Proctor House, Jeffrey's Neck Road (moved from South Main Street, abutting Choate Bridge), Ipswich

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS MASS,5-IPSWI,13-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Now part of the Ross Tavern site, the Proctor House represents early New England architectural expression. Historian Abbott Lowell Cummings cites "the cyma molded overhanging girt, the crease molded coverboard, the crease molded dentils, and red paint as signposts of a distinctly elegant, regional school of seventeenth-century architecture." Description: The Proctor House is a frame structure, rising two and one-half stories in height, dating to the Facing south, the Proctor House presents a five bay front. Its side facades are two bays deep, though in plan, it is only a single pile structure. The windows are six-over-nine double hung sash. The gable roof allows for an attic level window in the east and west ends. The structure has one chimney, set east of center in plan.

The exterior fabric is clapboard. History: Amateur architectural historian Daniel S. Wendell believed the Proctor" House'Began as a single cell, frame structure, that was enlarged in At the same time, the Proctor House was enlarged, it was moved to a site abutting Choate Bridge. The oldest portions of the structure are the chimney bay and the cell to the left of it. Wendell restored the Proctor House, based on physical evidence described by Abbott Lowell Cummings. Wendell and Cummings pointed to the mortises on the outer face of the framing as evidence for a two story entrance porch; Wendell restored the porch after Moreover, Wendell and Cummings saw molded verge boards and embellished overhangs on the gables.

In the oldest part of the house, three cyma molded, overhanging girts supported by brackets at the corners were discovered. Paint and nail evidence suggested to Wendell and Cummings that square blocks with incised patera-like designs appeared every two feet or so in dentil course. Wendell and Cummings believed the fenestration initially consisted of lead casement, three part windows on first and second floors. The entrance was a simply framed door. Especially remarkable were the Proctor House framing structures, such as the T-shaped summer beams and the two sets of joists at right angles supporting the overhanging girts. The summer beams had flat chamfers and lamb's tongue stops at outer walls and where they joined one another. Posts with bevel molded heads supported the summer beams.

There was also shadow-molded sheathing on the fireplace wall. The house became known as the Ross Tavern in the nineteenth century; though it is unclear if that name includes the Collins-Lord House that appears as an ell behind the Proctor House on the present site on Jeffrey's Neck Road. Wendell added a kitchen wing to the conglomeration known as the Ross Tavern in at that time, he also added pilasters to the central chimney.