Brown Square House

The buildings comprising the Garrison Inn in Newburyport, Massachusetts, were originally constructed in 1801-1810 as two mirror-image attached town houses for Moses Brown and his brother. The initial intention was for an entire terrace of these houses facing what became Brown Square, a long rectangular green just off State Street. The scheme was apparently far too grand and urban even for one of the major eastern ports and only these two dwellings, which would have tied down one end of the row, were completed. The appearance, today, is of one large and imposing brick structure. The townhouses, conceived on the grand scale of the early Republic, were four-story brick structures on a granite foundation completely below ground. The brick was laid in flemish bond.

The two "I" structures combine to form a "T" in plan, the top of which represents the principal facade and faces due north. It has eight windows across it on each floor, four for each of the two houses. The fan-lit main entries, with double doors and side lights, replace the two innermost windows on the first floor. All windows are 6/6 with brown sandstone sills and skew-back lintels, with the exception of the fourth floor where the windows are 6/3. A string course of brown sandstone runs the perimeter of the entire building at the second floor. The west elevation of the main block, facing Pitcomb Street, is three bays wide; the two northern windows flank a chimney flush with the wall. A single fan-lit door, now closed, replaces the southern-most window on the first floor.

/ARCHITECT Moses Brown, builder STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Brown Square House is a four story brick Federal building looking out over Brown Square and built in 1809-1810 by Moses Brown. It was designed to be part of a row of elegant town houses, facing a square given to the town by Moses Brown for the "public enjoyment." For various reasons, including the illness of the contractor and Brown's financial setbacks caused by the fire of 1811 and the War of 1812, the block was not finished, and alternating protruding bricks in the northeast wall were left exposed, waiting for a connecting building. Even so, these two interconnected resi- dences constitute the largest remaining brick building in Newburyport.

Moses Brown was a leading Newburyport merchant and philanthropist and the houses remain as a symbol of his industry and maritime success. Although the structure was built to contain private residences, its long use as a boarding house, hotel and inn has enriched its historical value. Moses Brown's reasons for building the town houses are not certain; possibly they were built as an investment. At the time the houses on Brown Square were built, Brown was already living in a fine house on Dalton Street, one he had coveted from his earliest days as a chaisemaker. In 1813 Brown's newly married daughter and her husband, William B. Bannister, were listed in a town directory as residing in one of the houses.

William Bannister, who was a member of the General Court, first as a Representative, then a Senator, necessarily spent a good deal of his time in Boston, and by 1813 part of the Brown Square House had been converted into shops.