The house on the knoll at 28 Water Street was built between 1696 and 1702 by John Harri, and was passed on to his descendant Thomas Harris II. The house and land came into the possession of John Stanwood in 1809, whose descendants continued to own it into the 20th Century.
Thomas Franklin Waters wrote the following history of the property in Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Vol. I:
- Peter Peniwell, a mariner, owned a small house lot, west of Nathaniel Tuckerman’s, which he had bought from Obadiah Wood, being the western corner of Obadiah Wood’s land.
- He sold this to his “brother” Zaccheus Newmarch, on Aug. 4, 1690 (Ips. Deeds 5:315).
- Newmarch sold to John Harris, about 40 rods, on May 26, 1696 (16:11). (*Salem Deeds show that Zaccheus Newmarch sold to John Harris on April 3, 1703. The address is not shown.)
- John Harris built a house and sold the house and three-quarters of an acre to Thomas Harris Jr., in 1723 (43: 260).
- Moses Harris sold the same to Francis Pulcifer Jr. on March 22, 1773 (134: 78).
- Lucy Pulcifer, the administratrix of Francis, quitclaimed to John Stanwood, the house and land, the homestead of Pulcifer, June 27, 1809 (187: 233).
- The Stanwood heirs owned and occupied at the beginning of the 20th Century.
Many members of the Harris family in Ipswich can trace their roots back to Thomas and Martha (Lake) Harris, who settled in the town in 1644. There were apparently four men named John Harris living in Ipswich at the time that this house was constructed. From “The Harris Family: Thomas Harris in Ipswich, Mass, in 1636, and some of his Descendents”:
- Marshal John Harris and his wife Esther, in 1673
- Sergeant John Harris married Grace Searle in 1686. John Harris, the Deputy Sheriff, had charge of transporting the prisoners to Salem Court or Gallows Hill during the Salem Witch Trials.
- John Harris with his wife Mary in 1690
- John Harris, Quartus, with wife Margaret in 1696
From The Early Inhabitants of Ipswich, Massachusetts :
- “The will of Thomas Harris is dated July 1687; he bequeaths to his wife Martha, whom he appoints executrix, “house, barn, orchard, garden, etc., during her natural life. To his son John, he gives the new house which he built in Ipswich.”
- “Sergeant John Harris died in Ipswich, Nov. 21, 1732, at 64 years of age. He married on January 8, 1685, Grace, daughter of William and Grace Searle of Ipswich. She died June 10, 1742.”
John Stanwood, a Revolutionary War veteran, acquired the property in 1809, and it remained in his family for many years. The house was expanded in the 19th and 20th centuries, including the side addition, with a bay window facing Water Street. Ornamental gardens grace the yard. A Victorian wing was added c. 1884, and the point of extension is clearly seen in the roof
The downstairs summer beams in this house span from the fireplace to the middle of the gable walls. The upstairs summer beams span from front to back. The interior woodwork in this house is finished with original hand-beaded casings. A hole in the flooring in the attic allowed me to reach in and feel the bevel finish on the upstairs summer beams.
Roof Construction
The roofing features a few large-diameter rafters supporting long purlins, which in turn support what appears to be original roof sheathing. The purlins are undersized for carrying a heavy load for such a long span. This helps confirm the period of construction. They appear similar to the long purlins at 8 East Street, the Captain Matthew Perkins house (1701).
Abbot Lowell Cummings addressed this in his book, The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay: “”With respect to the slender quality of many of the late seventeenth-century principal rafter and common purlin roofs at Massachusetts Bay, it is apparent that our carpenters went one step further in the direction of reducing the scantling of the purlin in particular to a point rather delicately commensurate with the load…In enough cases to form a significant sampling, including the Boardman House in Saugus (1687) and the even later Captain Matthew Perkins House in Ipswich (1701-1709), common purlins have snapped during the course of their later history. Beginning with the second quarter of the eighteenth century and continuing well into the nineteenth, there is a marked return to more amply dimensioned roof timbers.”
Sources and further reading:
- MACRIS
- The Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay
- The Early Inhabitants of Ipswich, Massachusetts
- The Harris family: Thomas Harris in Ipswich, Mass, in 1636, and some of his descendants“
- Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Vol. I
- An American Family History: John Harris
- Antiquarian Papers: Marshall John Harris
Historic Ipswich 