Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings

Name: Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings
Author: Mary Harrod Northend

by Mary Harrod Northend

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Language: en1,041 downloads on Project Gutenberg

Subjects

Architecture, Colonial Furniture -- United States

In: History - American·Architecture·Art

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #34897.

About this book

Mary Harrod Northend’s Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings is a richly illustrated survey of New England’s early domestic architecture and the decorative objects that once filled its rooms. The book opens with a personal note about the author’s privilege of touring the homes of Salem’s antiquarians, gathering “the cream of their inheritance” and promising readers a visual record of colonial furnishings that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. From doorways and knockers to gardens, fireplaces, and silver, each chapter is prefaced by detailed captions of specific houses, such as the 1660 Pickering house in Salem and the 1750 Jeremiah Page house in Danvers, grounding the narrative in concrete examples drawn from the author’s fieldwork and photographs.

Written in a genteel early‑20th‑century voice, Northend blends scholarly description with affectionate recollection, employing a measured, descriptive prose that reflects the era’s reverence for historic preservation. Readers who delight in architectural history, antique collecting, or the cultural landscape of colonial America will find the book’s meticulous cataloguing and vivid evocation of period interiors both informative and evocative.

Who appears in Colonial Homes and Their Furnishings

Jeremiah PageMid‑18th‑century New England gentleman, dark hair, powdered wig, tricorne hat, waistcoat, crisp shirt, modest beard
PickeringMid‑17th‑century Puritan male, plain wool coat, simple cap, modest beard, solemn expression

The opening · free to read

The wonderfully good collection of antiques for which Salem is noted was of great interest to me, being owned by personal friends who kindly consented to allow me for the first time to go through their homes and pick out the cream of their inheritance. If the readers are half as interested in these objects as I have become,--growing enthusiastic in the work through the valuable pieces found,--they will enjoy the pictures of colonial furnishings, many of which cannot be duplicated in any other collection of antiques. Family bits, wonderful old Lowestoft, and other treasures are included, all brought over in the holds of cumbersome ships, at the time when the commerce of Salem was at high tide.

To Mr. Charles R. Waters, Mrs. Nathan C. Osgood, Mrs. Henry P. Benson, Mrs. William C. West, Mrs. Nathaniel B. Mansfield, Miss A. Grace Atkinson, Mrs. Walter C. Harris, Dr. Hardy Phippen, Mrs. McDonald White, and Mr. Horatio P. Peirson, as well as many others in my native city, I owe acknowledgment for their kindness in opening their houses and letting me in, as well as to Mrs. George Rogers of Danvers, Mrs. D. P. Page, Dr. Ernest H. Noyes, and Mrs. Charles H. Perry of Newburyport, Mrs. Walter J. Mitchell of Manchester, Mrs. Prescott Bigelow and Mrs. William O. Kimball of Boston, Mrs. A. A. Lord of Newton, Mrs. Charles M. Stark of Dunbarton, N.H., and the late Mr. Daniel Low.

The work was commenced at first through ill health and the desire for occupation, and has met with such good results through an interest in the story of antiques, that I have to-day one of the most valuable collections of photographs to be found in New England.