Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. 17 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1888.
From the record
“The Gedney and Cox Houses are historic houses at 21 High Street in Salem, Massachusetts. The earliest part of the Gedney House was built c. 1665, and the houses were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.”
Wikipedia article Gedney and Cox Houses, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 480 National Register listings published here for Essex County · listed in 1974 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.74000389- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Captain Endicott was ashore at the time, receiving pepper to be sent on board. Observing something unusual in the conduct of those aboard the ship, Captain Endicott determined to return to her at once, but hardly had he started with his men when crowds of Malays began to assemble on the banks of the river, brandishing their weapons and otherwise menacing him. At the same time three Malav boats, with forty or fifty men each, came out of the river and pulled toward the ship. Convinced that the only way to recover the ship was by obtaining assistance from some other vessel, Captain Endicott directed his boat's course to Muckie, a port about twenty-five miles distant, where he knew two or three American vessels were lying. Arriving there, he found three vessels, among them the brig " Governor Endicott," of Salem, H. H. Jenks, master, and the ship " James Monroe," J. Porter, master, of New York. These vessels proceeded at once to Quallah-Battoo. The " Friendship " was meanwhile in the possession of the Malays, who plundered her of the specie and every other movable article. Four of her crew jumped overboard at the time of the attack, and swam a distance of two miles before they could find a safe place to land. After wandering about in the bushes, almost without food, for three days, they found a canoe, and made their way to the residence of a friendly native, named Po Adam, who furnished them with clothing and carried them aboard one of the American vessels. Upon the arrival at Quallah-Battoo of the three vessels, before mentioned, an attack was made upon the town, and the " Friendship " was boarded and recaptured. Her voyage having been broken up, the "Friendship" returned to Salem, where she arrived July 16, 1831. About a year thereafter the United States frigate " Potomac," before referred to, bombarded Quallah-Battoo as a punishment for the conduct of the natives towards an American vessel.
Another Salem vessel, the " Eclipse," had a somewhat similar experience on the coast of Sumatra in 1838. While the mate and four hands were ashore, a party of Malays boarded the vessel and killed the captain, Charles P. Wilkins. The crew, finding themselves overpowered, escaped, some by ascending the shrouds, and some by jumping overboard and swimming ashore. The Malays then plundered the ship of specie, opium and everything else of value, and departed with their ill-gotten gains. The men aloft descended, lowered their boat, and rowed to a French bark lying at an adjoining port. The next morning the crew returned to the vessel, and during the night they set sail and left the island. The "Eclipse" had a sad ending. She sailed from Sumatra July 10, 1849, under command of Captain Daniel Cross, and was never after heard from. She had on board a cargo of pepper, consigned to Tucker Daland and Henry L. Williams.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 59 fires within 5 miles of Gedney and Cox Houses
between 2006 and 2020, burning about 186 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Recreation and ceremony
22
Smoking
9
Equipment and vehicle use
7
Debris and open burning
6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
4
Arson/incendiarism
3
Misuse of fire by a minor
3
Power generation/transmission/distribution
2
Fireworks
1
Natural
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 9,236 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Gedney and Cox Houses between 1800 and 1975: 3,775 Plantae, 2,861 Animalia, 1,042 Fungi, 902 Chromista, 456 Unrecorded, 152 Bacteria, 48 Protozoa.
12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A B. Proper, A H HIGGINSON, A. A. Eaton and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
9 workings within 5 miles of Gedney and Cox Houses: 5 plants, 1 unknown, 1 producer, 1 occurrence.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Zirconium, Iron, Thorium. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Salem, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 1993 and 2023: 4 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 flood, 1 flash flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Numerous streets were closed due to flooding. In addition, numerous vehicles were reported stuck in water on roads throughout Peabody; occupants had to be rescued and vehicles towed. Parts of Route 128 were impassable due to flooding. The Peabody police station was flooded, damaging training rooms, telephones, three police cruisers, and two motorcycles. Several houses were flooded near the intersection of Washington and Granite Streets. The Lahey Clinic was flooded with 4 to 6 feet of water in the basement and several inches of water in the 1st floor hallways. The fire chief estimated that at least 100 houses and 40 businesses were damaged. In addition, at least 100 basements throughout town were flooded. Flooding was extensive enough that schools were closed.
In Salem, Swampscott Road was closed due to flooding and three cars were stuck in floodwaters on Highland Avenue. Cars were stuck in floodwaters on Stettson Road in Swampscott. In Marblehead, West Shore Drive was impassable and closed from Cornell Road to Lafayette Street. In addition, a building was flooded on Salem Street and a house was flooded on Smith Street.
Two trees down in Salem Willows Park. Numerous dime-size hail stones fell at approximately 1845 EST in West Peabody with one or two stones just under the size of a quarter as measured by the son of a NWS meteorologist. Rainfall in Peabody was 1.68 inches.
1 paper published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Gedney and Cox Houses sit on a quarter-acre lot in a high-density residen- tial area of Salem, just to the south of the city's main historic district. The north elevation of the Gedney House faces High Street, separated from it by a wooden picket fence. The Cox House is set farther back from the street; its facade faces north. The lot is bounded on the east by the wall of a neighboring house, on the southeast and south by a wire fence, and on the west by a hedge and stone retain ing wall. The bounds of the house lot are the same as those of the house lot as originally purchased in 1664 by Eleazer Ged- ney. The older of the two houses is the Gedney House, the original portion of which was built by the Salem shipwright, Eleazer Gedney, c.1665, a date confirmed by tree-ring analysis.
The frame of this house has been stripped of most of its original and later trim, and in this form it has been preserved by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) for study purposes. The evidence thus exposed clearly indicates that the house, as originally constructed, consisted of two rooms on the graund floor with a central chimney._ To the left of the chimney, the house was 2% stories high and covered with a north-south ridge roof from which a gable dormer projected on the east facade Z un To the right of the chimney, however, a lean-to roof, at right angles to the gable roof, covered a 1-story high room. Furthermore, there is evidence that the house contained some kind of rear lean-to construction.
The earliest part of the Gedney House was constructed c.1665 and changes were made to it c.1700 and again,c.1800. It was, however, the final alteration to the house, madefin the early 1960's, which determined the major importance pue fran and the buszder tate tiutmobt or che today. At that time, the property was purchased for investment purposes and the builder tore out most of the original and later trim. Only che frame of the house remains and, according to Abbott Cummings, this fact has made the Gedney House the most important study house of 17th c. Massachusetts, civalled only by SPNEA's Boardman House in Saugus. This makes the house very important in the area of architectural study.
The property is also significant in local history as the homestead of Eleazer Gedney, a prominent figure in 17th c. Salem. While the Cox House was con- structed later, c. 1775, after ownership of the property had left the Gedney family, it is anintggral part of the small house lot whose bounds are the same as those of the original lot which Gedney purchased in 1664. ortaimas be mio Eleazer Gedney (1642-1683) was the 6th child of John Gedney, who immigrated to Salem from Norwich County,England in 1637. The younger Gedney became a shipwright and in 1664, he purchased his house lot near the South River in Salem. There he constructed Gedney's Wharf and built the original part of the Gedney House structure. Gedney served as Salem juryman in 1670 and as grand juryman in 1675 and 1676.
He was Clerk of the Market in 1667/68 and a Fence Surveyor for the North Field in 1678/79.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 74000389, 16 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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