Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. 17 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1888.
From the record
“The Joshua Ward House is a historic house in Salem, Massachusetts. The three-story Federal style brick house, built in 1784, is one of the first brick houses in Salem.”
Wikipedia article Joshua Ward House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 480 National Register listings published here for Essex County · listed in 1978 · category: Building.
National Register reference number.78000481- 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 56 fires within 5 miles of Joshua Ward House
between 2006 and 2020, burning about 184 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
20
Smoking
9
Equipment and vehicle use
7
Debris and open burning
5
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 9,124 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Joshua Ward House between 1800 and 1975: 3,668 Plantae, 2,868 Animalia, 1,043 Fungi, 899 Chromista, 457 Unrecorded, 146 Bacteria, 43 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 Joshua Ward House: 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 Joshua Ward House stands at 148 Washington Street, directly opposite Front Street, at the entrance to Salem's downtown area. The building is one of Salem's earliest and most distinguished brick mansions. Its original lot, which had a commanding view of the harbor, was slightly over 1/2 acre. The lot has since been reduced to its present size of 7,818 sq. feet. Because of land fill and new street patterns, it now faces Front Street and downtown Salem. At present the location of the house is strategic;it is situated at the gateway of Salem's award-winning urban renewal area, and provides an essential stability to the downtown area.
Joshua Ward, a prominent Salem resident, purchased the property on August 1l, 1781, re- moved an existing house, and built the present mansion between 1784 and 1787. According to James Duncan Phillips, the Salem historian, "The Joshua Ward house stood well back from the street and was terraced up in front. It had a beautiful view looking directly down the harbor." The house is a square, three story, Federal style building with brick masonry laid in Flemish bond. Molded brick is used extensively in the cornice, the water table, and in the two broken string courses which define the second and third floor levels. The unusual broken hip roof originally carried a balustrade at the break in levels. Iwo tall inside end chimneys rise at both the north and south elevations.
The 5 bay wide facade faces east toward Washington St. Fenestration is varied from story to story, typical of Federal design. The first story windows are 8/8; the second story windows are narrower and 6/6; the third story windows are the smallest, and 6/6. All are framed by wide, molded architraves, painted white.
/ARCHITECT 1784-1787 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Joshua Ward House is significant as the only remaining harborfront mansion built during the height of Salem's importance as a seaport. The interior of the mansion was designed by the renowned Salem architect, Samuel McIntire, and includes the earliest surviving example of a McIntire box stairway. The house originally had a prominent view of the Salem Harbor and South River. These waterways have since been filled in, and the area has developed into Salem's central business district; the Ward House now dominates the southern entrance to the downtown area.
Unfortunately, the additions and billboards in the front of the building camouflage it, but possible removal of the st ore front and restoration of the terraced lawn would add value to the houses' definition of the entrance to the area. The site was once owned by George Corwin, the infamous Sheriff of Essex associ- ated with Salem's witchcraft trials in 1692. Joshua Ward, a prosperous merchant, ship- owner, and a re nowned patriot purchased the property, and built the house between 1784- and 1787. It was a dwelling through the mid-19th Century. Dr. Joseph E. Fisk, a dentist, added the storehouse in 1855, which was subsequently connected to the larger building and used as a boarding house and a hotel from 1891-1937. It was known as the Fisk House, Washington House, and New Washington House.
The storefront addition of 1921 completed the conversion to a commercial property. The Ward House is historically significant because George Washington stayed there in room #34 on the second floor (northeast chamber) during his visit to Salem on October 29, 1789. After describing the festivities of that day, Bently wrote: The General then retired to the House of Mr.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 78000481, 19 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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