One of the oldest surviving mansions in the U.S., the House of the Seven Gables, was built in 1668 and served as the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous 1851 novel of the same name. Yet the home’s history also served as the inspiration for a woman’s vision that would preserve history for generations to come – long before it was fashionable to do so.
Once the busiest seaport on the Eastern seaboard, Salem’s old downtown boasts many centuries-old buildings. Captain John Turner, a prosperous merchant, began construction of a home that would gradually expand over three generations into a 14-room mansion overlooking Salem Harbor, complete with a wharf where his ships could moor.
Much like homes of today, successive owners remodeled the building along the fashions of the time. Originally a two-room, two and a half story house with a massive central chimney, Turner’s son and grandson added a parlor, bed chamber, kitchen, and new wing with a three-gabled garret. From its original Medieval style, the home advanced through Colonial to Georgian. Gables came and went.
Turner’s grandson lost the family fortune, and the house was acquired by the Ingersolls. Susannah Ingersoll was a cousin to Nathaniel Hawthorne. A frequent visitor, he was fascinated by the house’s history, especially the structural changes in the attic which revealed locations of the former gables. All this would become the seeds the Gothic Romance story that blended witchcraft and the supernatural along with other mid-1800s themes.
Preservation Foresight
In the early 1900s, an influx of Europeans inspired Salem resident Caroline Emmerton to begin what was known as a Settlement Program to assist these new immigrants in their transition into American life and culture. These social work programs included English language skills, homemaking, vocational training, nutrition, and childhood education.
Conscious of Salem’s rich history, in 1908 Emmerton purchased the House of the Seven Gables to generate revenue for her program. She worked tirelessly with historic preservation architect Joseph Chandler to restore the home to the 1840s era of Hawthorne’s novel, which included reconstructing missing gables. In her book, “The Chronicles of Three Old Houses,” Emmerton wrote of her extensive research and the historical genesis of the home.
Recognizing the opportunity to share history through building preservation, Emmerton was ahead of her time. Seven Gables was a forerunner to such places as Colonial Williamsburg and Plymouth Plantation. Such was the success of her venture, that over the next 20 years she was able to purchase and restore more of Salem’s historic properties. The entire site is on the register of National Historic Places and includes Hawthorne’s house of birth.
It’s a fascinating place, time suspended to reveal insights that no history book can provide. Our tour began in the old kitchen, its huge fireplace built with some of the first bricks ever made in America, a 1630 blunderbuss and 1750 rifle hanging over the mantle.
When Emmerton and Chandler restored the house, they did so using the same methods of each respective building period. The only Georgian parlor remaining in the U.S. is painted in verdigris; gray paint overlaid with copper filings that oxidized to green. The hand-scalloped china cabinet is done in blue and gold leaf. The 1700s-era wallpaper is hand-painted, using block prints and stencils. Furnishings are period pieces, some dating back to the 1600s, such as the Lantern Clock in the accounting room and the canopied beds.
My favorite was the garret, or upstairs attic, where the servants slept on stuffed sacking. Here you see history in the raw. The 20-inch wide floorboards, hand-hewn from old-growth trees were deliberately cut down below 24-inches, because such large trees were known as “king’s wood” and by law had to be shipped to England. The peaked roof’s rafters are age-mellowed pine with chestnut pegs that wouldn’t rust or leak. The bare wall reveals “noggin” or old brick insulation as was used in England, but which colonists quickly learned didn’t work well in Salem’s colder climate.
In a tiny corner room is an exquisite ornate Chinese sewing chest, possibly a wedding gift, replete with ivory needles and spools, a reflection of the era’s extensive trade, when Salem sea captains journeyed around the world. Beside it is a beautifully Japanned piece (so called because of the hand-painted oriental scenes) from the 1680s.
The gray weathered wooden mansion, cozied up beside a lovely flower garden across from the other homes preserved by Emmerton looks as if it’s just waiting for its owners to return, even as it has welcomed visitors for over a century to slip back to an older time.
If you go: Multiple packages and tour options are available; in busy season, advance reservations are recommended (7gables.org). Plan to spend a couple of hours, as there’s much to see and read.
