Built in 1663, the Ambrose Gale House is the oldest house in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It is a two-story First Period home located at 17 Franklin Street. In the 19th century, it was remodeled in the Greek Revival style.
Ambrose Gale was a town selectman, constable, and fisherman in Marblehead. Gale owned fishing vessels, fishing stages, flake yards and a warehouse near Fort Sewall.
Gale married his first wife, Mary Ward, in 1657. On December 16, 1663, he bought the property on Franklin Street from Christoper Lattimore for eleven pounds and built a house on the lot.
Gale was living in this house when he testified against Wilmot Redd during the Salem Witch Trials. On September 14, 1692, Ambrose Gale and his widowed daughter Charity Pitman testified against Wilmot Redd when they confirmed a story about how Redd cursed a local woman, Mrs. Syms, with a stomach ache a few years ago. At the end of the trial, Wilmot Redd was convicted and hanged on September 22, 1692.
Gale’s wife Mary died in 1694, and Gale remarried a year later, to Deborah Girdler, the widow of Francis Girdler. After Gale died in 1708, the house was bequeathed to his son Benjamin Gale. Benjamin Gale died in 1714 and the administrator of the estate later conveyed the house and land to local shore man Robert Girdler in 1722.
According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the house was in divided ownership among the Girdler, Knight, and Felton families between 1795 and 1897 and the Knight family owned part or all of it from 1795 to 1926. It is believed it was the Knight family who remodeled the house in the Greek Revival-style in 1840.
The Ambrose Gale House is currently privately owned.
Sources:
Perley, Sidney. Marblehead in the Year 1700: A Collection of Nine Articles from Historical Collections of the Essex Institute. Marblehead Museum.
“SWP No. 114: Wilmot Reed Executed, September 22, 1692.” Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, salem.lib.virginia.edu/n114.html
“Historic Building of the Week: Never judge a house by its clapboard.” Marblehead Weekly News, 31 Jan. 2023, marbleheadweeklynews.com/historic-building-of-the-week-never-judge-a-house-by-its-clapboard/
“Historic Building Detail: MAR.623 Gale, Ambrose House.” MACRIS, mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=MAR.623