The John Ward House
THE JOHN WARD HOUSE
In the picture, two Salem maids of Colonial times are shown gossiping at the huge door-stone of the lean-to of this interesting old house, built in 1684 and originally located at 38 St. Peter Street. The illustration is taken from the restored building as it now stands in the grounds of the Essex Institute in Salem. Fallen into neglect and disrepair, the old house once came to have a forlorn aspect. But it now presents a most attractive appearance, with its latticed casements, its huge central chimney-stack, its batten front door, and its cheerful surroundings of lawn and flowers.
The steep pitch of the roof and the overhang of the main second story are indications of the age of this fine old house. English cottages were commonly thatched, and a very steep pitch of the roof was necessary to carry off the water. For a considerable time after the founding of Salem, many houses were thatched; and even when the roofs began to be covered with shingles or tiles, habit still retained the steep slope from ridge to eaves. As to the overhang, tradition persists in declaring that the purpose of this was to provide floor loopholes through which a musket might be fired at Indians who had come too close to the building to be reached from openings in shutter or wall. This may possibly be true. But the overhang was quite common in Elizabethan dwellings in the old country; and builders may have used it here without conscious purpose, but simply from custom.
In the John Ward house, the main part was at one time used as a bakery. Our picture shows a window display in the lean-to addition, of apothecaries’ supplies on one side and on the other of striped candy in glass jars, and other unknown dainties, perhaps that flint-like rock candy imported by Salem merchants from the East, or the strange confections known as ‘Black Jacks’ and ‘Gibraltars,’ dear to the childish heart in early times. Other rooms both upstairs and down are furnished in Colonial style and contain interesting relics. The house is innocent of paint, inside and out, and takes its only color from the mellowing touch of weather without and of time within.
Altogether, with its gables, its lean-to, its batten door and lozenge casements, its overhang and its silvery weathered walls, the John Ward house presents a most interesting example of the Old Salem dwelling of the second period.