DERBY HOUSE, SALEM, . 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 , 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 -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 , 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

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 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 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. Outside window blinds of a late in the brick house until 1777 or 1778 date were removed along with all traces and all of their seven children were born of wallpaper inside, leaving the walls in before they left there. An autobiography the bare plaster. The Society also experi- of George Nichols, a prominent shipmas- mented with revival of the original paint ter and merchant, who was later a resi- colors of the interior woodwork. Such dent of M&tire’s Peirce-Nichols House, drawings as were necessary were pre- erected on Federal Street in 1782, states pared for the Society by Alfred F. Shur- that he was born in the Derby House on rocks and the work as a whole was done July 4, 1778.~’ Following the Nichols under the direction of George Francis family, Henry Prince, a shipmaster for Dow, the well-known antiquarian and the Derbys and eventually a merchant historian of early New England. The himself, was the next known occupant plans included the erection in front of of the house. Prince and his family appear the house of a picket fence and gate with 104 Old-Time New England ball-capped finials on the posts that were green of brownish hue, with some use of apparently copied from the “Colleges at mahogany red around the mouldings of Cambridge.“l* The fence and gate and fireplaces, at window seats and along exterior wood trim of the house were baseboards and chair rails. Upstairs, each

DERBY HOUSE, SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. FIREPLACE IN THE EAST FRONT ROOM, BEFORE RESTORATION Courtesy of the . painted a light green that has been re- corner bedroom is of a different color- tained. pastel blue, stone gray, dark green and Work on the house was resumed by a pastel or grass green. Artificial graining, the National Park Service in 19~8. A probably to simulate mahogany or cedar, searching study of the layers of pamt on was found on the main panel of a dado the interior woodwork was undertaken in the southeast parlor and the sample by Stuart M. Barnette, now in the De- has been saved. Repainting of the wood- partment of Architecture at Cornell work according to this sample, however, University. The original colors were re- was not acceptable, as a prior application vealed and restored, and are verified by of the prevailing olive green is evident in samples of the originals and each suc- the room. ceeding color in every room. The pre- A kitchen ell of brick laid up in com- vailing color of the central hall and rooms mon bond and covered with a rather on the first floor was found to be an olive broadly pitched roof is an addition half The Derby House 105

a century or more later than the main ever, was found in the old plaster of the part of the house. The mantels and wood- rear hall side walls and the stairs together work in the northwest and northeast with the original stairway into the cellar,

DERBY HOUSE, SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS. FIREPLACE IN THE EAST FRONT ROOM, AFTER RESTORATION Courtesy of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

corner rooms of the first floor presumably directly below, were restored in I 939. date from about the same time. The origi- The flooring in the southeast and nal kitchen may have been one of these southwest corner rooms of the first story rooms prior to addition of the ell in the is the original, but elsewhere the random post-Derby period of occupancy. The width boards of pine had been replaced position of the original door leading from by later flooring and had to be restored. the rear hall out-of-doors on the first floor The painted side walls in the northeast of the main house is in evidence, and the room of the first story are the outcome of doorway was presumably plastered up finding an application of green paint on when the kitchen ell was added. Stairs, the plastered wall surfaces, a condition back to the front, had been removed from that was not in evidence in any other the rear hall and replaced by stairs in the room except the kitchen ell. It is, there- 41. The outline of the original steps, how- fore, assumed that the green side walls 106 Old-Time New England in this room correspond in period to the of granite instead of wood. The removal kitchen ell as well as to the woodwork and at that time of undesirable buildings of mantel in the room itself. more recent origin that had obstructed A sample of wallpaper was uncovered and endangered the house increased the under several layers of paint in the north- frontage to be fenced and it was found to west chamber of the second floor, which be most practical to put up an entirely has been identified as a tea-box new fence rather than to make extensive pattern, The paper, presumably, was not appendages and repairs to one that had put on much before the decade of 1790- been in place only a decade. 1800 when great quantities of tea began The reroofing of the Derby House to arrive from Canton at Derby Wharf, with black slates is the most recent work on the waterside of Derby Street and that has been performed, and a statement oppositethe Derby House. The paper has on use of slate has already been made. been reproduced in a smaller pattern and The house was partly furnished by the applied to the side walls of the room. Society for the Preservation of New Eng- Virtually all of the original brasshard- land Antiquities. Through the coijpera- ware of the housewas missing. The hard- tion of the Society some of the furnish- ware now in place was reproduced and ings, especially items associatedwith the installed in 1940. Derby family, have been retained in the On the exterior of the Derby House, house as loans. Additional loans from the less restoration was necessaryand less has Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, from been performed by the National Park family descendantsand others have been Service. The central oval dormer on the procured largely through the untiring in- front, however, had been replaced by terest and enterprise of Mrs. Francis B. one to match the pediment-style dormers Crowninshield, whose husband was a de- on either side and had to be revived to its scendant of Captain Richard Derby. original form (following the evidence of Mrs. Crowninshield, furthermore, has early photographs). Two cellar windows been more than generous with gifts from in the granite foundation had been closed her own collection and elsewhere in or- up on the front and were reopened, and der to fill specific needs of the house. She an outside cellarway on the east side of also has been instrumental in getting the house was also uncovered and the family descendants and others to make granite steps reset. Fortunately the rear specific donations. The Essex Institute ell helped to preserve intact under the and Peabody Museum of Salem have ‘as- pitch of its roof an excellent sample of the sisted from time to time by loaning items original finish of the exterior brickwork. particularly appropriate for the place. A new fence and gate, similar in de- The third quarter of the eighteenth cen- sign to the one erected by the Society for tury is the ideal period it has been desired the Preservation of New England Antiq- to attain in the furnishing of the house, uities in 1928, was constructed in front with a few significant items dating a bit of the housein I 939, but with a high base earlier and a very few somewhat later. The Derby House 107

NOTES 1 Joseph B. Felt, Ann& of Salem (1845), I, 414-415. s Ibid., I, 415. 3 Essex County, Southern District, Registry of Deeds, Book 74, p. 143. By indenture, January r I, 1785, between the heirs of Richard Derby, his “Mansion House” became the property of Elias Hasket Derby. (Ibid., Book 140, p. 30.) Even after the property passed out of the hands of the family it was still referred to as the “old mansion house of Richard Derby.” (See Diary of William Bentley, D. D., 1784-1819 [1905-19141, II, 203, October 24, 1796.) 4 The source of the misnomer may be in the assumption in Robert E. Peabody, Merchant Ven- turers of Old Salem (19’s), pp. ZI-22, and the subsequent article on Richard Derby in the Dic- tionary of American Biography, V (1930), 252-253, to the effect that Richard Derby lived in the brick house with his family. 5 Essex County, Southern District, Registry of Deeds, Book 109, p. 78. 6 Derby MSS, Vol. IV. 7 Richard Derby, Receipt Books, I 754-1769 (3 ~01s.). s Fiske Kimball, Mr. Samuel Mclntire, Carver, The Architect of Salem (I 940)) p. 5. 9 Essex County, Southern District, Registry of Deeds, Book I r 5, p. 5 I. lo “Notes on Derby Houses from the Derby Ledgers,” Essex Institute H&o&al Collections, LXX (933),‘ 90-95. I1 Edward R. Snow, The Romance of Boston Bay (r944), pp. 146-147, 163. ls Peter Whitney, T/ze History of Worcester County (I 793)) p. 53. Rev. Abijah P. Marvin, History of the Town of Lancaster, Massachsetts, 1643-1879 (1879), pp. 32-33. George P. Merrill, Stones for Building and Decoration (x891), pp. 8-9, 301-302. I3 Fiske Kimball, “The Elias Hasket Derby Mansion in Salem, ” Essex Institute Historical Collections, LX (1924), 273-292. I4 Martha Nichols (ed.), A Salem S/zipmasier and Merchant, The Autobiography of George Nichols (1921), p. I. I5 Derby Family Papers, Vol. XXX. Listed among bills, 1780-1789, is one dated April so, I 784, as an “account of the Stuff Expended upon Mr. Prince’s House & Fence.” Is Essex County, Southern District, Registry of Deeds, Book 167, p. 137. ar Ibid., Book 883, p. 129. Is From notation on blueprint of drawing showing design of fence and gate.