Built in 1684, the John Ward House is a First Period house in Salem, Massachusetts. The house, located on Brown Street, is a two-and-a-half-story wood clapboard house with a side gable roof.
The house was originally built for local currier John Ward on Prison Lane (now modern-day St. Peter Street), across the street from the old Salem Witch jail, on a parcel of land Ward purchased in 1682.
Ward altered the house three times between 1684 and 1732, but it started out as a simple, two-story structure with one room on each floor, an overhanging second floor, casement windows with leaded glass, and a chimney at one end. The original parlor downstairs and chamber upstairs were framed mainly in pine.
The house was then enlarged, adding another room on the first floor and another on the second floor, which were framed mainly in oak instead of pine, and the alterations gave the house a typical colonial five-bay facade, with a center entry and a central chimney. Ward added a lean-to kitchen in the back sometime before his death in 1734.
After Ward’s death, his son, local mariner Benjamin Ward, inherited the property, which was valued at $1,250. The two front gables of the house were removed sometime after this, possibly to update the house and give it more of an 18th-century appearance.
Benjamin Ward died in 1774, and the house passed to his son, also named Benjamin. When that Benjamin died in 1806, he left the house to his sister. She died in 1809, and her will underwent seven years of probate, after which the house was sold at auction to Temple Hardy in 1816.
Hardy was a baker who ran a bakery in the house for 40 years. In the 19th century, an eastern wing was added to the house but was later removed sometime before 1905.
In 1853, the house was sold to local bookseller Stephen B. Ives and was converted into a multi-unit residential tenement. Over the years, the house was condemned by the City of Salem multiple times for being “unfit for habitation.” Ives later sold the house for $3,600 in 1871.
According to the records of the National Register of Historic Places, in 1887 the property had passed to the County of Essex, which planned to expand the nearby Salem jail onto the property.
Yet, an article in the Boston Herald, published in 1908, states that the house was bequeathed to the county by the owner, Daniel P. Wetherbee, in 1874.
Regardless of when exactly the county came into possession of the John Ward House, in 1890, the county offered to sell the house to the Essex Institute to save it from destruction, but the institute either declined or put the decision on hold. The county instead continued to lease the house out for the next 20 years.
In 1903, local artist Sarah Symonds leased the house and opened an art studio there. An article in the Boston Post, published in 1904, states that Symonds made many changes to the house when she “papered the two upstairs rooms with dark green cartridge paper” and painted the floors dark red and stained and painted all of the chairs and tables. It also states that Symonds regularly invited the public into the house to see her studio:
“They roam over her queer old house and exclaim with delight. The old-fashioned studio with its cool green walls, its white painted ceiling, wide open fireplaces and the huge bowls of red and yellow nasturtiums today invites the woman of fashion and diamonds galore to sit where sat long years ago a gray gowned, white capped, white kerchiefed Puritan dame..”
In the spring of 1910, the Essex Institute finally purchased the house and moved it two blocks away to its current location on the grounds of the Essex Institute on Brown Street. The William G. Edwards Moving Company was paid $250 to move the house, which it did by dividing the house in two and rolling it on ox-drawn logs.
In 1911, the institute opened the lean-to section of the house to the public as a historic house museum. The lean-to featured three exhibits: a weaving room, an apothecary shop, and an “Old Salem” cent shop that sold penny candy, Gibralters, and other small items.
The apothecary was supplied with goods purchased in 1901 at the estate sale of Dr. William Webb, who had owned an apothecary in Salem in 1830.
The upstairs rooms were used as living quarters for the tour guides, who dressed in period costumes. Each room was furnished with museum artifacts as well as reproductions if the originals were not available.
In 1912, the house was restored under the direction of antiquarian George Francis Dow. It was during this restoration that the two front gables were replaced.
The overall restoration of the house is not considered to be accurate, and many feel that Dow overlooked specific clues about how the building once looked and added speculative features, such as wooden wainscoting in the kitchen instead of the original plastered walls with lime-wash finish.
From 1961 to 1962, the house was temporarily closed so it could be cleaned and rehabilitated and was later reopened to the public.
On November 24, 1968, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places and was designated a National Historic Landmark.
The house is still owned by the Peabody Essex Museum and still serves as a historic house museum.
Sources:
“Old John Ward House Given to Essex Institute, Salem.” The Boston Record, 29 June. 2909.
“Miss Symonds Moulds Colored Bas-Relief in Old John Ward House.” The Boston Herald, 27 Jan. 1918.
“Salem Girl Refused a Widower and His Fortune to Make Fame as a Sculptress.” Boston Post, 31 July. 1904.
“To Restore Salem Landmark.” Boston Transcript, 10 May 1909.
“House Built in 1685.” Boston Herald, 11 Oct. 1908.
John Ward House. frame construction, 1684-1734; 1912. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/community.2058541
“Peeling Back the Layers.” PEM.org, pem.org/blog/peeling-back-the-layers
“John Ward House.” PEM.org, pem.org/historic-houses/john-ward-house
“John Ward House, Salem, Mass.” Historic New England, historicnewengland.org/explore/collections-access/gusn/283839
“John Ward House ca. 1684.” Historical Marker Database, hmdb.org/m.asp?m=221270
“John Ward House.” Historical Marker Database, hmdb.org/m.asp?m=221269
“Historic Building Detail: SAL.2454 Ward, John House.” MACRIS, mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=SAL.2454