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~GJilistoiic
~~Uclorporated
7 CAMBRIDGE STREET
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS 01970 I PHONE (508) 745-0799
16 Crombie Street
Built in 1834
for
Samuel Ferguson, Painter
Research by Donna Vinson
February, 1992
�16 Crombie Street
The Ferguson-Fellows House
Built in 1834 for Samuel Ferguson, Painter
History of the Property:
The lot on which 16 Crombie Street now stands is part of a much
larger lot which served as a pasture for the Corwin family in the
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Their house was <and is)
located on the corner of Essex and North Streets, the present-day
"Witch House".
The patriarch of the family, Captain George Corwin,
died in early 1685 and his executors inventoried his property and
possessions shortly thereafter.
Valued at ninety pounds was "the
pastor, qt. about 3 acres and 1/2, considering a buriall place ther
apointed"
(George Francis Dow, "An Inventory of the Contents of the
Shop and House of Captain George Corwin", Privately Printed in Salem,
1910, p. 5).
Captain Corwin bequeathed his house and a half part of the
pasture to his son Jonathan, who served as one of the judges in the
Salem Witch Trials seven years later.
In order to distance themselves
from his involvement, later generations of the family referred to
themselves as "Curwins" and "Curwens" after the judge's death in 1718.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Reverend Bentley
reports that the pasture located between Essex, Summer, Norman, and the
newly-laid-out Crombie's "lane" or "court" was still called "Curwen's
field" even though it had passed to a succession of unrelated owners,
including members of the Cabot, Crombie, and Baker families.
"Curwen's field" remained undeveloped pastureland until Benjamim
Crombie began laying out a lane to Norman Street on the land adjoining
his Essex Street tavern, the "Sign of the Ship", after 1805.
Nearly
twenty years later, the "lane", "court", and finally "street", was
completed.
As the path gradually progressed southward, Crombie sold
off parts of his property to various Salem grantees, "together with a
right and privilege of free egress and regress of said way for
themselves, their heirs and assigns, and their servants on foot and in
carriages, for their cattle, carts, and otherwise, in as full and ample
a manner as the Inhabitants of said Salem use the Streets of said Town"
<Essex County Registry of Deeds, Book 179, leaf 222).
Joseph Baker,
Salem merchant, appears to have been the largest purchaser of the new
Crombie Street property <E.C.R.D. Book 179, leaves 221-223>.
Baker sold part of his newly-acquired property to James Bott,
Jr., saddler and son of the famed Salem chaisemaker and namesake of
"Bott's Court", further west along Essex Street, in 1807 <E.C.R.D. Book
181, leaves 103-104>.
Bott purchased additional property on Crombie
Street in the following year, financing both purchases with mortgages
�granted by the sellers, Baker and Thorndike Deland <E.C.R.D. Book 182,
leaves 285-287>.
Bott's mortgages apparently became so burdensome that
he was compelled to sell his Crombie Street properties at a loss to his
more established father in 1811 <E.C.R.D. Book 192, leaves 259-260).
James Bott Sr. held the estate, one of many in Salem he possessed,
until his death in 1829 at the venerable age of eighty-four.
The elder Bott possessed not only many properties in Salem but
also many heirs, and so the settlement of his estate took several
years.
In 1833, one of Bott's grandchildren, Samuel Ferguson, bought
the shares of his siblings in the Crombie Street property and erected a
house on the consolidated estate in the following year <E.C.R.D. Book
274, leaves 51-52).
Either he did not intend, or could not afford, to
live in the new house as he sold it to Oliver Fellows, shipwright and
"caulker", only a year later <E.C.R.D. Book 284, leaves 181-182).
The Fellows family remained in residence at 16 Crombie Street for
over forty years.
Mrs. Fellows lived there alone after her husband's
death in the 1860s, and her heirs sold the property to Lydia Woodbury,
widow of Stephen Woodbury of Salem, after their mother's death
<E.C.R.D. Book 972, leaves 175-176).
From time to time Mrs. Woodbury
took in tenants and residents to live with her, and in her later years
a niece, Miss H.P. English, was in residence.
After Lydia Woodbury's
death in 1900 her heirs sold the property to Mr. and Mrs. George A.
Stevens of Salem <E.C.R.D. Book 1620, pages 57-58>.
George Stevens was
a guard at the nearby Mercantile National Bank on Essex Street
<Salem
Directory, 1901). Della Stevens Bogart and her husband Harry, a
clerk, came into possession of the house after her mother's death in
1921 <E.C.R.D. Book 2501, pages 435-437>. The Bogarts also took in
occasional boarders <Salem Directories, 1921-1931).
After ten years in residence, the Bogarts sold 16 Crombie Street
to Franklin and Margaret O'Brien of Salem, who occupied the house until
1946 <E.C.R.D. Book 2870, page 333; E.C.R.D. Book 3132, page 487>.
That year, 16 Crombie Street and other properties in the immediate
vicinity, including the Empire Theater on the corner of Essex and
Crombie Streets, were conveyed to Naumkeag Insurance Company, Inc. of
Salem and its real estate associate, Salem Realty Company, by various
grantors, including the O'Briens <E.C.R.D. Book 3477, page 108;
E.C.R.D. Book 3518, pages 349-353. See inserted "Plot Plan of Property
on Summer St., Salem, Mass. for Salem Realty Co., 285 1/2 Essex Street,
Salem, Mass.).
In 1958 Salem Realty Company sold 16 Crombie Street to
Mary W. Cass and Joanna M. Cass, mother and daughter <E.C.R.D. Book
4523, page 52).
Joanna Cass Bennett and her husband James Bennett are
the present owners of the property.
Documentation:
Essex County Registry of Deeds, Book 181, leaves 103-104
Granter: Joseph Baker of Salem, Merchant
Grantee: James Bott Jr. of Salem, Saddler
Consideration: $1100
�Conveyance of: " •••. a certain parcel of land situate in said
Salem .... on a private way which runs Southerly from Essex Street
along the Western end of Crombie's House .... together with a right
and privilege of said way, with free ingress, egress, and
regress, for the said Bott Junior his heirs and assigns, and
their servants for themselves on foot, and in Carriages and for
their cattle, carts and otherwise, in as full and ample a manner
as the Inhabitants of said Salem use the streets of the Town."
Date recorded:
April 4, 1807
E.C.R.D. Book 182, leaves 286-287
Grantor:
Thorndike Deland of Salem, Merchant
Grantee: James Bott Jr. of Salem, Saddler
Consideration: $500
Conveyance of: " ••.• a parcel of land situated in said Salem
Date recorded: April 23, 1808
E.C.R.D. Book 192, leaves 259-260
Granter:
James Bott, Jr. of Salem, Saddler
Grantee: James Bott, Sr. of Salem, late Saddler, now Merchant
Consideration: $1452.87 and $142.00
Conveyance of: Crombie Street properties previously purchased
of Joseph Baker and Thorndike Deland, the latter "with a workshop
thereon standing (andJ being subject to a mortgage amounting in
principle and interest to $585.00."
Date recorded: February 15, 1811
E.C.R.D. Book 274, leaves 51-52
Granters:
Thomas B. Ferguson, Cordwainer, James Ferguson,
Painter, Ebenezer Saunders, Tanner, and Margaret his wife in her
right, Daniel Potter, Blacksmith, and Dolly his wife in her
right, all of Salem.
"The said Thomas B., James, Margaret, and
Dolly being grandchildren of James Bott deceased and devisees
named in his last will and testament."
Grantee: Samuel Ferguson of Salem, Painter, "another grandchild of said James and also a devisee named in said will".
Consideration:
$50 to each of said devisees
Conveyance of: four-fifths of Bott's land on Crombie Street,
"and the said Samuel, as devisee, claiming the other fifth."
Date recorded:
October 22, 1833
E.C.R.D. Book 284, leaves 181-182
Granter: Samuel Ferguson of Salem, Painter
Grantee: Oliver Fellows of Salem, Shipwright
Consideration: $2300
11
Conveyanr:e of:
•••• a
certain mE:lssuage, consisting of a Dwelling
House, and other Buildings, with the land under and adjoining,
�situated in Crombie Street in said Salem .... "
Date recorded: August 31, 1855
E.C.R.D. Book 972, leaves 175-176
Granters:
John F. Fellows, of Chelsea, and John L. Marks and
Mary A. Marks, his wife in her own right, of Topeka, Kansas
Grantee: Lydia 0. Woodbury, of Salem, Widow
Consideration: $3200
Conveyance of: property on Crombie Street, "descended at the
death of Oliver Fellows to his children John F. Fellows and Mary
A. Marks, the grantors aforesaid, who now hold the same as
tenants in common."
Date recorded: March 16, 1877
E.C.R.D. Book 1620, pages 57-58
Granters: Hannah P. English and Philip English of Hyde Park,
Elizabeth Strickland of Waltham, Widow, Rebecca B. Woodbury of
Concord, N.H., Widow, and William English of Los Angeles,
California
Grantees: George A. Stevens and Margaret H. Stevens, of Salem
Consideration: $1 and other valuable considerations
Conveyance of:
16 Crombie Street, the former estate of Lydia
O. Woodbury
Date recorded:
September 14, 1900
E.C.R.D. Book 2501, pages 435-437
Granter:
David Frye of Salem (agent of transfer)
Grantees: Harry Bogart of Salem, Executor of the Will of
Margaret H. Stevens, late of said Salem, and Della W. Bogart
Consideration:
$3500
Conveyance of: 16 Crombie Street
Date recorded: November 29, 1921
E.C.R.D. Book 2870, page 333
Granters: Harry H. and Della W. Bogart, of Salem
Grantee: Margaret G. O'Brien, of Salem
Consideration: paid
Conveyance of:
16 Crombie Street.
"This conveyance is made
subject to a mortgage in the sum of $2700 held by the Salem
Five Cents Savings Bank which the grantee assumes and agrees
to pay."
Date recorded:
January 3, 1931
E.C.R.D. Book 3477, page 108
Granter:
Franklin O'Brien of Salem
�Grantee: Naumkeag Insurance Agency,
Consideration: paid
Conveyance of:
16 Crombie Street
Date recorded: September 3, 1946
Inc., of Salem
E.C.R.D. Book 3518, pages 351-352
Granter: Naumkeag Insurance Agency, Inc., of Salem
Grantee: Salem Realty Company of Salem
Consideration: paid
Conveyance of:
16 Crombie Street and other adjoining properties
Date recorded: December 9, 1946
E.C.R.D. Book 4523, page 52
Granter: Salem Realty Company
Grantees: Mary W. Cass and Joanna M. Cass
Consideration: paid
Conveyance of:
16 Crombie Street, "being a part ion of the
premises conveyed to the grantor by deed from the Naumkeag
Insurance Agency, Inc •.•. "
Date recorded: December 12, 1958
�����
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
Crombie Street
Historic Salem, Inc. House History
A resource made available by Historic Salem, Inc. detailing the history of Salem's houses.
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
16 Crombie Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970
Subject
The topic of the resource
House history
Description
An account of the resource
The William B. Pike House
Built for Samuel Ferguson, Painter
Built by 1831
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., Salem Historical Society
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
House built circa 1831
Research created Donna Vinson, February 1992
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Donna Vinson, February 1992
Language
A language of the resource
English
16
16 Crombie
1831
Crombie
Federal
Ferguson
painter
Pike
Samuel
Samuel Ferguson
William
William B. Pike
wood