Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings

by Mary Harrod Northend

Plate IV.—Indian Hill Farm, West Newbury, Mass. Begun soon after 1650.

In type, it is very similar to a Maryland manor, with projecting wings, the service portion in a separate building connected with the main house by a covered passage, after the Southern fashion. In this passage is the well room, so called from the fact that a well of pure spring water is located here. In length the house is one hundred and forty feet, its front just enough broken to avoid monotony, and its spaciousness affording an air of comfort. Two Corinthian columns, as high as the house itself, support the roof over the entrance porch, and on either side are well-protected verandas, overlooking beds of old-fashioned flowers and smooth stretches of sward. In front lies the harbor, and beyond is the picturesque town of Bristol, affording a most pleasing prospect.

Unlike these latter-day types, in fact unlike any set design, is the low, rambling house at West Newbury, Massachusetts, known as Indian Hill, and so called from the location that it occupies. In appearance, this dwelling is most picturesque, resembling in design a castle, and it is as historic as it is interesting. The site that it occupies is the last reservation of the Indians in the neighborhood, the land having been sold by Old Tom, the Indian chieftain, to the town, and the deed of the sale being still preserved by the present owners.

Plate V.—Andrew House Doorway, 1818.

Viewed from any angle, the house presents a series of pictures, each equally as interesting as the other, and its irregular roof lines, gables and bays, quaint, diamond-paned windows, and chimneys adorned with chimney pots, are further embellished by the flowering vines of a rambler rose, perhaps the finest in the country. While the house can be seen from the road, it is only when one drives under the archway into the courtyard, bounded on three sides by barn, stables, and house, that he can realize its true worth.

Salem, fortunate in specimens of early construction, is also fortunate in examples of latter-day types, and here are to be found several of the fine brick dwellings, built at the time of her greatest commercial prosperity. One of these is the Andrews house, located on Washington Square, and one of the three dwellings erected in 1818. Its brick exterior gives no hint of its age other than the softening dignity that time bequeaths, and it stands to-day, tall and broad, its gray-faced bricks brightened by white trimmings, and its beauty emphasized by a fine circular porch supported by white columns, topped with a high balustrade. At one side is a charming old-fashioned garden, laid out in prim, box-bordered beds, and all about its fence inclosure flowering vines clamber. Complete, the dwelling cost forty thousand dollars,—a large sum for the time of its erection.

Every brick used in its construction was first dipped into boiling oil to render it impervious to moisture, and all the framework is of timbers seasoned by long exposure to the sun and rain. On one brick is cut the date of erection, the work of the master builder under whose supervision the dwelling was erected. The great pillars of the side porch, overlooking the garden, are packed, so the story goes, with rock salt—not an uncommon process at that time—to keep out dampness and to save the wood from being eaten by worms.

Some years previous to the erection of this dwelling, Mr. Nathan Robinson had constructed on Chestnut Street a brick dwelling, considered by connoisseurs to be one of the finest specimens to-day extant. The porch, at the front, is wonderfully fine, and has attracted the attention of any number of students and architects, who have made a careful study of it.