Walk down Front Street toward Fort Sewall and you're walking through some of the oldest housing stock in New England. One house I want to start this series with is No. 58, listed in the state's historic inventory as the Snow House.
What the record says
The Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS), the state's inventory of historic places, carries 58 Front St. as inventory number MAR.361, the "Snow House," with a date of 1747. I haven't yet seen the full inventory form, so I can't tell you who the Snows were, whether the 1747 date is documented or estimated, or who built the house. I'd rather tell you that plainly than guess.
What I can tell you is the company it keeps. On the same stretch of Front Street, the inventory lists the Laskey House at No. 50 (1725), No. 54 (1720), the William Bowler House across the way at No. 57 (1745), and the Ruth Morse House at No. 47 (1750). Further down are the Bartoll houses at Nos. 31, 33 and 39, from about 1740–1760. No. 58 is one of a row of mid-1700s houses that have stood beside the harbor for more than 275 years.
The street around it (context, not the house's own story)
To understand a house like this, you have to understand the water out front.
Marblehead was built on cod. After a visit in 1660, the King's agent reported back to England that Marblehead was "the Greatest Towne for Fishing in New England." Fishermen from Cornwall and the Channel Islands settled here. By 1837 the town's fleet numbered 98 vessels, 95 of them over fifty tons. Then came September 19, 1846. A hurricane-force gale caught the fleet on the Grand Banks, at least eleven vessels never came home, and sixty-five men and boys were lost. The town marks that storm as the start of the fishery's decline.
Front Street ends at Fort Sewall. The fort began as an earthwork on Gale's Head in 1644 to protect the fishing fleet from pirates, the French and the Dutch. It was manned in the French and Indian War and the Revolution. On April 3, 1814, the USS Constitution, chased by two British frigates, ran into Marblehead Harbor under the fort's guns and got away. Whoever lived at No. 58 that spring was a short walk from the action.
The neighborhood also sent men to war by sea. John Glover's Marblehead regiment, commissioned in 1775, crewed the schooner Hannah, which the town calls America's first naval vessel, and on Christmas night 1776 rowed Washington across the Delaware.
Today the house sits inside the Marblehead Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 10, 1984. The district runs roughly from the harbor to Waldron Court and Essex, Elm, Pond and Norman Streets.
Why I care about houses like this
Nanepashemet Real Estate is the proud rental agent and property manager of 58 Front St., so this one is personal. I'm a broker, but I'm also a builder, and a house that has stood since the 1740s earns my respect. Houses this old have carried generations of families through storms, wars and good years on the water. They also come with their own quirks: framing, chimneys, wiring and drainage that a careful owner learns to watch. If anyone has deeds, family papers or old photos of 58 Front St. and the Snows, I'd love to hear from you, and I'll update this story.
Own an old Marblehead house and wondering what it would take to sell it someday? My seller checklist is a good place to start. Or call or text me at 781-727-6516.
Photo: Front Street, Marblehead, on a 1914 postcard (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). The photo shows the street, not necessarily No. 58.
No comments:
Post a Comment