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The Derby House DERBY HOUSE, SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. ENTRY AND STAIRCASE Courtesy of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. The Derby House Part of Salem Maritime National Historic Site Derby Street, Salem, Massachusetts By EDWIN W. SMALL HE Derby House, one of many later and more commonly known as the buildings constructed or altered Miles Ward Ho~se.~ This building, T in Salem and vicinity for mem- which still stands with clapboards cur- bers of a renowned family of seafarers rently painted a bright yellow, was the and merchant princes during the eight- home of Richard Derby until he passed eenth and early nineteenth centuries, is away in his seventy-second year, Novem- the oldest brick dwelling to survive in ber 9, 1783. Consequently, it is a mis- Salem. nomer to apply, as often done in recent Few brick structures were built in pre- years, the full title of “Richard Derby Revolutionary Salem. Probably the first House” to the brick dwelling now pre- brick house known was one reputed to served as part of Salem Maritime Nation- have been done about 1707 by George al Historic Site.’ Cabot, a mason of Boston, for Benjamin The lot on which the brick house was Marston at the corner of Essex and built was purchased by Richard Derby in Crombie Streets. According to Felt, the December, I 760.~ The next year Elias noted annalist of Salem, Marston’s wife, Hasket was joined to Elizabeth Crownin- thought a brick house was “damp and shield, a sister of George Crowninshield, injurious to health” and got her husband who was already married to Mary Derby, to pull it down, thereby creating a strong an elder sister of the millionaire-to-be. local prejudice against brick dwellings.’ Th e greater part of the brick house was At any rate, there appearsto be no knowl- erected in 1761, but the meager records edge of brick houses in Salem between concerning expensesthat can be definite- the venture of Benjamin Marston and ly identified as construction costs do not the structure Felt says “was built about begin to appear until the following year. I 76 I for Elias H. Derby by order of his A receipt dated at Salem, January 6, father, Richard Derby.“* I 762, indicates that Daniel Spoffard had Elias Hasket Derby, 1739-1799, the received from Richard Derby two pounds first American to die a millionaire, was and thirteen shillings, and was expecting the secondson of Captain Richard Derby, six pounds and thirteen shillings more I 7 I 2-1783, who at the time of the Sev- for work on the roof of a house 43 feet en Years’ War, I 756-1763, was well on long and 27 feet wide-measurements his way toward becoming a prominent that correspond with the present brick colonial merchant. In 1735, the year of house.6 Another receipt, providing the his marriage to Mary Hodges, Richard best of evidence from the accounts kept Derby had purchased a lot on the north- by Richard Derby, shows that on May east corner of what is now Herbert and 28, 1762, one John Jones was paid “the Derby Streets and soon after erected a sum of three pounds fore Shillings in full commodious gambrel-roofed structure, for 24 Days Labour on Hasket’s 101 102 Old-Time New England House.“’ Joseph McIntire, 1716-1776, from domestic sources of supply. Slate the father of Samuel McIntire, 1757- was taken from Slate Island, “the quarry I 8 I I, was then a housewright of excel- of the Puritan fathers” near the Hing- lent standing in Salem. In I 758 he was ham shore in the lower part of Boston one of the builders of the Jonathan Mans- Bay, as early as 1650 and soon after from field House on Norman Street, one of Hangman’s Island, about a mile from the the fine structures of pre-Revolutionary mouth of Black Creek in the present Salem.’ From time to time also as “Jo- Quincy.l’ A most important early source seph Mackentire” he billed Richard of domestic slate, however, for the roofs Derby for work that is distressingly lack- of these pre-Revolutionary houses built ing in descriptive details and about which by the Derbys could have been a pit we would like to know more. It may well opened in the northeastern part of the have been, for instance, that “the sum of Town of Lancaster, Massachusetts, forty shillings cash on account” paid to about 1752 or 1753. The black Lancas- McIntire by Richard Derby on May 22, ter slate was hauled to Boston, some forty 1762, had something to do with the son’s miles distant, in oxcarts and from there dwelling. was shipped up and down the coast as By 1764 “Derby’s Brick House” was well as being used to cover the roofs of enough of a landmark to be named in Boston buildings.*’ Evidence of slate hav- the conveyance of adjoining property.’ ing been put on the brick housesbuilt by It did not enjoy for long, however, the the Derbys in I 763 and I 772 establishes distinction of being the only brick dwell- an excellent precedent for its use on the ing in Salem. In 1762 Dr. John Prince brick house erected in 1761-1762. In married Martha, a younger daughter of consequence, used black slates of a type Richard Derby, and it was only a short that could have come in the first place time before the latter ordered a “New either from Wales or Massachusettsquar- House” in Essex Street, later known as ries have been employed in a recent re- the Lawrence House, for his daughter roofing of the house. and son-in-law. Measures consciously to preserve and Entries in the Derby Account Books restore the Derby House were initiated indicate the “New House” was not only bv the Society for the Preservation of of brick but also slated. An entry on Sep- New England Antiquities and have been tember 7, 1763, allows “~121:19:10” continued by the National Park Service. paid for bricks and “f 6 :4 :o” for carting The Society acquired the property in them. On October 16, 1763, we find 1927 and a decade later donated it to the entry “To pd for Slating ye House the United States to comprise a portion f36 Tyle 27/37:7 :o.” Another brick of Salem Maritime National Historic dwelling, subsequently called the Thom- Site. Generally speaking, the houseis typi- as Mason House, was erected at the ex- cal of a gambrel-roofed Georgian home pense of Elias Hasket Derby in 1772 and usually associatedwith a date somewhat recorded in his account book. This brick earlier than I 76 I-I 762. Of modest scale house was also s1ated.l’ and simple wall surfaces, it is of good The slate used on these Derby houses quality and fine proportions. Inside, it of I 763 and I 772 was brought either has the arrangement of its archetype as from Wales or could have been orocured adanted to New Emrland. the Thomas . The Derby House 103 Hancock House, erected on Beacon Hill to have been residing there as early as in Boston, 1737-1740, and shamelessly 1784.‘~ In 1796, the same year in which demolished in I 863-a rectangular mass he sailed the Derby’s Artrea II on the of four rooms to a floor, a straight central first voyage of any American vessel to hall containing stairs and a secondary the Philippines, Prince finally bought the stair back to the front. Earlier, larger house from Elias Hasket Derby.l’ A and more lavish gambrel-roofed houses daughter of Henry Prince married Henry -illustrating the style are to be found in Ropes and the house remained in the the Hunter House, restored by the Pres- Ropes family until I 873.l’ It was in pre- ervation Society of Newport County at carious circumstances thereafter until Newport, Rhode Island, the Webb rescued from oblivion by the Society for House at Wethersfield, Connecticut, and the Preservation of New England Antiq- the superb McPhaedris-Warner House uities. at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The Essential restoration work was per- Miles Ward House or “old mansion formed by the Society at the house during house of Richard Derby,” already men- I 928. Inside, post-Revolutionary War tioned, offers substantially the same form mantels, which had been installed over on the exterior, but inside the presenceof the panelling at the fireplaces, were re- a central hall with stairs to divide the moved and the appropriate bolection house is barred by a central chimney. mouldings revived. Doorways between The Derby House should in no way the corner rooms in both the east and be confused with the magnificent Derby west halves of the first floor had been en- Mansion, erected for Elias Hasket Derby larged and were reduced to their origi- between I 795 and I 799 in what is now nal size. Many other small jobs of a car- Derby Square near the center of the Sa- pentry nature were done, including the lem businessdistrict. The latter, executed elimination of holes in the fireplace panel- from drawings and sketches both by lings where stovepipes had gone. The Charles B&inch, 1763-1844, the fa- twelve over twelve windowlights (as mous Boston architect, and by Samuel shown in one window in an early photo- McIntire, the local designer of plans, graph of the house) had been succeeded was torn down in 1816.‘~ by larger-paned sash and had to be put Elias Hasket Derby and his wife lived back.
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