As late as 1806, in spite of the general exodus from Derby Street to Chestnut, a few new houses were being built in the old territory. One of these was put up by Captain Joseph Waters, on the corner of Derby and Turner Streets, and possesses some unusual and attractive architectural features. The window lintels are of white marble with keystones, and this produces a striking effect. The main entrance is on the side, and the portico is two stories in height, supported by huge Corinthian columns. Both the main entrance and the smaller one on Turner Street have a note of something a trifle different from the prevailing Salem idea.
Through the generosity of Captain John Bertram, this commodious house was in 1877 donated as a Home for Aged Men.
The Benjamin Pickman House
Somewhat resembling that famous mansion ‘The Lindens,’ at Danvers, described elsewhere, is the Benjamin Pickman house at 165 Essex Street, built in 1743. It has the same two-story pilasters supporting a gable in the gambrel roof, the same rusticated boarding and groined corners. The dormer windows have alternately arched and pointed gables.
The doorway is unusually ornate, with rusticated jambs, and a broken arch pediment in which stands a sculptural bust. This doorway is of the enclosed variety and was added by McIntire in 1800.
The Pickman house was formerly adorned with much beautiful interior carved woodwork, little of which remains. The owner, out of compliment to the industry by which he prospered, caused a carved and gilded codfish to be mounted on each of the stairways, but these, too, are missing. The erection of other buildings in front of the Pickman house hides its real character. Still it repays careful study.
The Elias Hasket Derby House
Among all the residences of Old Salem, that which was most ambitious and pretentious no longer exists, save in picture and memory. This was the famous mansion built by McIntire in 1798 for Elias Hasket Derby, Salem’s greatest merchant, at a cost of $80,000. Derby lived only a few months after taking possession, and the upkeep of so expensive an establishment deterring prospective purchasers, this splendid house was dismantled and finally razed in 1815—the land being donated to the town for a public market. Derby Square, where the present Market House now stands, was the location of the famous house.
McIntire was in 1804 erecting a house at 142 Federal Street for Captain Cook. Business reverses greatly delayed its completion, and McIntire continued it at his leisure, taking advantage of the dismantling of the Derby mansion to utilize much of its beautifully carved woodwork in the interior. The result was the Cook-Oliver house, as it is now known—one of the most satisfying to the artistic sense of any in all Salem.
Existing plans and sketches of the Derby mansion show us a huge rectangular building, suggesting a court-house, or some such public structure, standing well back from the street, its great doorway flanked by double columns supporting a balustraded balcony. Above this is a splendid Palladian window, and above this again hand-tooled festoons of drapery. The door itself has ornate fanlight with side-lights to correspond, and stands at the head of a flight of massive steps.