BlockThe nomination, in full
Bibliography, boundary description, and the people who prepared and reviewed the nomination.
FORM B - BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 8O BOYLSTON STREET BOSTON, MA 02116 Photos 27:27 south and east facades 27:28 Ist Period shadow-molded door reused in cellar 27:30 original east chamber, east wall 27:35 dining room, east wall 27:37 detail, summer beam, south wall of dining IOOm 28:0 detail, summer beam with chimney girt, original west room 28:2 detail, summer beam, original east room 28:5 rear (east) facade Sketch Map:! FIRST PERIOD SURVEY 26b JAN 2 4 1990. FORM NO. 8 Town Wenham 009 Address 38 Larch Row Historic Name Larch Farm Larch Row X BTH Raulroad UTM REFERENCE USGS QUADRANGLE SCALE 19 / 345-840 / 4718-130 Salem 1:25,000 Use: Present Residential Original DESCRIPTION Residential Date ca. 1700 Source Wenham Town Records, III, P.
178 Style First Period Architect None Exterior Wall Fabric Claphoards Outbuildings Barn - rebuilt 1963 1940s house - Cape, 2 cow sheds - 1940s Major Alterations (with dates) Northern ell added, pre-1729 (?); west lean-to reised to full 2 stories, 18th cen.; Southern ell added ca. 1780-1790 Condition_Good Moved No Acreage Date 8.56 acres Setting Amid farm fields with row of larch trees at the front of the house and along the road. Recorded by Anne Grady Organization Boston University Date October 1985 INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Commmity: WENHAM Form No: 8 Larch Form Go1dsmith- Property Name: Pickering-Low Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued belo.
SIGNIFICANCE The Goldsmith Pickering house retains integrity of location, design, materials, and workmanship in its First Period frame which embodies distinctive characteristics of form and construction under Criterion C. Its central chimney plan and end leanto with single-cell, two- story house is typical of a larger number of First Period houses, while its plank frame contains unusual variations, showing an evolution of local practice for the Wenham group of which it is a good example. Its later transformation from First to Second Period plan created a highly unusual house form. EXTERIOR DESCRIPTION The Goldsmith-Pickering House is an eight-bay-long clapboard structure, three bays deep in the northern bays and two bays deep in the four southern bays.
At its core is a First Period house with additions to its back (north) and front (south) now enveloped in a Post-Colonial exterior trim with a late Federal period doorway with elliptical fanlight and side- lights. Late Georgian projecting window heads decorate the evenly spaced windows of the current front (west) facade, except the higher second story windows of the south wing which reflect the higher first floor of the addition and abut the main cornice. The roof ridge parallels the main facade and continues in a leanto covering the greater depth of the north wing with a gable at right angles to the main roof covering the original A large brick chimney pierces the ridge between the second third bays of the south wing, and a pair of [later? see ALC p. 190] brick stacks rise above the east and west slopes in the third bay of the north addition.
On the rear wall, below the gable of the first period house, overhangs at the second story and attic levels. This section of the rear wall preserves a substantial number of the eighteenth century clapboards. MAJOR FIRST PERIOD FEATURES The original core of the house, began as a 40'x 20' two story single cell plan with an original end leanto room west of the chimney bay. After a 1963 fire the plank frame of the original house, jetties along the original south facade and east end, and elements of the internal frame were exposed. The original hall (now with the original chimney bay), presently the dining room, was located west of the south-facing lobby entry and first chimney. The old chimney was removed after the house was remodeled into a Georgian double pile plan by the north addition. The room's longitudinal summer has flat chamfers and lamb's tongue stops.
The chimney girt also has flat chamfers and lamb's tongue stops at its outer ends and on both sides of its juncture with the summer. These latter stops do not terminate but are joined by a unique flat chamfer joining the two stops along the outer edge of the chimney girt beneath the summer. Staple to Inventory form at bottom INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORI CAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Commmity: Form No: WENHAM Lach Ferm Property Name: Goldsmith-Pickerin Low House Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. One exposed wall brace survives in the south wall, another was cut for the installation of a Federal doorway and its mortise survives in the original front girt.
A hinged section of the south wall permits the examination of the plank frame construction with its exterior battens and the five inch overhang of the story above. Sometime in the eighteenth century, probably pre-1729, the leanto was raised to a full two stories with a gable roof above. This west gable was destroyed in 1963 and not restored. The east first floor room, on the opposite side of the first floor chimney and now used as a study, has a longitudinal summer beam. quarter-round chamfers and lamb's tongue stops with joists spaced only 18" on centers. The original chimney girt in this room, the only oak member in an otherwise pine frame, also has a quarter round chamfer. The original east second floor room retains its plank walls, but the ceiling was destroyed. An old transverse summer beam with flat chamfers was reused and only the outermost joists are original.
Sawn ogee braces remain only on the east wall, although mortise evidence indicates their original presence on the south wall. The surviving braces are 10" to 11" wide, wider than the other examples placed symmetrically. One was installed upside down, making the top of one convex and of the other concave. The upper story of the corner posts péffodesTastethe now preserved under glass, contains the initials of Zacheus Goldsmith, the first owner. In the cellar, a shadow-molded board and batten door reused as a door to the chimney say onte navd been an Ihternat doseporfn another e5iantn adt pnerg 19 may once have been an internal door. wrought iron forked strap hinges which may date from the First Period.
LATER SIGNIFICANT FEATURES The north wing (pre-1729) transformed the plan into a Second Period double pile by removing the first chimney for a central hall and reorienting the front entrance from south to north. The resulting house is an unusual transitional example oi the new form. Interior features of these changes include c. 1725 feather-edged vertical sheathing relocated after 1963 from their position in front of the south wall braces of the First Period west room to inside the original entrance of the chimney bay in the present dining room. The east room (study) has an 18th century paneled chimney breast purchased and installed after the fire, as well as other Georgian finish relocated from other parts of the house. The south wing of the house (c. 1780-90) retains much significant Post-Colonial interior trim in an important high style addition. In the large entry.
hall there is a paneled chimney breast and mantle piece with a frieze curving at either end. The south room, called a 'ballroom', is an 2 Staple to Inventory form at botton INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Commmity: WENHAM Form No: 8 Lach Corm Property Name: Goldsmith-Pickering Low House Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. excellent example of Post-Colonia1 detalling: a mantelpiece with pulvinated frieze, elaborate cornice mouldings, and panelled dados on the exterior walls. Important features dating from Timothy Pickering's occupancy after 1806 include the exterior federal doorway to the south wing entry hall and two features attributed to Samuel McIntire. In the original west (dining) room is a Federal mantelpiece with composition 1963 from another house.
Between the dining room anaamne hällway ef the north wing is an arched opening composed of delicate Federal Period moldings and reeding made after 1806. HISTORICAL INFORMATION Zaccheus Goldsmith, a Wenham yeoman who owned this property with Joseph Fowler since 1695, was given a town timber grant "for a dwelling hous of fourtey foott long ang twenty foott wide" here in January 1700. These rather unusual dimensions match the surviving First Period core and provide a well-dated example of the plank-framed Wenham rural farmhouse with single cell and original leanto.
[1] While later alterations include the loss of the chimney stack and much interior finish, the reused First Period door and surviving decorative finish of the building's frame add to our knowledge of a small but important group of plank Cape Ann period houses and a Wenham sub-group with unusual curved or serpentine braces outlined in the plaster wall surface which Cummings has attributed to a the very end of the seventeenth century." [2] The preservation of Goldsmith!'s initials in the early plaster ties this farmer to the contemporary record, while the inverse positioning of one of the aesthetic and carpentry practice in the earliest years of the 18th century.
The house gains added significance from the apparent transformation to a Georgian double-pile plan by 1729, suggested by a deed of partition of that date, [3], showing the transformation of a typical First Period plan into the newer the accompanying exterior organization typical of other properties. The addition of 1780-90 was constructed during the ownership of the Russel family who owned the house from -he ornerelig of thet 1748-1806, probably during the occupation of Samuel Russel Trevett of Marblehead. [4] Such additions suggest he was transforming the farm into a county seat, part of the broad post-Revolutionary pattern in the area. Timothy Pickering, a prominant Federalist who purchased the farm in 1806, [5] was U.S. Senator (1803-11) and a member. of the House of Representa- tives (1813-17) from Massachusetts during his ownership.
His additions of English larches and lindens to the landscaping of the property are unusual surviving examples of the kinds of changes made by men like Pickering, who promoted agiculture and was a member of the Essex Agricultural Society. The alterations of the exterior doorways and interior arch continued the transformation of the simple yeoman farm into a country estate. [6] 3 Staple to Inventory form at bottom INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Conmunity: Form No: WENHAM Luch Farm 8 Property Name: Goldsmith-Pickerin Low House Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. NOTES 1. Cummings, Architecture, p. 190; Wenham town records, I:178. 2. Cummings, Framed Houses, pp. 90, 158, 206. 3. Essex County Deeds. LIV, 102. 4. Research by Rupert B. Lillie, MHC form, Wenham 110. 5.
Cummings, Architecture, p.190. 6. Charles Hammond, (Ph.D. Thesis, BU, 1980). Staple to Inventory form at bottom NPS Form 10-0004 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number Page OMB Aaprovel No. 1021-0018 1/24/90 Multiple Resource Area Thematic Group Name First Period Buildings of Eastern Massachusetts TR State Nomination/Type of Review 51. Johnson, Capt. Timothyatélesbeln the Hat1onal Register Date/Signature HreeperAwemfgin 319/92 Attest 5 5%. Kimbal1, Solomon, House Bubatartive Ber Theoper BithY Savage 3/9/90 Entered in tae Attest Mational Register 53. Lake, Stanley, House teeper AulmuByun 3/9/90 Attest intered in tae 54. Lambert, Thomas, House Natlonal Begister ainterea in uio Matlonad Beeister Ixeeper AelorBge 3/9/20 Attest 55.
Larch Farm HReeperAelmesAyen 3/2/90 Lellltacu dea Mational Regiater Attest 56. Livermore, William, House Ieeper AlelmesByen 3/1/20 Attest 5'57. Low, Thomas, House Dubstantiva RevIi fr Keeper_ Betfy. Sauge 3/9190 Attest/ 58. March, Samuel, House antereu de tue Hationad Begister (Keeper_ deelmssyan 369/20 59. Morse, Timothy, House Attest Entered in the Bettonad Bogtstor préeper AelmurAyun 3/9/50 Attest S 60.
Murray, William, House Babstanttre Revtin farkeeper_ Botot Savage 319/90 Attest UNTTED STATETI DEPTRPAEOTE TNTERIOR NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET REQUESTED ACTION: NOMINATION PROPERTY Larch Farm NAME: MULTIPLE First Period Buildings of Eastern Massachusetts TR NAME: STATE & COUNTY: MASSACHUSETTS, Essex DATE RECEIVED: 1/24/90 DATE OF 16TH DAY: 2/23/90 DATE OF AENHDALTST:310/90 3/10/90 DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: REFERENCE NUMBER: 90000266 NOMINATOR: STATE REASONS FOR REVIEW: OPPERE N POA PROBIEM: N PERCAPE: N PROS THAN SO VEARS N N PDIL: PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: REQUEST: N SAMPLE: N SLR DRAFT: N NATIONAL: N COMMENT WAIVER: N LACCEPT _RETURN REJECT 3/9/2LOATE Entered in the National Register ABSTRACT/SUMMARY COMMENTS: RECOM./CRITERIA REVIEWER DISCIPLINE DATE DOCUMENTATION see attached comments Y/N see attached SLR Y/N CLASSIFICATION count _resource type STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION FUNCTION historic current DESCRIPTION architectural classification materials descriptive text SIGNIFICANCE Period Areas of Significance--Check and justify below Specific dates Builder/Architect statement of Significance (in one paragraph) summary paragraph completeness clarity applicable criteria justification of areas checked relating significance to the resource context relationship of integrity to significance justification of exception other BIBLIOGRAPHY GEOGRAPHICAL DATA acreage UTMS verbal boundary description boundary justification ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION/PRESENTATION sketch maps USGS maps photographs OTHER COMMENTS Questions concerning this nomination may be directed to Phone presentation Signed Date LarchFerm 38 Larch Row Wenham, MA South, zao fucades 1985 Ist Porcdl Buleliusal E.
Ma, TR 38 Larch Row shadow molded doa Wenhan, Larch Farm 38 Larch Row 27 Eastchanber 1985 Ist Poreel Buldliys df FE. Ma, wanhen. lanch Famn 38 Lauch Row deningroom 1985 Ist Porio, 3 2 Wenhan, Larch Farm 38 LenchRow detael:sunnes 1985 Ist Perid Buldyd F. Ma, Tl werhan. TA 27 Larch Farm 38 Larch Rome detal: summerbec 1985 Ist percd Buldngs fE Ma, TR wenhun, T Larch Furm 38 Larch Row detael: sunne 1985 Ist Peria Bulehys of E Ma, T wenhan. T Larch Farn 38 Lanch Row rear fucade 1985 Ist Porcel Bulclis df En Mce, TR Please refer to the map in the Multiple Property Cover Sheet for this property Multiple Property Cover Sheet Reference Number: 64000281