The first period of Salem’s architectural development, passing over the very earliest years as of little or no value, was characterized by the construction of gabled houses of various kinds, from the simple story and a half cottage to more complex and rambling structures, of which the famous ‘House of the Seven Gables’ is a conspicuous example. Others are the Deliverance Parkman house and the Governor Bradstreet mansion (1638) pictures of which may be seen in the Essex Institute at Salem; the beginnings of the ornamental doorway are to be found in both these instances, recessed somewhat to afford protection from the weather, and possessing an arched lintel of the characteristic Elizabethan type. The door of the Bradstreet mansion is ornamented by a lozenge pattern, corresponding with the diamond panes of the casement windows, the intersections of the pattern being marked by large-headed nails. The trim of the early doorways was simple in the extreme, the architrave and pediment tentatively emerging as though feeling their way. Some of the oldest houses of the second, or lean-to period, possess enclosed porches with gable roofs and small sashes in the sides for lighting the dark entry.
But with the advent of the gambrel-roofed house, an adaptation of the French Mansard, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, Salem doorways become at once important in architectural value. Pilaster and architrave, pediment and column, come boldly to the front and assume their rightful place. Top-light and side-light come into general use. With the appearance of the square wooden house of three stories, soon after the Revolution, these historic doorways and porches may be said to reach almost their full development, the genius of Samuel McIntire carrying this on to its peak, the full fruition of his work being seen in the entrances to the red-brick mansions of the beginning of the nineteenth century, against whose mellow background the pure white classic forms of porch and doorway stand out in striking and delightful contrast. After 1818, the Colonial style began to suffer its decline.
CHAPTER IV
THE DOOR ITSELF
The Salem Colonial door, while an integral part of the entrance, possesses nevertheless such distinctive characteristics as to deserve a chapter of its own.
The log cabins of Naumkeag, as has been seen, had primitive doors of vertical slabs hung on iron strap hinges and backed perhaps by a curtain of skins to keep out the draft. These doors were ‘battened’ within by transverse pieces at top and bottom, the whole fastened solidly together by spikes clinched on the inside, or perhaps by means of wooden pins. A heavy oaken bar falling into sockets on either doorpost further barricaded the entrance at need.
With improvement in the type of Salem houses, the batten door still for a time persisted, though in a more finished form, and with some attempt at ornamentation. A notable example of this later batten door is found in the Rebecca Nurse house at Danvers, formerly a part of Salem. This house was built in 1636, the door being embellished with regular rows of nails so arranged as to form a diamond pattern, the outline of which is scratched upon the planks. Another example is found in one of the entrances to the famous ‘House of the Seven Gables’ in Salem, known through Hawthorne’s novel by that name.
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
Batten Door
