Nathaniel Saltonstall, who built this house, was sent to Harvard after his father's death and was graduated in 1766. He devoted himself to the study of medicine during the early Revolutionary movements of the Stamp Act Riot and the Tea Party. Returning to Haverhill against the wishes of his family, he began the practice of medicine in his native town. Later, he enlisted as a volunteer in an artillery company, being the only one of the family who espoused the colonists' cause, but more interested in establishing a comfortable practice than in war, he soon resigned and continued his profession.
In 1778 he married the daughter of Samuel White. His father-in-law presented him with a lot of land on Merrimack Street, and here he built his residence, at a cost of three thousand dollars, which in that time gave him the handsomest house in the vicinity. This land abutted on the river, and was one hundred and fifty feet deep, laid out in terraced grassland and garden. On July 24, 1788, a contract was made between Doctor Saltonstall and Marsh and Carleton, joiners, to build the house, to be completed on or before the first of July of the following year.
In the day book of the young physician, opened in 1774, we note that many of his patients worked out their indebtedness on the house. One Enoch Page gave work for nine days, and also helped out upon the doctor's flax. David Bryant brought him five thousand bricks, and among the many others who paid in product was Joseph Whittier, the grandfather of the Quaker poet, who brought a jug of hay, six pounds of butter, and one and a half bushels of oats, "in full payment of my bill, one pound, five shillings, and eleven pence."
We also find an entry in the same note-book that in 1774 he received for services rendered in the town proper a shilling. If he had to cross the river to Bradford, in 1800, it cost thirty-three cents, and in 1812 the charge was raised to fifty cents.
The house was wonderfully furnished with fine old furniture, china, and glass, much of which has descended in the family, and is owned to-day by the present mistress, Mrs. Gurdon Saltonstall Howe.
In 1806, Doctor Saltonstall's daughter married one John Varnum, who was the leading lawyer of the town, and was given as her marriage portion a handsome outfit, a highly respectable sum of money, and one warming-pan, one silver teapot, one sugar pitcher, one cream pitcher, one jug, twelve silver spoons, and one brass kettle. Many of these articles are still to be seen in the old home.
Sally Saltonstall married her neighbor, Isaac R. Howe, who was said to be descended from the old-fashioned stock, with "beauty of conduct" which was, alas, even then a little old-fashioned.
As years went by, Haverhill became more thickly settled, and the estate grew so valuable that it was necessary to move the house. This was no easy matter in those days, and in order that it might be more conveniently accomplished, the structure was sawed in two, the separate parts being carefully boxed in and moved by oxen. The timbers, which were brought from England, were so strong that although moved for several miles, not a single part of the frame was started. As the oxen toiled up the long hill near the Pentucket Club, they became stalled, and more oxen had to be brought before the building could be finally landed in its present position.
