CHESTNUT STREET, SALEM.
microscopic definition. It is the house on Essex Street once belonging to Captain Joseph White, a retired sea captain. ([Plate XLIII]). A sensational interest may attach because the captain was murdered for his money in it some seventy years ago; but outside of this interest the architectural student will find in this building as satisfactory an example of its times as exists anywhere. Then, its splendid state of preservation will also delight the heart of a connoisseur, for I cannot conceive of its being at any time in its history more beautiful than it appears to-day. Photographs of it are extremely rare. The Salem guide-books and local histories in referring to the admirable domestic architecture of Salem—which, by the way, they do not half appreciate—curiously omit even mentioning the Captain White house. One may learn all he wishes concerning the Witches and Hawthorne; but facts about the parc aux cerfs in the reign of Louis XV are more easily obtainable than facts concerning this historic dwelling in Salem.
Providence, R. I., is also extremely rich in early nineteenth century material; but Hartford and New Haven in Connecticut, where any one might wander expecting to find something worth one’s while, have been done over and badly done at that. Instead of bothering with these two places, go to Middletown. I have already drawn upon Middletown to illustrate this review, though much remains to which I shall hardly do justice.
The Watkinson house on Main Street, built about 1810 (see Plates [XLIV], [XLV] and [LXXXVII]), illustrates exceptionally good early nineteenth century work, also its mate, the General Mansfield house, nearly across the way.
The porch of the Watkinson house is beautifully proportioned, exquisite in detail, with a curvilinear ceiling in plaster. The columns rest upon brownstone bases, and these in turn upon a brownstone platform, from the famous Portland quarries located upon the opposite side of the Connecticut river, and which supplied New York City for so many years with its principal building material. The Watkinson house is home-feeling personified; but this is not all. You walk from the iron gateway through another gateway—a
