Visit the museums

Cape Ann's scenery isn't its only treasure. A trove of local museums trace the stories, show the pictures and hold the artifacts of the area.

Those with a taste for the eccentric, the medieval or the innovative will enjoy a stop at Hammond Castle on Hesperus Avenue in Magnolia, a replica of a medieval castle, built from portions of homes and churches abroad to house the classic and medieval art collection of inventor John Hays Hammond Jr. The Great Hall contains a 9,000-pipe organ used for concerts throughout the year. Call 283-7673 for information and concert reservations.

More eccentricities are on display at Beauport on 75 Eastern Point Boulevard, 283-0800. The mansion was the 45-room summer home of architect-decorator Henry Davis Sleeper, and holds priceless furnishings and interiors representing different periods of American life. Beauport is open weekdays only.

The nation's largest collection of paintings and drawings by Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865) is on display at the Cape Ann Historical Association at 27 Pleasant St., Gloucester. The museum also displays American decorative arts and furnishings, as well as fisheries and maritime history collections with rare tools, artifacts, schooner models, an outfitted Grand Banks dory and historic photographs. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday. Call 283-0455.

The historic Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House at 49 Middle St., Gloucester, was built in 1786. It is an example of shipping and other merchant residences that lined historic Middle Street in the 18th century. There are exhibits of portraits, antique furniture and furnishings, and Georgian architecture. The house is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and by appointment. Call 281-2432.

(For a look at Cape Ann's multitude of smaller museums, see page 65.)

The Cape's smaller museums provide glimpses into the little things _ into the Magnolia of the "Guilded Age," into the Essex that built the great schooners, and even into the hobby of a man who built an entire house out of newspapers. And admission to many of the smaller museums is free, or nominal.

To get to Elis Stenman's Paper House at 50 Pigeon Hill St., take the left at the Pigeon Cove post office in Rockport. Stenman began building the house in 1922 with the help of his family. For the walls, he used folded and pasted newspapers. For the furniture, he used rolled and lacquered newspapers.

The Magnolia Historical Society museum at 1 Lexington Ave. harks back to the days when the farming and fishing village of Magnolia was "discovered" by the prominent people of the late 1800s, who came to the village's grand hotels and cool breezes.

The Society began with the private collections of curator Fran Hines, James Cook, Lester Stangman, Marion Story Crispin and a few other Magnolia families. Contributions continued to come in _ some from people whose families left Magnolia generations ago.

The Essex Shipbuilding Museum on Main Street in Essex began in 1976, housed in a building which began as a school and then served as the local American Legion Hall. From a meager collection of a few tools, half models and photographs, the museum has grown to include models from the Smithsonian Institution, artifacts, displays and hands-on exhibits.

The newly renovated Sandy Bay Historical Society and Museum at 40 King St. in Rockport is big on granite _ one of Rockport's largest industries at one time. The museum is housed in the home built by Levi Sewall in 1832 with granite from his own quarry in Pigeon Cove. The Marine Room's ship models include copies of the early granite schooners sailed out of Pigeon Cove.

The Annisquam Historical Society's museum off Leonard Street, housed in the old fire house, shows "Old Squam" through photos, prints and documents. There's also one of the original stagecoaches that ran between Annisquam Village and Gloucester in the mid-1800s.

James Babson Cooperage Shop, on Eastern Avenue just over the Gloucester line, houses a collection of tools going back to the 1800s, including kitchen implements and blacksmith tools.

The small, one-story brick building is open daily except Mondays, from July to Labor Day, and admission is free.

Manchester Historical Society at 10 Union St. is located in the former residence of 19th century sea captain Richard Trask. Each summer, the museum puts on a new special exhibit.

Visitors who want to get a taste of Cape Ann life during the 18th Century may tour two historic Gloucester Homes.

The Capt. Elias Davis House, built in 1799, is a three-story, 12-room, Federal-style house situated on Pleasant Street, in the heart of downtown Gloucester.

Seven rooms are currently on display. Six of the rooms are set up as "period rooms," reflecting domestic life during the early 1800s. The seventh room is devoted to the museum's extensive toy and doll collection.

The Sargent House Museum (also known as the Sargent-Murry-Gilman-Hough House) is a late 18th century Georgian house whose terraced lawn leads down to Main Street.

Today, the Sargent House is a public museum, preserved as a residence of the 1760-1830 period in Gloucester. In addition to collecting and displaying period pieces and items of family and community history, the association is working to extend use of the Sargent House and grounds as a focal point for local regional and group activities.

Acquired by the Cape Ann Historial Association in 1925, the Davis House has provided exhibit space for the museum since that time.

The association will once again be hosting the Capt. Elias Davis birthday party on Saturday, June 21, and the proceeds of this year's event will be used to carry out renovations and repairs.

Many of the objects on display were given to the museum by Davis' descendants; many others, however, were gifts from other families on Cape Ann.

Certain architectural features in the Davis House have been added or changed to enhance the display facilities and provide the museum visitor with a unique view of life during the early days of the new republic.

At the age of 17, Davis enlisted in the Continental Army for a term of three months. By 1780, he was in command of the brigantine Fair Play, which was commissioned as an American privateer.

Davis received two more privateer commissions before the end of the Revolutionary War including the brig Tybalt, the last American privateer to be commissioned (1783).

Following the Revolution, Gloucester slowly reestablished its commercial maritime pursuits which had been interrupted by the war. During this time, Davis was employed by merchants and vessel owners, commanding their ships in the Caribbean, South America and European trades.

Davis married Lucy Haskell in 1780, a union which produced 13 children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. Three sons became sea captains, following the tradition of their father.

Davis purchased the land at what is now 27 Pleasant St. in 1796, and hired Col. Jacob Smith (1765-1812) to design and build a three-story structure.

Smith was not an architect, but rather a master builder whose designs were mainly copies from pattern books, such as Asher Benjamin's "The Country Builder's Assistant," which, in turn, drew upon the designs of Christopher Wren. Smith also designed a similar house next to the museum.

Smith's most important Gloucester building is the Independent Christian Church on Middle Street; other examples of his work are the congregational churches in Rockport and Manchester.

The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission $2 adults, $1 students and retirees, children under 12 free. For information on the museum or the Capt. Elias Davis birthday party, call the association at 283-0455.

The Sargent House, according to family history, was built for Judith Sargent by her father, Winthrop Sargent III, on Main Street. In colonial times, it was called Front Street as it bordered Gloucester Harbor.

It was her home as the bride of sea captain John Stevens and during the early years of her second marriage to the Rev. John Murray.

The museum is a three-story, gray clapboard structure, originally built just one room deep. The rooms facing Middle Street, added to the Georgian mansion by B.K. Hough, reflect the Federal style then popular.

The house's exterior features include a double-hipped roof; hipped dormer windows; tall, narrow brick chimneys and a modillioned cornice. The front facade is contained by heavy pilasters, while rear corners have wooden quoins. Granite steps lead down the terraced lawn to Main Street and brick walls extend from the east and west entrances and kitchen door on Middle Street.

The magnificent staircase incorporates an undercut spiral newel and two types of spiral balusters. Original HL-hinges remain on doors throughout the house; windows in the Georgian rooms were built with interior sliding shutters (often called Indian shutters).

The man who built this magnificent house, shipowner and prosperous merchant Winthrop Sargent, was a strong patriot.

He served on the Committee of Safety in 1775 and acted as a government agent in Gloucester throughout the Revolution. In 1778 he was a delegate to the state convention called to ratify the Federal Constitution. Sargent was also part owner of the General Stark, an 18-gun privateer.

His eldest child, Judith, married John Stevens in 1769; Stevens died in the West Indies in 1786, having fled from debts at home. In 1788, Judith wed the Rev. John Murray, founder of Universalism in America and a long-time friend of the Sargents, who were suspended from Gloucester's First Church for their strong support of his doctrine.

The Rev. Murray was the first Universalist minister in the United States and was responsible for leading the fight against laws requiring individuals to support the colonies "official" church through taxes.

Judith's firm views on the importance of education and economic independence for women were 50 years ahead of the women's rights movement of the 19th century. She herself obtained the equivalent of a college education by studying with her brother.

Writing under the names of Constantia and Mrs. Gleaner, Judith became a popular essayist whose topics included patriotism, politics, education and the upbringing of girls. Among the 750 subscribers to her three-volume collection of The Gleaner essay series were George and Martha Washington, President Adams and generals Henry Jackson and Henry Knox.

In 1793, Judith and her husband moved to Boston, where the Rev. Murray served as a pastor until his death in 1815. The house was purchased from the Sargents by merchant Frederick Gilman in 1797; his widow, Abigail, ran a cent shop in the house for a time before moving to Salem. she sold the house to Benjamin Kent Hough, merchant, in 1801.

In 1915, the Rev. Levi Moore Powers, D.D., led the drive to save the house from demolition.

Those who pitched in included the Universalist Church; Harvard Alumni (interested because the Rev. Samuel Gilman wrote the song "Fair Harvard"); Gloucester residents; and the Sargent family _ including the famous 19th century painter, John Singer Sargent and Charles Sprague Sargent of the Arnold Arboretum.

Visitors will see many items of both historical and family interest _ including works of art by prominent painters and sculptors, unique collections of silhouettes and miniatures, fine examples of 18th and 19th century needlework, and outstanding pieces of period furniture, china, silver, ceramics and glass.

Noteworthy examples include a Queen Anne highboy-lowboy set, Chippendale table, set of six transitional chairs, a candlewick bedspread woven from flax carried by a British ship captured in 1812, a chintz quilt, a bone shaving mirror, Canton Carafe, and Royal Worcester tea set.

The fire buckets used by the Hough family, a drawing room chair fromt he palace of Marie Antoinette, and a miniature of George Washington Sargent are among the items with interesting stories behind them.

The Georgian mansion's outstanding architectural features have captured the attention of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which sought early this century to move the magnificent main staircase and fine paneling to its American wing. A later addition to the house incorporates the Federal style into the house's overall character.

Honorary members of the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House Association include all those who believe they are descended from, or related to, Epes Sargent of Gloucester, John Murray of Gloucester, Frederick Gilman of Exeter, N.H., or William Hough of Boston.

The Sargent House Museum is open to the public from 1 to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from June 1 through Sept. 30. Visitors should come to the 49 Middle St. side.

The museum is also open by appointment. To schedule an appointment, call curator Helen Farnum at 281-2432. There is a $1.50 admission charge with special rates for children, senior citizens, military personnel, college students and scheduled group tours.

The house serves as a center for the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House Association and is also available for group or family meetings and events, for weddings and for other special functions. For membership information, write to the association at 49 Middle St., Gloucester, 01930.

Return to: