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House History and Plaque Program
15 Pleasant Street
Salem, Massachusetts 01970
Resear ch and Wri ti ng Provided by
D a v i d M o ff a t
Historic Salem
May 2017
Historic Salem, Inc.
9 North St reet, Salem, MA 01970
978.745.0799 | Hist oricSalem.org
© 2017
�!
The House History of 15 Pleasant Street
�In the spring of 1864, men from Salem marched across wide swaths of Virginia fighting
in the Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. The members of the 23rd Regiment
Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry fought in small battles at Port Waltham Junction and
Arrowfield Church before engaging in the disastrous assault at Cold Harbor and the long siege of
Petersburg. Salem men died fighting for the Union, and a memorial to their service is affixed to a
58-ton boulder a short walk from Pleasant Street, at the end of Winter Street by the Salem
Common.
To the north of Salem that same spring, Nathaniel Hawthorne passed away in the
Pemigawasset Hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire while on a walking tour with
Franklin Pierce. From 1846 to 1850, Hawthorne had lived just a few streets down at 14 Mall
Street, where he composed the classic The Scarlet Letter.
In that year, too, a middle-aged carpenter named Abraham Towle, built a new family
home at 15 Pleasant Street.
Almost all the surviving buildings on Pleasant Street date from the nineteenth century.
The earliest buildings on the street are the Thomas Bickford House, c. 1800, at 1 Pleasant Street,
the 1805 house at 26-28 Pleasant Street, and the 1809 house at 10 Pleasant Street built for John
Rhodes, a mariner. Other Federal-period houses can be found at 8 Pleasant Street, 22-24 Pleasant
Street, and 23-25 Pleasant Street.1 These boxy, symmetrical structures testify to the status of
Salem as a major seaport in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
The last house mentioned, that at 23-25 Pleasant Street, also bears elements of the Greek
Revival style which dominated residential American building in the 1830s. The Greek Revival
filtered down from the work of European antiquarians and architects to American polymaths like
Thomas Jefferson and architects like William Strickland and received a great boost of popularity
from the 1830 pattern-book, The Practical House Carpenter, by Connecticut-and-Massachusettsbased architect Asher Benjamin. The John Cook House at 14 Pleasant Street was constructed in
1845 in the Greek Revival Style. So too are the houses at 16 Pleasant Street, 20 Pleasant Street,
and 29 Pleasant Street.2
The Italianate style of architecture, which drew on Italian Renaissance architectural
features such as flat roofs, long arched windows, and heavy cornices, reigned from the 1840s to
the 1860s, and is represented on Pleasant Street by numbers 9 (the 1860 William F. Luscomb
House), 31 (the c. 1851 Charles Millett House), and 33 (the 1851 William B. Parker House). The
1
Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS): SAL.3147, SAL.3158, SAL.2300, SAL.3165.
2
MACRIS: SAL.3157, SAL.3156, SAL.2300, SAL.2804
Page 1 of 10
�houses at numbers 3-7 and 13, both built in 1869, and number 30, built in 1870, are later
examples of the style. 3
The Second Empire style, drawing on French Renaissance forms repopularized during the
reign of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, has but three representatives on the street: clothing
manufacturer James Trefren’s circa 1870 home at 35 Pleasant Street, the Daniel Henderson
House, built around 1874 at 19-21 Pleasant Street, and the house at 15 Pleasant Street built in
1864.4
The large house at 15 Pleasant exists today, at least in terms of footprint, as it appears in
the 1874 Atlas of Salem.5 The 2 1/2 –story house sits at the corner of Pleasant and Walter Streets,
with its ridgeline running WSW to ENE. It features a mansard roof with nine dormers, each with
their own small mansard top. There is a veranda projecting from an addition on the southern face
of the house and a back ell at the eastern side of the house.
Pleasant Street existed as the “Ancient Highway” in the seventeenth century, though the
northern side of the street was the “Ship Tavern Pasture” and the land of Deliverance and
Susannah Parkman.6 The street was laid out in 1796. Judging by maps from the two years, it
appears the area around 15 Pleasant Street was first developed between 1795 and 1806.78 This
date is borne out by the surviving houses as listed above.
Immediately prior to its purchase by Abraham Towle in 1864, the land at 15 Pleasant
Street was owned by Seabury F. Rogers, a confectionary with a shop at 170 Essex Street in a
building which was located where the East India Fountain stands on Essex Street. Rogers bought
the property in 1858 from the trustees of Mary F. Loring, wife of the prominent merchant George
B. Loring.9 The couple lived in the brick mansion at 328 Essex Street. Mary Loring had inherited
the parcel in 1857 on the death of William Pickman, a Salem merchant and investor.10
3
MACRIS: SAL.3150, SAL.2782, SAL.2783, SAL.3148, SAL.3152, SAL.2298.
4
MACRIS: SAL.2784, SAL.3175, SAL.3156.
5
Busch, Edward. Atlas of the City of Salem, Massachusetts. From actual Survey & Official records. G.M. Hopkins
& Co. Philadelphia, 1874.
6
Phillips, James Duncan, Sidney Perley, and William W.K. Freeman. “Part of Salem in 1700.” Map. In Salem in the
Seventeenth Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1933.
7
Map of Salem, c. 1795. Essex County Registry of Deeds, Salem, MA.
8
Bowditch, Nathaniel. “Chart of the harbours of Salem, Marblehead, Manchester, and Beverly: From a survey taken
in years 1804, 5, & 6.” Map. 1806. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library. http://
www.leventhalmap.org/id/10920
9
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 0574, Page 228. 26 July 1858.
10
Essex County Probate Records.
Page 2 of 10
�After selling the property, Rogers moved to 6 Cross Street on Bridge Street Neck, 11 and
in 1866, he was elected a Resident Member of the Essex Institute.12 Rogers, who was originally
from New London, Connecticut, returned to his home city and died there in 1905. 13
Salem in 1864 was a large and culturally important city. Four years earlier, it had been the
42nd largest city in the United States with a population of 22,252.14 This was a ranking similar to
that of Raleigh, Atlanta, Miami, or Minneapolis today.
Salem’s Lyceum, founded in 1831, attracted speakers of international fame like Ralph
Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass on a regular basis. The 1863-64 season included
lectures by Oliver Wendell Holmes on the “Weaning of Young America”, Wendell Phillips on
“National Reconstruction”, and Emerson on the “True American Idea.” 15 The Essex Institute,
founded in 1848, hosted lectures, displayed art and historical objects, and featured exhibitions on
horticulture and agriculture. The Essex Institute Historical Collections, begun in 1859, gathered
lectures and articles on the history and genealogy of Essex County. The Salem Athenaeum,
housed in Plummer Hall on Essex Street since 1857, provided a vast library for those who
subscribed.
The Golden Age of Sail had closed in Salem, but still 44 wharves dotted the city’s
shoreline.16 The city directory for 1864 attests to the diversity of the town’s workforce. There are
insurance agents, clerks, engineers, teamsters, painters, carpenters, hoteliers, and railway men;
and that’s just among the Abbotts! The inhabitants of the city called on the service of carriage
painters, leather measurers, fur sewers, vest-makers, building movers, ketchup manufacturers,
cigar makers, and bonnet bleachers.
11 Adams,
Sampson, & Co. The Salem Directory, containing the Names of the Citizens, City Officers, A Business
Directory, and an Almanac for 1861. Also, a Business Directory for South Danvers. Salem: Henry Whipple & Son,
1861. p. 154.
12
Proceedings of the Essex Insitute, Vol. V - 1866/67. Salem: Essex Institute Press, 1866-1868, p. 65.
13
Wellman, Joshua Wyman. Descendants of Thomas Wellman of Lynn, Massachusetts. Boston: Arthur Holbrook
Wellman, 1918. p. 257.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. “Table 9. Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places: 1860” 15 June 1998. Accessed
3 May 2017. https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab09.txt
14
15
Historical Sketch of the Salem Lyceum, with a List of the Officers and Lecturers since its Formation in 1830, with
an Extract of the Address of Gen. Henry K. Oliver, delivered at the Opening of the Fiftieth Course of Annual
Lectures, November 13th, 1878. Salem, MA: The Salem Gazette, 1879. p. 60.
16 Adams,
Sampson, & Co. The Salem Directory, containing the City Record, the Names of the Citizens, and a
Business Directory, with an Almanac for 1864. Salem, Massachusetts: Geo. M. Whipple & A.A. Smith, 1864. pp.
46-47.
Page 3 of 10
�There were 11 apothecaries, 9 boarding houses, 15 bakers, 9 dealers in books and
stationary, 6 cabinetmakers, and 21 physicians. For entertainment, there was a bowling saloon on
Washington Street. Essex Street afforded a gymnasium and shooting gallery and the Essex
House, a tavern. There were also numerous establishments around town offering oysters and
refreshments.
Abraham Towle purchased the land at 15 Pleasant Street from Seabury Rogers in 1860
for $987. 17 Towle was a master carpenter and contractor. There were 45 carpenters in Salem the
year that he constructed the house, but Towle was one of the most prominent. In 1850, he was a
trustee of the Salem Charitable Mechanic Associates, 18 an organization founded in 1817 with the
purposes of “relieving the distresses of unfortunate mechanics and their families, in promoting
inventions and improvements in the mechanic arts, by granting premiums for such inventions
and improvements, and in assisting young mechanics with loans of money.”19
Towle had served as a contactor with Simeon Flint in building the Superior Court
Building on Federal Street in 1861 and 1862. The initial building was finished in mastic, a
waterproof cement, but in 1891 it was refinished in brick.20 This later renovation altered the style
from Italianate to the Richardson Romanesque appearance the courthouse bears today. Enoch
Fuller was the architect, though he died shortly after the building began at the age of 33.21
While serving as master carpenter for the city of Salem in 1873, Towle built “a pile
structure for a fender for the pipe bridge and siphon” for the Salem Water Works at the Bass
River to protect the pipes from boat strikes. 22
Towle was born in circa 1808 in New Hampshire. By 1842, he was working as a
carpenter in Salem. Towle at that time lived near to Pleasant Street at 9 Spring Street, in a house
whose origins and date are currently unknown, but which may have been built by Towle
17
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 0606, Page 163. 17 May, 1860.
18 Adams,
George. The Salem Directory: containing the City Record, Banks, Insurance Companies, Churches, and
Societies. Names and Business of the Citizens, An Almanac for 1851 with a Variety of Miscellaneous Matter. Salem,
MA: Henry Whipple, 1851. p. 190.
19
Private and Special Statutes of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from May 1822, to March 1830: Revised and
Published by the Authority of the Legislature in Conformity to a Resolve, Passed April 16, 1836. Vol. 6. Boston:
Dutton and Wentworth, State Printers, 1837. p. 3.
20
Robinson, John. Visitor’s Guide to Salem. Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1895. pp. 55-56.
21
Tolles, Bryant F and Carolyn K. Tolles. Architecture in Salem: An Illustrated Guide. Hanover, NH: University
Press of New England, 2004. pp. 119-120.
22
The Fifth Annual Report from the Wenham Water Board of the City of Salem, Mass., to the City Council, for the
Year Ending in December 31, 1873. Salem: Salem Press, 1873. p. 27
Page 4 of 10
�himself.23 From approximately 1846 to 1864, Towle lived on Harbor Street in what is today the
Point neighborhood. In that time he worked as a carpenter at 8 Lafayette Street with his partner,
Walter Norris. The house at 19 Harbor Street was the left half of a 2 ½ story two-family house
with 13 rooms, though it was destroyed in the Great Salem Fire of 1914 and replaced in 1915
with a brick Colonial Revival apartment building.
Towle built a 1 ½-story carpentry shop 20 feet by 35 feet separate from the main house.
He got his lumber from J.P. Langmaid & Sons at 175 Derby Street and George F. & S. Brown at
38 North Street.24 Towle reared fruit trees and grape vines in the yard running along Webster
Street. In the 1860 census, a 20-year-old Irish maid named Katie Sullivan is living with the
family on Harbor Street.25 It is not clear if she moved with the family to Pleasant Street.
Towle’s probate give further clues to his life at 15 Pleasant Street. Towle got his
groceries from George Hodgkins, a grocer who lived down the street at 45 Pleasant Street, and
Israel P. Harris at 6 St. Peter Street.26 Firewood and coal came from Lemuel B. Hatch, at 113
Derby Street. Towle also subscribed to the Salem Gazette and the Boston Traveller. He bought
boots & shoes at Eben. Buswell & Co. on Essex Street.
He used the services of Nathaniel Pulsifer, a painter who lived at 11 Spring Street,
perhaps to paint the interiors or exteriors of the house. He owed money to Frothingham &
Fitfield, sellers of stoves and tinware, John Cabeen, a teamster, and T.J. Gifford, another
carpenter, who lived on Mason Street in North Salem.
In the probate are small debts to Henry Hale, a seller of cutlery, hardware, and
agricultural tools, R. Skinner & Co., makers of doors, sashes, and blinds, Richardson & Waters,
sellers of hardware, and John C. McLaughlin, a plumber and gas fitter. Perhaps some of these
purchases of hardware and other household fixtures were used at 15 Pleasant Street, though it
would be hard to determine at which property the pieces were used.
23
MACRIS: SAL.3168
24
Essex County Probate Records
25
"United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/
61903/1:1:MZH2-MCX : 30 December 2015), Abraham Towle, 1860.
26
Essex County Probate Records
Page 5 of 10
�Towle and his wife, Mary, had two children, Albert and Sarah. Albert L. Towle, lived in
Niobara, Nebraska by the time of his father’s death.27 Towle became a 32 degree Mason. 28
Sarah A. Towle, born in August 1834, married Stephen S. W. Upton, a farmer and miller,
and moved to Townsend, Massachusetts in northwestern Middlesex County.29 There they had a
son, William, and three daughters, Persis, Laura W., and Sarah J. In the 1880 census, Sarah J.
Towle, Sarah’s elderly aunt, and an unrelated 16-year girl named Lillian A. Blood are listed as
living with the family as well.30 By 1900, Stephen Upton had become a lumber dealer, and Laura
W. Upton still lived at home and taught music at the age of 29.31
Abraham Towle died September 29th, 1876.32 He had $75 worth of carpentry tools and
$50 worth of furniture. In 1878, Albert L. Towle sold his father’s real estate to cover the
aforementioned debts and advertised 15 Pleasant Street and his two other properties for sale. The
house featured 11 finished rooms and 2 unfinished with a furnace, gas, and water from Wenham
Lake, and Towle’s shop, advertised as suitable for a carpenter or a mason. The proximity of the
Common is noted, with the property touted as “a residence in a pleasant locality and in a first
class neighborhood.” 33 Also for sale were the house at 19 Harbor Street and a 2 ½-story house at
31 Hazel Street with 16 rooms.
House
O u t s t a n d i n g Sale-1878
Mortgage
27
Essex County Probate Records. As Albert L. Towle is listed at home in 1861, 1866, and 1869, it seems unlikely
that he is the Albert Towle mentioned in Johnson’s History of Nebraska as a survivor of the wreck of the Hannibal
in 1857, or the longest-serving postmaster in the state in 1869. This other Towle makes identifying very much about
his western life quite difficult.
28
Transactions of the Supreme Council, 33o, for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, October,
1897.Charleston: Gr. Orient of Charleston, 1897, p. 130.
29
"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/
61903/1:1:MH6T-SH4 : 11 August 2016), Stephen S W Upton, Townsend, Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States;
citing enumeration district ED 379, sheet 523D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National
Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0539; FHL microfilm 1,254,539.
30
Ibid.
31
"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/
61903/1:1:M9T5-7JS : accessed 25 May 2017), Stephen W Upton, Townsend Town Townsend town,
Middlesex, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 967, sheet 10A, family 252, NARA
microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL
microfilm 1,240,666.
32
Essex County Probate Records
33
Essex County Probate Records,
Page 6 of 10
�15 Pleasant Street
$350
$3,870.00
19 Harbor Street
$1000
$2,325.50
William Mack bought the property at Pleasant Street and owned the property for a
Hazel Street
$2,500
$1,950.00
decade, from 1878 to 1888.34
Mack was a physician whose personal papers at the Phillips Library include 6 volumes of
notes on medicine and his patients. His primary residence was at 21 Chestnut Street, in the
eastern end of the Federal brick double house purchased by his father, Judge Elisha Mack in
1837. Mack travelled to Europe in the 1830s and in 1841 was the secretary of the Essex Southern
District of the Massachusetts Medical Society. 35 Mack’s reputation was enough that in 1889,
Colcord Upton, a steamboat manager, and Lillian S. Towne, named their firstborn child William
Mack Upton. 36 A large parcel of land in North Salem given to Mack by his sister, Esther, was
given to the city on his death in 1895 to become Mack Park.
Mack was a treasurer and directory of the Salem Street Railway Company and the
Pleasant Street property was rented to company employees.37 He likely bought the property
because of its proximity to the company’s building, which was directly abutting on the east along
Webster Street.
In 1880 and 1881, the inhabitants were Willard B. Ferguson, the superintendent of the
“Horse Rail Road” at 233 Essex Street, and Charles A. Murch, the assistant superintendent.38
Both Ferguson and Murch were in their late thirties and originally from Maine. Murch lived with
34
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 0995, Page 23. 4 March 1878.
35
Medical Communications of the Massachusetts Medical Society, with an Appendix containing the Proceedings of
the Society. Vol. 6. Boston: Massachusetts Medical Society, 1841. p. 122.
36
Perley, Sidney. A History of Salem, Massachusetts, Vol. II 1638-1670. Salem: Sidney Perley, 1926. p. 382.
37
Public Documents of Massachusetts, Being the Annual Reports of Various Public Officers and Institutions for the
Year 1885. Vol. III, nos. 10-15. Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Company, 1886. p. 401.
38
The Salem Directory, 1881 Containing in the City Record, Business Directory, and Street Directory, No. XIX.
Sampson, Davenport, & Co. Salem: A.A. Smith & Co. p. 78 and p. 157.
Page 7 of 10
�wife, Rosa, who was ten years his junior.39 Ferguson and his wife, Etta, had a similar age gap,
and in 1879 they had a son, Berton G. Ferguson.40
Ferguson and his wife continued to live at 15 Pleasant Street until at least 1886. From
1882 to 1884, they shared the property with Frank A. Shepherd, a horse car conductor.41 In 1886,
they lived with Peter W. Whitney, another driver.42
Next, Charles Odell owned the property for a short time, from 1888 to 1890.43 Odell ran
an auction, real estate, and insurance business from Washington Street and lived in the 1880s at
20 Pleasant Street.44 By the time he purchased the land on Pleasant Street, he had moved to 24 ½
Winter Street. Odell did not live at the house but rented it out as Mack had done. In 1890, the
tenant was a man named Nathaniel Morton who has no profession listed.45
Charlotte Fairfield, a bookkeeper and coal-dealer, purchased the property in 1890 and
owned it until 1929. 46 The Fairfields lived next door in the Italianate house built in 1869 by her
father, James Fairfield. James Fairfield was a dealer in lumber, lime, cement, and coal, with
39
"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/
61903/1:1:MH6F-8TJ : 11 August 2016), Charles Murch, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States; citing
enumeration district ED 231, sheet 620A, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives
and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0532; FHL microfilm 1,254,532.
"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/
61903/1:1:MH6F-8TX : 11 August 2016), Willard G Ferguson, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States; citing
enumeration district ED 231, sheet 620A, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives
and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0532; FHL microfilm 1,254,532.
40
41
Meek, Henry M. The Naumkeag Directory for Salem, Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, containing a list
of the Inhabitants and Business Firms of the Districts and other Matters of General and Local Interest. No. 1 –
1882-83. Salem: Henry M. Meek & Francis A. Fieldler. p. 79.
42
The Salem Directory 1886 Containing a Directory of Citizens, Street Directory, The City Record, and Business
Directory with Map. Also Directories for the Towns of Beverly, Peabody, Danvers, and Marblehead. No. XXII.
Sampson, Murdoch, & Co. Salem: Mackintire and Henry P. Ives.
43
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 1216, Page 437. 20 February 1888.
44
The Salem Directory, 1879. No. XVIII. Boston: Sampson, Davenport, & Co. p. 171.
45
The Salem Directory 1890-91 Containing a Directory of Citizens, Street Directory, The City Record, and Business
Directory with Map. Also Directories for the Towns of Beverly, Peabody, Danvers, and Marblehead. Sampson,
Murdoch, & Co. Salem: Mackintire and Henry P. Ives. p. 265.
46
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 01290, Page 63. 9 September, 1890.
Page 8 of 10
�businesses at 52-60 Central Street and a coal yard at 7 Water Street in Beverly.47 Her mother, was
Lucy W. Fairfield, who was widowed by 1912. Her brother, Charles E. Fairfield, was a clerk who
died young in 1897.
Charlotte, called Lottie by her family, was born in 1856.48 From 1880 until the early
1900s she worked as a bookkeeper, but after her father’s death she took over the family business.
She faced resistance from the coal dealers of the Salem Coal Club because she was a woman, so
she acted independent of the association.49 The story became national news, as evidenced by the
headline of The Leavenworth Times in Kansas: “Girl Coal Dealer Fights the Trust.” 50 Fairfield
prevailed and was a successful coal dealer for two decades. In 1912, she is listed as a coal dealer
with businesses at 78 Washington and 52 Central and 127 Cabot and 15 Water in Beverly.51
In the 1890s, the house at 15 Pleasant was rented to John G. Page, the assistant
superintendent of streets and his brother, Fred M. Page, who ran a shoe and paper box findings
company on Washington Street.52 The Pages continued living at the property until 1906. In the
early 1910s, the house was rented to Charles A. Southworth. Charles and Fred were the
Southworth Brothers, landscape architects and nurserymen.53 From 1914 until 1922, the house
was rented by Robert B. Chalmers and his wife, Sarah E. Chalmers worked at the United Shoe
Machinery Corporation in Beverly and the couple rented a summer cottage at 71 Bay View
Avenue in the Juniper Point neighborhood of Salem.
47
Meek, Henry M. The Naumkeag Directory for Salem, Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Essex, and
Manchester. Containing a list of the Inhabitants and Business Firms of the District and Other Matters of General
and Local Interest. 9. 1899-1900. pp. 225-226.
48
"United States Census, 1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/
61903/1:1:MH6F-8TL : 11 August 2016), Lottie Fairfield in household of James Fairfield, Salem, Essex,
Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district ED 231, sheet 620A, NARA microfilm publication T9
(Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0532; FHL microfilm 1,254,532.
49
“Coal Dealers Disagree” The Portsmouth Herald, Portsmouth, NH. 11 Feb 1903, p. 5.
50
“Girl Coal Dealer Fights the Trust” The Leavenworth Times, Leavenworth, KS. 14 Feb. 1903. p. 5.
51
The Naumkeag Directory for Salem, Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Essex, and Ipswich Containing a
list of the Inhabitants and Business Firms of the District and Other Matters of General and Local Interest. No. 20,
1912. Salem: The Henry M. Meek Publishing Company, 1912. p. 156.
52
The Salem Directory 1893-94 Containing a Directory of Citizens, Street Directory, The City Record, and Business
Directory with Map. Also Directories for the Towns of Beverly, Peabody, Danvers, and Marblehead. Salem:
Mackintire and Henry P. Ives. p. 132.
53
Salem Directory, 1912.
Page 9 of 10
�In 1924, John E. Heffernan, a druggist, and his wife Mary E. had moved into 13 Pleasant
Street, and Lester S. Durkee and his wife Marion E. lived at 15 Pleasant Street. By 1926, the
house was rented to Edward L. Kanze, his wife Ruth S. Kanze, and Oscar Kanze, a boarder.
Edward Kanze was a cook at The Hawthorne Hotel.54
John W. and Emma Szczepucha purchased the house from Marion Durkee in 1929 after
the Durkees moved to Beverly. 55 John Szczepucha was a shoe worker in 1929, a clerk at The
Bunghole liquor store in 1933, a clerk at the restaurant of Charles Szczepucha at 124 Derby
Street in 1935, and a shoeworker again in 1945. Emma was a homemaker. A family of
Szczepuchas, likely relatives, lived at 105 Derby Street. In 1939, Bronislaw and his wife Stella,
Edward, Helen, Ignatz, and Stanley lived at 105 Derby.56 Bronislaw was the proprietor of a
liquor store, Edward was a forester, Helen a lamp worker, and Ignacy a laborer and a tanner.
Ignacy or Ignatz was the first Szczepucha to appear in the records in Salem as a tanner living
with his wife Anastacia at 17 Bentley Street in 1926. 57
1949, the Szczepuchas sold the property to John Goodwin.5859 In 1949, John W. Goodwin
was a clerk, Emma D. Goodwin, was a housekeeper, and John Jr. was living at home at age 24.
By 1953, John Jr. had become involved in real estate. In 1954, Marjorie Goodwin, a clerk aged
25, appears for the first time. In 1954, John sold the property for less than $100 to Marjorie
Lorraine Goodwin.60 Emma and John Jr. continued to live at 15 Pleasant Street until 1985.
From the pasture of the Ship’s Tavern to the shop of a carpenter, a lodging for railroad
employees to a plant nursery, and a first American home for recent immigrants, the land and
house at 15 Pleasant Street have had a long and fascinating existence which testifies to the
changing nature of Salem over several centuries.
54
Directory for Salem and Beverly containing an Alphabetical list of the Inhabitants and Business Firms of the
District, Street and Householders’ Directories and other Miscellaneous Matter for each City. No. 27- 1926. Salem:
The Henry M. Meek Publishing Company, 1926. p. 133.
55Deed,
Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 2812, Page 291. 2 July 1929.
56
1939 Salem Poll Listing.
57
1926 Salem Directory.
58
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 3704, Page 490. 16 November 1949.
59
The similarities between the Szczepucha and Goodwin families- both are named John W. and Emma, both are
about the same age, and the lack of address chance in the 1949 poll listing when the Goodwins appear make me
suspect that the Szczepuchas and the Goodwins are the same family and that the Szczepuchas changed their name to
assimilate better into American culture. However, John’s signatures are considerably different in the deeds of 1949
and 1954 and the very presence of the 1949 deed raises questions that perhaps this is just empty speculation.
60
Deed, Essex County Registry of Deeds. Book 0438, Page 296. 4 January, 1954.
Page 10 of 10
�����������Ownership History of 15 Pleasant Street, Salem MA 01970
Conveyed by
Conveyed to
1995, Sep
14
Marjorie Kerwin (Estate of John
Goodwin aka John Sepuha)
John Goodwin
Marjorie Lorraine
Goodwin
1949, Nov
16
John W. Szczepucha and Emma
Szczepucha
Doc
22
Deed
Less than
$100.00
41
Consideration
paid
Amount
Book
Page
Deed
4038
296
5
Deed
3704
490
Marion held
mortgage for
$2,600.00
20
Deed
2812
291
$3,425.00
39
Deed
1290
63
$1.00
2
Deed
1216
437
$3,870.00
1
Deed
995
23
18
Deed
606
163
Kristin W. Amos
1954, Jan
4
Years
Owned
$139.000.00
Date
John Goodwin
1929, Jul 2 Lester S. Durkee and Marion F.
Durkee (related to Fairfield?)
John W.
Szczepucha and
Emma Szczepucha
1890, Sep
9
Charles Odell
Charlotte Fairfield
1888, Feb
17
William Mack
Charles Odell
1878, Mar
4
Deed of Albert L. Towle, Executor
(Estate of Abraham Towle) by
Public Auction
William Mack
1860, May
17
Seabury F. Rogers, being part of an Abraham Towle
estate conveyed to me
$987.00
�Ownership History of 15 Pleasant Street, Salem MA 01970
1858, Jul
26
William Pickman
“We, George B. Loring of Salem,
John W. Rogers of Boston, J.
Ingersoll Bowditch and John H.
Loring both of Boston, trustees of
Mary F. Loring, under the will of
William Pickman, late of Salem,
and Mary F. Loring, wife of said
George B. Loring, who joins in this
deed to release all her interest in
said premises a “parcel of land”…
Seabury F. Rogers
$2,074.00
Deed
2
574
228
�Ownership History of 15 Pleasant Street, Salem MA 01970
1860, Oct 9
Abraham Towle (Master Carpenter) to Charles Henry Allen “36” Pleasant and Webster Streets
1865, Jan 11
Anna K. Kimball for Charles H. Allen (deceased) -- to John Carroll b 992/p101
Charles H. Allen, Jr. and Margaret E. Allen, wife of Charles H. Allen, (he being now absent at sea) all buildings on said “Web
Street” see (previous deed) b.992/p.101
1870, Nov 17
to John Carroll
deed b.964/p195 Salem Webb Street
1878, April 5
Abraham Towel’s estate sold to William Mack
b. 995/p23???
Pleasant and Webster
Courthouse downtown built by Towle: The courts Friday, Oct. 3, 1862. Enoch Fuller was the architect and Simeon Flint and
Abraham Towle the contractors. Authority was obtained from the legislature to expend $25,000 in its erection. The
expenditure was within the appropriation, as noteworthy a fact as anything connected with its history. The outside of this building
when built was covered with mastic but it proved most unsatisfactory and in the fall of 1891, after the building of the extension in
the rear, the coat of mastic was removed and a new covering of brick was laid and a tower added in front, thus bringing the
outside into harmony with the new annex.
Visitor’s Guide to Salem, The Essex Institute, 1897
https://archive.org/details/visitorsguideto00massgoog
Towle born in Omaha Nebraska about 1808, married Mary…?
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Pleasant Street
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
15 Pleasant Street, Salem, MA
Subject
The topic of the resource
House History
Description
An account of the resource
Built by Abraham Towle, carpenter c. 1864
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Historic Salem Inc
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Historic Salem Inc house histories
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Historic Salem Inc
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1864, 2017
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
David Moffat
15
1864
Abraham
Carpenter
Massachusetts
Pleasant
Salem
Superior Court
Towel