarke Manning, in 1801.

It was in the front chamber on the west side of the house that Nathaniel was born on July 4, 1804. His older sister Elizabeth recounted many years later to [Una] Hawthorne that her father was born “in the chamber over that little parlor into which we looked, in that house on Union St. It then belonged to my grandmother Hawthorne, who lived in one part of it. There was lived until 1808, when my father died, at Surinam. I remember very well that one morning my mother called my brother into her room, next to the one where we slept, and told him that his father was dead.”

Indeed, Nathaniel Hawthorne Sr. died of yellow fever in Paramaribo, Suriname in April of 1808. After her husband’s death, Elizabeth returned to live with her family in the abutting house on Herbert St.

Hawthorne’s grandmother, Rachel Phelps Hawthorne, retained the house until her death in 1813, after which her heirs sold their interest in the house to Simon Forrester, an Irish immigrant and wealthy merchant married to Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sr.’s sister, Rachel. Simon died in 1817 and Rachel in 1823, but she conveyed the house by life estate to her remaining sisters. In 1847, Eunice and Ruth Hathorne died. Their heirs conveyed the house in 1850 to Isaac Cushing, a lumber merchant and ship owner.

Around this time, extensive interior redecorations were undertaken, with many Victorian features still visible in the house today. Prior to his death in 1859, Cushing being unmarried, had conveyed the property by life lease to Hannah Becket, a singlewoman. Between 1859 to 1873, Beckett rented rooms to four middle-aged single women who worked as seamstresses or tailoresses: Elizabeth Carlton, Mary A. Bullock, Priscilla Cloutman, and Sally Cloutman.

In 1873, after Becket’s death, Cushing’s heirs sold the house to James Hafey. After Hafey’s death, his widow, Elizabeth, left the house to her sister, Catherine Quinlan, of Westerly, Rhode Island. Three years later, William White purchased the house for $1,400. The Whites owned the house from 1882 until their deaths in the mid-1950s. Their administrator sold the house to the Archdiocese of Boston, who planned to demolish the structure to expand parking for the nearby Immaculate Conception parish.

The Settlement Association purchased the house for a ceremonial amount of $1 and transferred the structure to the property on the back of a truck. Today the house is open to visitors.

Year built: 1830
Built for: Unknown
Moved to current site: Unknown

The Counting House, circa 1830, is typical of the small buildings located on and around the then busy wharfs of Salem Harbor. In fact, there were many more wharfs present in the harbor in those days than there are now.  Counting houses were where the business of maritime trade took place; where accounts were balanced, cargos were bought and sold, and monies exchanged hands. This building is a rare surviving example of one of many similar establishments of the time and reflects the 19th century predominance of Salem as a port.

The Counting House is now known as Kids Cove, where young visitors and their families can learn about Salem’s maritime history through engaging hands-on activities.