William Donton (aka Donnton, Dounton), a mariner, and his wife Mary, the daughter of Thomas Lovell, bought the lot on the corner of North Main and Summer Streets in 1695. He constructed a picturesque post-medieval-style house, a landmark whose disappearance we still regret today. This was known as the “Dodge House” for over a hundred years.
The asymmetrical front facade and the visible ridge in the roofline indicate that the right side was added later. A slight change in the roof pitch tells us that the saltbox is an addition.
William Donton was born in 1665, in Salem to William Dounton Sr. and his wife Rebecca. He married Mary Pickering before 1692 in Ipswich and built the oldest part of this house soon after. He died about 1701 in Salem at the age of 37. The property was sold to Joseph Holland by Dunton’s heirs, and he sold it to Dr. Francis Holmes on Jan. 31, 1755 (106: 98). Holmes, in turn, sold it to Ezekiel Dodge in 1775.
Manning Dodge sold the property to grocer Theodore F. Cogswell in 1888 (1219: 504). Cogswell demolished the house and constructed the elegant Queen Anne house that still stands on the location today as a wedding present to his daughter Emiline and her husband George Farley, owner of the Farley and Daniels Shoe Company.
The “post-medieval revival” style of architecture with its distinctive overhangs went out of fashion in the first decade of the 18th century. Overhangs were probably removed from several Ipswich First Period houses during the Georgian and Federal eras. At least seven First-Period houses with overhangs and facade gables are still standing in Ipswich:
- Whipple House on the South Green
- Knowlton House on Summer St.
- Matthew Perkins House on East St
- William Howard House on Turkey Shore
- Giddings-Giddings House on Argilla Rd.
- The Thomas Low House on Heartbreak Rd.
- The reconstructed Ross Tavern on Jeffreys Neck Road.
View more Essex County examples of this unique architectural style in the article, Jetties of the New England Post-Medieval Renaissance at the Historic Massachusetts site.
Historic Ipswich 