NOWHERE in this country can the interiors of the old houses and their woodwork be studied as in Salem. The splendid mansions around Philadelphia and in Maryland and Virginia are detached and not always accessible, but in Salem one may walk through the old streets with a certainty that almost any of the houses passed will prove to contain features of interest to the student. The town was the home of wealthy ship-owners and East India merchants, who built there the houses which we study, for their homes. They did not spare expense—the Derby house cost $80,000; and they were fortunate in having for a fellow citizen a wood-carver, and designer, Samuel McIntire, whose work will bear comparison with that of men whose names have been better known. Within the last few years, however, McIntire’s name and work have attracted more attention, and his mantels and doors in Salem have been shown to the reading public in the book “The Woodcarver of Salem,” by Frank Cousins and Phil M. Riley.

McIntire built the eighty thousand dollar Derby house, which within a short time of its completion was torn down, owing to the death of Mr. Derby, none of the heirs wishing to keep so costly a mansion. Just at that time, in 1804, Captain Cook was building the house now known as the Cook-Oliver house. McIntire, who was the architect also of this house, persuaded Captain Cook to use much of the fine woodwork which he had made for Mr. Derby, and it was embodied in the Cook house, which was, when finished, given to the daughter of Captain Cook, who married General Oliver, the composer of the hymn, “Federal Street,” named for the street upon which this house stands.

Illustration 395 shows a doorway in the hall of the Cook-Oliver house, which was taken from the Derby mansion. The wood is pine, as in most of the Salem houses, painted white, and the ornamentation is all hand-carved. The design is thoroughly classical, with its graceful drapery across the top, and the urns, also ornamented with drapery. Through the doorway may be seen the mantel, which was taken from the Derby mansion, with the fine hob-grate, and a little of the old Zuber paper, which extends around the room, with scenes of the Paris of 1810-1820.

The doorway in Illustration 396 is in a very different style from that of McIntire, with its delicate and graceful ornamentation.

This doorway is in the house built in 1720 by Michael Dalton, in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and now occupied by the Dalton Club. It was Michael Dalton who built this house, but its golden years were during the ownership of his son, Tristram Dalton, who married the daughter of “King” Hooper, and who might well be called by the same name as his father-in-law. In evidence of his wealth and lavish manner of life is the story of his splendid coach, lined with white satin, drawn by six white horses, and attended by four outriders, all in white and mounted upon white steeds. In this dazzling equipage the various brides of the family left the house, and the same royal splendor probably attended the arrival at the house of famous guests, of whom there were many. All this display does not agree with the common notion of sober New England, but smacks rather of the aristocratic Virginians who built mansions on the James River. The doorways and mantels in the Dalton house tell of great wealth, for those early years of 1720. They are made of pine, painted white, and all of the woodwork is hand carved. The doorway in Illustration 396 is in the same room with the mantel in Illustration 397 and is designed in the same classical style, with fluted columns and Ionic capitals. The cornice is the same, and the egg and dart moulding upon it extends with the cornice entirely around the room. The immediate frame of the door has the same carved moulding as the lower part of the cornice, and the window frames. The door itself is very fine with eight panels. The knob is new. The original knob was of iron.

Illustration 397 shows the mantel in the room with the doorway, and at one side is a glimpse of the cornice and frame of the window with its deep seat. The fluted square pilasters of the doorway, in the mantel are changed to round detached columns, and there is a plain panel with simple mouldings over the narrow shelf.

Illustration 398 shows another mantel in the Dalton house, of a plainer form, without columns, but with a heavy moulding, a variation of the egg and dart, around the fireplace and the plain centre panel.

The narrow shelf is curiously set between the panel and the moulding. There is a panelled door upon each side of the chimney, opening into a cupboard, and below each cupboard may be seen a tinder box, in early days a useful adjunct to a fireplace.

The stairs in the Dalton house are shown in Illustration 399. The newel is carved with a detached twist around the centre post, and each of the three balusters upon every stair has a different twist, in the fashion of the seaport staircases of the eighteenth century.

Two of the Dalton chairs stand at the foot of the stairs, and above them hangs the portrait of Tristram Dalton, a fine gentleman in a white satin waistcoat. Over the stairs hangs a “hall lanthorne” like the one in Illustration 333.

Illustration 400 shows the side of a room in the Penny-Hallett house at 685 Centre St., Jamaica Plain. It dates to 1774, and is all elaborately carved by hand, with scrolls, birds, garlands of flowers and fruit, and a head over each arch at the side of the mantel. All of this woodwork has been removed, and embodied in a Boston house.

The house known by the names of past occupants as the Parker-Inches-Emery house is now occupied by the Women’s City Club of Boston, which is fortunate in being able to preserve this house from changes for business purposes.

The woodwork is probably the finest in Boston, and is attributed, with the building, to Bulfinch. The doorway in Illustration 401 is from the back parlor of the house. The door is mahogany, and the carved woodwork of the frame is in a severely classical design. The anthemion figures upon the pilasters and in the capital, and the design of the frieze is beautiful in its severity. The house was built in 1818.

In his “Complete Body of Architecture” Isaac Ware says of the chimney-piece: “No common room, plain or elegant, could be constituted without it. No article in a well-finished room is so essential. The eye is immediately cast upon it on entering, and the place of sitting down is naturally near it. By this means it becomes the most eminent thing in the finishing of an apartment.”

The mantelpiece in Illustration 402 is in the banquet hall of the house built in 1768, upon generous plans, by Col. Jeremiah Lee in Marblehead. The depth of the chimney is in the rear, and the mantel is almost flush with the panelled walls. It is painted white like the other woodwork, and is richly ornamented with hand carving, in rococo designs, with garlands of fruit and flowers in high relief, after the fashion of the time, and has a plain panel over the narrow shelf, which rests upon carved brackets.

Illustration 403 shows the beautiful landing at the head of the stairway in the Lee mansion, with the large window and Corinthian pilasters, and the wonderful old paper, all in tones of gray. The turn of the stairs is seen, and the finely twisted balusters.

Illustration 404 shows the rear of the stairway, with the front door, in the house built in 1795 by Harrison Gray Otis, in Boston. It is now the property and headquarters of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, having reached that safe haven after the descent from an elegant and fashionable residence to a lodging house. It has now been restored with great care to much of its original appearance. The illustration shows the fine boxing of the stairs and the ornamentation of the stair-ends. The balusters are twisted and end in a turn without a newel post.

Illustration 405 shows a mantel in the Otis house of painted wood, with the space above the shelf taken by two sets of doors, one sham, of wood, and the other of iron, which opens into a safe. It is difficult to imagine why this transparent device was placed in such a conspicuous place.

Illustration 406 shows a very good stairway in the Robinson house in Saunderstown, R. I. It has two turns, and the panelling on the side wall has a mahogany rail which turns with the one above the twisted balusters.

The return of the stairs is panelled beneath, and at each corner of the turn of the balusters is a large post like the newel, which extends below the stairs and is finished in a twisted flame-like ornament.

The beautiful stairway with panelled ends and boxing in Illustration 407 is in the Allen house in Salem. The balusters are particularly good.

A section of the fine stairway at “Oak Hill,” Peabody, Massachusetts, in Illustration 408, gives the detail of the twisted balusters and newel so often seen in the old seaport towns. Each one of the balusters, of which there are three upon a stair, has a different twist, and the newel is a twist within a twist, the outer spiral being detached from the inner one. The balusters are painted white, and the rail and newel are of mahogany.

Illustration 409 shows the staircase in the Sargent-Murray-Gilman house in Gloucester, and Illustration 410 shows a mantel in the same house, which was built in 1768, by Winthrop Sargent, for his daughter when she married Rev. John Murray, who was the founder of the Universalist church in America. Later, the house was occupied by the father of Rev. Samuel Gilman, the author of “Fair Harvard.”

The mantel is of wood, hand carved, with a broken pediment supported by plain columns with Corinthian capitals, while those below the shelf have Ionic capitals. The stairway is very fine, with panelled boxing and ends, and twisted balusters and newel. There is a good window upon the landing, with fluted pilasters at each side.

A McIntire mantel is shown in Illustration 411, from the Kimball house in Salem. The carving is done by hand and is very elaborate, with urns in the corner insets, and a spray in the ones over the fluted pilaster which completes the return of the mantel. A curious row of little bell-shaped drops is beneath the shelf, the edge of which has a row of small globes set into it, like beads upon a string.

Another McIntire mantel is shown in Illustration 412, the parlor mantel in the Lindall-Barnard-Andrews house in Salem. The carving is done by hand, and the sheaves of wheat, the basket of fruit, and the flower-filled draperies are delicate and charming.

It was put in the house in 1800, but the paper dates to 1747, the time when the house was built, and it was imported for this room from France.

A very charming doorway is shown in Illustration 413, from the Larkin-Richter house in Portsmouth. It has urns and festoons of flowers and wonderfully fine carvings upon the cornice. Illustration 414 shows a doorway leading into the hall in the “Octagon” in Washington, D. C. The house derives its name from its shape, built to conform to a triangular lot. Col. John Tayloe built it in 1800, and for twenty-five years the entertainments given in the Octagon were famous. It is now occupied by the American Institute of Architects. The entrance to the house is in a circular tower of three stories in height, thus utilizing the shape of the triangle. This gives a large, circular vestibule from which a wide, arched doorway leads into the hall with the stairs, which are very simple, with plain small balusters, and a mahogany rail. The doorway is very fine, with fluted columns and carved capitals and on the inside of the arch a row of carving, making a beautiful entrance to the house.

The mantel in Illustration 415 is in the “Octagon” house, and is made of a cement composition, cast in a mould, and painted white. The cement is fine and the effect is much as if it were wood or stone. The designs are graceful and well modelled. This style of mantel with figures at the sides was used more in the South, and one would hardly find in a Northern home a mantel the motif of which was a frankly portrayed praise of wine, with the centre panel quite Bacchanalian in its joviality.

The mantel in Illustration 416 is in the Schuyler mansion in Albany, New York, which has been wisely and thoroughly restored to its original beauty, and stands a monument not only of the Albany life of the eighteenth century, but to the early efficiency of woman, for it was built in 1760 by the wife of Gen. Philip Schuyler, during the absence of her husband in England. This mantel is in the room called the Hamilton room, because it was here that the daughter of the house, Elizabeth Schuyler, was married to Alexander Hamilton. The wood of the mantel is, like that in the other rooms, pine, painted white, and the room is handsomely panelled, with a heavy cornice. The shelf is narrow with a panel above it which is surmounted by a cornice, with a broken pediment. The mantel is very dignified and does credit to the excellent taste of the colonial dame who chose it and superintended its instalment.

Illustration 417 shows a mantel in Philipse Manor in Yonkers, New York. The original house was built in the seventeenth century, but in 1745 it was greatly enlarged by Judge Philipse, the second lord of the Manor, and it was probably at about that time that the fine woodwork in the house was installed. Judge Philipse was the father of Mary Philipse, to whom in 1757 Washington paid court—unsuccessfully. She married Roger Morris in 1758, and in 1779 fled with him to England, attainted as Royalists, together with her brother, the third and last lord of the Manor, which then passed from the Philipse family.

It was purchased in 1868 by the village of Yonkers, and remained in the possession of the city until 1908, when the title to the Manor was taken by the State of New York, and the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society was appointed custodian, thus insuring the preservation of this historic house.

The mantel in Illustration 417 is in the East parlor, where Mary Philipse was married, and is, like all of the woodwork, painted white and very finely hand carved, with flowers in high relief. The iron fire back which was originally in the fireplace is still there, but the tiles are new.

The pilasters have composite capitals, and are used as a part of the decoration of the side of the room with the mantel. The ceiling in this room, a glimpse of which may be seen in the illustration, is elaborately decorated with rococo scrolls, framing medallions, in two of which are portrait heads. The entire house bears evidence of the wealth of the lords of the Manor.

Illustration 418 shows the mantel in the chamber over the East parlor, also beautifully carved with flowers and fruit and scrolls, after the fashion of the period. The three feathers above were an indication of loyalty to the crown, as they were placed there years before the division of parties for the King and the Prince of Wales, when the use of the three feathers meant allegiance to the latter. Over the doors is a carved scroll with the broken pediment, and a small scroll in the centre.

Illustration 419 shows another mantel in Manor Hall of a less ornate type, very dignified and fine with its simple pilasters and the smaller ones at the sides of the panel. The cornice over the doors is one that was used often in fine houses. These doorways and mantels are restored, but the greater part was intact or simply out of repair. Illustration 420 shows the beautiful panelled arch to the doorway, and the stairs in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, with a glimpse of the frame of the window upon the landing.

The balusters are plain and substantial, with a mahogany rail, and the rise of the stairs is very gradual. The thickness of the wall allows wide panels in the inside of the arch, and the doorway and the pillars at the side are of imposing height.

Illustration 421 shows the stairway at “Graeme Park,” the house built in 1722 by Sir William Keith, Governor of Penn’s Colony, at Horsham, Pennsylvania. The place is named from Dr. Graeme, who married the step-daughter of Gov. Keith, and occupied the house after 1727. Gov. Keith lived here in great style, with a large household, as his inventory implies, with “60 bedsteads, 144 chairs, 32 tables and 15 looking-glasses.” The discrepancy between the number of bedsteads and looking-glasses is accounted for by the price of glass, and the probability that many of the sixty occupants of the bedsteads were servants or slaves, whose toilet was not important, and who did not live in the mansion, but in the outbuildings around it. The house was built in accordance with the manner of life of the Governor, and contained large rooms, handsomely panelled and finished in oak, unpainted. The stairs in Illustration 421 are all of oak, stairs, balusters, and rail, and are of an entirely different style from the twisted balusters and newels of the northern seaport towns, but of a solidity and simplicity that is attractive.

Illustration 422 shows the side wall of a chamber at Graeme Park, also of oak. The fireplace is surrounded by tiles, and the chimney-piece is panelled above, but there is no shelf. The doorways at each side of the mantel are charming, with the arch above and the semicircular window. The old hinges and latches are still upon the doors.

The doorway in Illustration 423 is from the Chase house in Annapolis, Maryland, and is in a room with several doors and windows, all with their deeply carved frames, painted white, with solid mahogany doors, and hinges and latches of silver. The heavy wooden inside shutters have large rosettes carved upon them, and the effect of all this carving is extremely rich. The Chase house was built in 1769, by Samuel Chase, afterwards a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

It was sold soon after its completion, but in 1847 came back into the possession of Chase descendants, and finally, in 1888, it was left by will to found the Chase Home for Aged Women, together with furniture and china, much of which still remains there. A looking-glass from this house is shown in Illustration 374. The door latch of solid silver is of the shape of handles shown in Illustration 11, letter F.

Illustration 424 shows the noble entrance from the outer hall to the inner hall with the stairs, at “Cliveden,” in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

The house was built in 1761 by Chief Justice Benjamin Chew, and is now owned by Mrs. Samuel Chew. Cliveden was famous for its entertainments, and during the Revolutionary War was the scene of the Battle of Germantown, when the house was seized by the British.

The marks of bullets may still be seen in the wall at the right of the illustration. One of the daughters of Chief Justice Chew was the lovely Peggy Chew, who was one of the belles of the Mischianza fÊte, where Major AndrÉ was her knight.

Cliveden had many famous guests—Washington, Lafayette, John Adams, and others, who came to Philadelphia while it was the seat of the administration. The door at the right of the stair in Illustration 240 opens into a parlor, the mantel in which is shown in Illustration 425. It is plain, but attractive for its simplicity.

The balustrade in Illustration 426 is in the house of the Misses Garrett in Williamsburg, Virginia, and is in a Chinese fretwork design. There is one with the same fretwork in the Paca house in Annapolis, and probably of the same date, about 1765. The winding staircase in Illustration 427 is in the house now occupied by the Valentine Museum, in Richmond, Virginia. It was built about 1812, and was given to the city for a museum, by the Valentine family. It is a very good example of the stairway known as a “winder.” Illustration 428 shows a beautiful mantel in the residence of Barton Myers, Esq., in Norfolk, Virginia.

The mantel is in the Adam style, with festoons of flowers and scrolls beneath the shelf, in applied ornaments, and long lines of the bell-flower, looped in graceful lines upon the panel. The chandelier is brass, of about 1850-1860.

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