In 1681 Mr. Endicott sold lot No.1 to Benjamin Hooper,
cordwainer, for twenty-five pounds. Benjamin Hooper built on it immediately
a single house, that is, a house with one room" on each floor. This house
had in overhanging second story across the front, casement windows, and a
big chimney. Two great wooden drops hung down from the overhang; in fact,
it was really the older part of the Hathaway House, just as we see it today.
For the Hathaway house was built right in the center of the town and stood
there for two hundred and twenty-nine years before it was moved to the grounds
of the House of Seven Gables.
The interior of the house looks today just as it did when it
was built. In the living room and in the chamber over it the eye of an expert
recognizes with surprise that the posts and beams are carved with
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the elaborate design, if crude workmanship, that was characteristic of the
'West of England carving and not in the style of the East of England, which
prevailed in Salem in 1682.
Another peculiarity, which even an untrained eye is quick to
notice, is that the carved shoulders of the posts are not at a uniform height
from the floor. Indeed, the lack of uniformity is so great that the posts
appear to have been placed in the house at haphazard. This apparent carelessness
is hard to reconcile with the time and effort evidently expended in carving
the solid oak. Finally, the thought occurs to one- "Were these posts originally
intended for this house or have they been cut avet from some earlier and
larger house which they really fitted?
My readers will now see an interesting possibility. Was the
Governor's mansion taken down about the time the Hathaway House was built?
And were its posts and beams incorporated in the new house?
We know certainly that the mansion was standing in 1666 when
Governor Endicott died, and there is no reason to suppose that it was taken
down before his wife's death in 1678- It was gone before Zerubbabel died
in 1684, because in disposing of the remaining lots in his will he makes
no mention of the house.
In this will Zerubbabel Endicott bequeaths lot No. 4 to
his son Zerubbabel, and lots Nos. 2 and 3 for the maintenance of his daughters
Mehitabel and Elizabeth. The overseers of his will were his friends Israel
Porter and William Browne. Their handling of the situation would be unusual
today, to say the least. Israel Porter agreed to bring up Mehitabel and took
lot 2 in payment. William Browne took lot No. 3 and agreed to bring up Elizabeth.
We can be certain that the Governor's mansion
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stood on lot No. 3, because William Browne claimed Governor Endicott's cottage
right. The cottage, or common, rights were rights to share in the common
pasturage. In the early days of Salem's history there were, just outside
of the settled part of the township, acres of pasture land which the towns-
people shared in common. Every summer morning the herdsmen would go through
the town playing on their pipes and calling the cows, the sheep, the goats
and pigs forth from their owners' barns and pens to follow them in flocks
and herds to the great pasture or to some other common pasture land.
This right of pasturage was highly esteemed, and the first settlers tried
to keep it as a privilege for themselves alone, but by 1660 the later comers
had grown numerically so strong that they were able to compel another ruling
which gave one right of pasturage to every one who had built a homestead before
1661. This right was attached to the land on which a homestead was built,
but land which had never been built on carried no right.
This ruling was satisfactory for a time, but by 1701 it had
to be modified again to meet the clamor of citizens who had come to Salem
since 1661.
The second ruling continued the right of pasturage to settlers
who had bust before 1661, whether the house were standing or not. If it was
standing in 1702 they had two rights, and a new house built on or before
1702 conferred one right to the owner of the land it was built on.
Now let us review the situation. We have seen that the Governor's mansion
disappeared from its site probably between 1678 and 1684, and that its valuation
indicated that it was in poor condition. We have also noted that the Hathaway
House was built in
[44]
168 2 and that it contained posts and beams of a style that we should expect
to find in the Governor's mansion, but not in a house built so much later,
and that these posts and beams were a misfit in their present position and
looked as if they had been salvaged from some larger house and cut over for
this one as well as their damaged condition would permit.
That is the case for the Hathaway House. Opposed to this is
the theory that Daniel Epps bought the Governor's mansion and moved it to
the corner of his lot. It is probable that the fine appearance of Mr. Epps'
house, which stood, well preserved, on this corner for many years, gave rise
to this story: that, and the finding of a beam in the cellar inscribed with
what was taken for I E, the Governor's initials outlined with nails. One
can readily see the possibility of this theory, but the outline is so vague,
the spacing so poor, that the whole effect looks as much like a pattern or
an unfinished word as it does like initials. And if they were initials they
may have belonged to the Epps family instead of to the Endicott family.
The theory that the Epps' house was really Governor Endicott's
" fayre dwelling" is not strengthened by what light we can get from other
sources. For instance, in the account of Salem houses that Benja- min Pickman
wrote in 1793, he states that Daniel Epps built his house at the time he bought
the land. Mr. Pickman is not infallible, but if the Epps house was really
the Endicott house it is hard to believe that he would not have heard of
it, especially as in 1792, the very year before he wrote his account, the
house was completely remodeled, and at such a time its history would be naturally
reviewed and aired.
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Continued on Page 3 of Hathaway House.
Back to Arbella Page 1.
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Bigelow.
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Information on Hathaway, etc.:
Loring L. Bigelow
386 G Avenida Castilla
Laguna Woods, CA 92653-3777
Information on Arbella pages provided by:
Gerald G. Johnson, Ph.D.
648 Salem Heights Avenue, So.
Salem, OR 97302-5613
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
