building better chimneys now than our forefathers did; we know how to make fireplaces that will not smoke. But in the matter of design we have much to learn from them. It is all well enough in the mountain bungalow to install a rustic fireplace of cobble stones, but in the more pretentious home we can not be too careful of our fireplace architecture. We have the examples of the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Georgian periods to guide us the beautiful work of Sir Christopher Wren, Robert Adam, and Samuel McIntire. If we are to furnish our rooms in the period styles, we should see to it that the

prime importance in the household. There has always been a religious idea connected with the hearthstone, and it still stands as the family altar. It is the center of family and social life, and it has become a center of decorative interest as well.

The love for the open fire is bred in our blood, and it is an honest and worthy inheritance. If the day should ever come when the hearthstone has been driven out by the gas-log and the steam radiator, I for one shall feel that a spirit has gone out of our American family life that no modern invention can replace.

T

HE popular definition of the expression Colonial Architecture designates it as signifying all of our efforts along building lines extending from the first shabby little cottages of the original colonists up to a hundred or so years ago, to the handsome dwellings of the period of foreign affectation, or, technically, the Greek Classic, which made its advent during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

The student of architecture has divided the three hundred years of our building existence into four main classes or periods, each of these being set off from the others by limits of decided exactness.

We discover that the first period, Colonial, was confined solely to the seventeenth century. Immediately after came the Provincial Period, in the wake of an influx of unprecedented wealth, and terminating

in the Revolution. Then came the Federal Period, with houses more elaborate and exquisite than ever before. The houses of this period are unqualifiedly the best examples of our early domestic architecture. The last division closed in 1800 or thereabouts, giving precedence to Classicism, which raged from

one end of the

country

to the other.

demand for better housing. John Endicott, the first provincial Governor, sent to England for workmen, who initiated the frame house, its size varying in accordance with the means of the owner. All of these were two stories in height, and the better ones possessed one or more peaks. They became very popular throughout the colonies because of their superiority over the first abodes. These houses show a marked similarity to the Dutch type of dwelling, and it is not at all unlikely that they had their instigation in the prolonged stay of the Pilgrims in Holland. Another feature occurs in their having a superabundance of interior space not in accord with the impression one receives from the outside; the number of rooms contained in the average house being almost unbelievable, and of equally incredible size. An addition to the frame house, the lean-to,

It has been found advisable to draw material for pictorial and written illustration from a single town. Salem, in Massachusetts, being one of the first places of settlement sequent to the Pilgrim's landing-place, furnishes material of such delightful historical piquancy and architectural superbness as undoubtedly to qualify it for this important service.

The Colonial Period had at its inception dwellings of which there are now none extant. From the point of view of sentiment this is lamentable, but as an artistic consideration there was nothing in them to deserve preservation, as they were nothing more than rude, clay-chinked cabins with thatched roofs, hastily thrown together from the rough materials then available. The great chimneys leading from enormous fireplaces were their only redeeming feature; one of these sometimes usurping all of one side of the ubiquitous "fire-room."

With the coming of greater prosperity came the

was universal around the middle of the century, and was a result of the old English law pronouncing the eldest son heir to the homestead and giving him the right to live under its roof with his family.

In Salem, the Turner house, more familiarly termed the House of the Seven Gables not only

accurately represents the genuine Colonial house, but

has a history of inimitable interest, not the least of which was Hawthorne's use of it as the prototype for his celebrated romance of the same name.

It stands to-day in splendid if somber dignity, its dun-colored clapboards and general appearance of dinginess mute testimonials to many years of existence. The original plan of this house shows that it was built with eight gables. Since then successive owners have added and taken away various wings and gables, but even so it is quite like Hawthorne's written description.

In 1669 the house was built by one John Turner, a Salem merchant. It descended by the aforementioned law to his son and then to the latter's son, both of the same name. The last Turner sold it in 1782 to Captain Samuel Ingersoll, whose wife was cousin to the elder Hawthorne. The next owner was their daughter Susannah, who inherited the estate and a considerable fortune while still a young

PIERCE-NICHOLS HOUSE

woman. She was fond of society and entertained a great deal, but in the midst of a joyous existence she contracted an unpleasant love entanglement, and, with spirit crushed, retired to the many-gabled home to live the life of a recluse. For the next few years her only companion was a semi-witted servant girl. Then she adopted a young boy of dubious birth, and to the promptings of a heart starved with long years of self-denial lavished every kindness upon him, educating him for the ministry. At her death the foster-son became owner of the house and her entire wealth. He dissipated the last within a short time, and eventually was forced to sell the house, in 1879, at the behest of creditors. From then on it passed through several hands, up to 1908, when it became a settlement house for the younger members of the community.

Another example of the Colonial Period is the John Ward house of 1684, the style of whose quaint, diamond paned windows was a direct importation from England, and whose superfluity o f gables pronounce the builder one of

SALEM CUSTOM HOUSE

windows, to send leaden death down to the assailants below.

ac

The beginning of the eighteenth century gave entrance to the Provincial Period, which, following the general trend of our architectural progression, brought with it houses more luxurious than ever before, as companists to a steadily increasing prosperity. In the first quarter of the century was introduced the beginning phase of the Georgian influence, as an echo of the Renaissance, in which were copied freely the then prevailing modes of the reigns of Queen Anne and the Georges of England. The Ropes Memorial of 1719 is suggestive of the style just mentioned. With the exception of the roof this house is a good specimen of the Queen Anne style.

the wealthier colonists. The addition at the left is a survival of the lean-to, and at one time was maintained by a shopkeeper.

This house is shown as an exemplar of the second story "over-hang." At least two reasons for the existence of this peculiar feature have been advanced by authorities on historical architecture. One claims it meant protection for the inhabitants the while they cast boiling pitch, molten lead and scalding water down upon the shaved head of red-skinned marauders who encircled the house with sinister intent. With provoking calmness the other squelches

About 1740 entered the Mansard style, sired by the famous French architect, Charles Mansard, who lived a century before its adoption in America. It embraced the gambrel roof, recently referred to, projecting attic windows and certain external ornaments. While it was then one hundred years old in Europe it has never lost its appeal, being still popular both there and here.

Following the close of the war for independence came the Federal Period, incorporating the third

satins and cocked

hats. Notably

among them were Lafayette, the Beau young Brummel of the American army, who danced here in the evening of October twentyninth, the year of the house's erection, and, five years later, Washington, who opened a ball with the blushing belle of the town; then

finding a partner

ASSEMBLY HOUSE

effecting some very stately mansions with a wealth of appeal, which are well executed and do nothing but credit to their makers.

The Andrews Mansion is an example of the idealism of the Greek combined with the practicability of the American. It was built in 1818, the most commercially prosperous year since the Revolution, by War Governor John A. Andrews, and was one of three erected on different sides of Salem Common, then a training field for the soldiery. In later years it was the home for a third of a century of William C. Endicott, Justice of the Supreme Court and a member of President Cleveland's Cabinet. The Andrews house is well deof the

serving

decision that it is the handsomest structure in the vicinity. Every

brick entering its construction was

dipped into boil

It was

Analogous to the Assembly House is the PierceNichols house, also in Federal Street. built in the same year, 1782, by Jerathemal Pierce, merchant, from plans by the same designer. The superior ornamentation of the roof, windows and corner pilasters of this house prove the universal agreement that unquestionably it is MacIntyre's masterpiece.

During the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century the foreign motive became firmly established in the history of our architecture,

packed with crude rock salt as a preventive of decay from dampness.

The Salem Custom House is one of the closing works of the architect, MacIntyre, and is exhibitive of that originator's disregard of the conventions of his profession.

From 1846 to 1849 Nathaniel Hawthorne was Surveyor of the Port here, occupying the office on the first floor, of which the window is to the left of the entrance. It is said that the prompting for the "Scarlet Letter" came to him while he was pacing a back room in the building, used for the storage.

IT

T is a fact, capable of demonstration, that at every great international exhibition of recent years-both in Paris and London, as well as at the great Columbian Exposition and the late San Francisco Exhibition in this country-the highest possible honors for the creation of masterpieces in silverware have been carried off by some one, two, or three eminent American organizations. Few people realize this, perhaps, or in general the almost remarkable progress which has been made during the past decade or two in the higher art of silversmithing in America. In spite of the fact that it has long been the fashion, in many circles, to refer to the old master gold and silversmiths of Italy and France almost as though the art of metal-working had not only begun in those countries but had ended there as well, the modern American silver displayed to-day in our shops, exhibition rooms, and private homes, in pure artistic excellence, technical details, and finished workmanship not only rivals but leads the very best of foreign manufacture.

THE COMPLETE WORK

OF

AN ARTIST-ARTISAN GOVERNED BY NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCE

While in the early stages of the development of

this art-for art it is-in this country, we fell into many errors in taste and judgment, through our crass commercialism and a too ready practice of sacrificing beauty to the mere practical purpose of an article and its immediate appeal to a public which had not yet learned to discriminate, there has nevertheless been maintained an idealism which has borne rich and creditable fruit in the higher realms of this art-craft. It is a noteworthy fact that at the exhibitions referred to, we have, in every case, met our competitors on their own ground, carried the war into their own country as it were, and honorably carried away the trophies of the day.

Perhaps the first manifestation of this artistic strength of ours showed itself at the Columbian Exposition. There through a display of American made enamels, both transparent and translucentand in every exquisite detail the peers of those shown by the Russian exhibitors-a well known American house gained the highest honors. And do we not all know the fame of the Russian artisan in connection with this particular craft?

Again, in Milan, an exhibit was made of creations in silver embodying the purest classic design and execution which easily surpassed the finest showing that the Italian workers were able to make.

During the last exhibition in Paris, there was shown by two prominent American manufacturers silverware which-from its beginning to its endwas hand-wrought with such originality and

FROM

AN EXAMPLE OF

HAND-WROUGHT AMERICAN

SILVERSMITHING WHICH WON THE "Grand Prix"

AT THE LAST
PARIS

EXHIBITION