The Stearns House
THE STEARNS HOUSE
Houses of the period following the gambrel-roofed type were in shape commonly either square or rectangular. Almost always the third-story windows were nearly square, as compared with the taller ones of the first and second floors—an architectural device by means of which the building appeared lower than it actually was. This was called ‘foreshortening.’ The severity of outline presented by these simple structures was relieved by various devices—sometimes by quoined corner-boards, an ornamental cornice, a balustraded roof, or decorative lintels above the windows; very rarely by rusticated front-boards in imitation of stone blocks. The chief glory of the house as one viewed it from the outside was of necessity the entrance, with its porch, open or enclosed; and it was hither that the loving attention of architect and wood-carver was most assiduously directed.
The Stearns house, built in 1776, stands at 384 Essex Street, and presents a notable example of the Revolutionary style.
As was very often the case with Salem houses, the plain character of the original structure of the Stearns homestead was later relieved by the addition of a porch of most artistic design, again from the hand of Samuel McIntire, regarding whom one is continually led to wonder that in the short period of his activity he could achieve so much. This new porch was put in place in 1785, and is of especial dignity due to the use of flanking pilasters in addition to the engaged columns at the rear of the structure. The order is Doric and the effect is one of strength and permanence.
At the North Bridge affair in February, 1775, when Colonel Leslie’s troops met armed resistance from the Salem citizens, one of the leading spirits on the patriot side was ‘Major’ Joseph Sprague. It was for him that this house was erected, later passing into the hands of the Stearns family, connections of the Major by marriage. Colonel Sprague, as he later became, died in 1808, since which time this has been known as the Stearns house.