There is no more venerable and ubiquitous name on the North Shore of Boston than Endicott, after John Ende(i)cott, the first (also 10th, 13th, 15th & 17th) governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. There are Endicott streets, parks, schools, and many houses that have some sort of connection to this illustrious family, whose members married into other notable Massachusetts families to produce generations of ship captains, benefactors, and statesmen. A particularly passionate Puritan who famously desecrated the English flag because it bore the cross of St. George and persecuted Quakers and merrymakers with zealous intent, Endicott has been memorialized by Nathaniel Hawthorne as “the severest Puritan who laid the rock foundation of New England”. There are several houses in Salem still standing in which his eighteenth- and nineteenth-century descendants lived, and now one of them is for sale. Formally called the Smith-Crosby-Endicott house as it was built by Benjamin Smith and Captain Nicholas Crosby in 1788-89, 359 Essex Street was the home of Captain Samuel Endicott and his heirs for most of the nineteenth century. It’s a perfect Federal mansion, complete with a large Colonial Revival carriage house out back–way out back. I have long loved this house, and if I hadn’t just had a conversation with my husband about our need for a smaller house I might prod him to make a move. I don’t think we need eight bedrooms! I had always heard that this house had a ballroom but I don’t see one in the listing–well, I suppose we don’t really need one of those either.
359 Essex Street in Salem today and in 1924 , from the Memoir of Samuel Endicott; William Allen Wall (1801-1885), Endicott and the Red Cross, 1851. New Bedford Whaling Museum: Gift of Flora B. Pierce, 1987.
September 3rd, 2015 at 7:49 am
I’m a 9th gr. Granddaughter of Gov.Endicott, I wonder if I could get a discount…
September 3rd, 2015 at 7:51 am
You could try! You come from a great family of genealogists–I’m impressed!
September 3rd, 2015 at 12:23 pm
You don’t need a ballroom? Why not??
September 3rd, 2015 at 3:40 pm
If only we were in the market for a house…or could afford one for $800K…I’ve always wanted to live in a very historic home! We’re in an 1880 now but that doesn’t seem particularly old to me in Salem terms 🙂
September 3rd, 2015 at 8:22 pm
Everything is relative! This is actually a bargain, I think–it’s a lot of house and a lot of property, right in downtown Salem. Plus the carriage house. I really hope that it doesn’t get cut up into condos.
September 4th, 2015 at 9:35 am
Very true – there is a lot going for this property! I agree, hopefully there will be a buyer willing to keep it in its beautiful, historic condition.
September 3rd, 2015 at 9:02 pm
I would love to live in a house like this. You are right, it is a great bargain. I live in Alexandria, Virginia and historic townhouses here go for around a million dollars. The listing you referred us to, does list the ballroom. Now, wouldn’t that be fun to have.
September 5th, 2015 at 8:13 am
I missed that Alison–I wonder why there isn’t a picture? Alexandria is just lovely.