Essex County Chronicles
Jim McAllister
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Sometime in 1668 an up-and-coming young merchant moved into a brand-new, two-and-a-half story mansion on the Salem waterfront. Not yet 25 years old at the time of the move, and recently married to Elizabeth Roberts of Boston, John Turner would live here in high style for the next dozen years with his ever-growing family.
Turner was the son of an indentured servant who had built a relatively successful business as a shoemaker in Boston. But his father died when John was 7; eventually the son opted to pursue a life in the growing Massachusetts maritime trade.
How he arrived in Salem is not known, but by 1668 the community was a bustling fishing and trading port. The backbone of the town's wealth was its codfish-for-sugar trade with the islands in the West Indies.
Fortunately for Turner, his cousin, also John Turner, owned a substantial sugar plantation on the island of Barbados, and during his relatively brief career the Salem John Turner would capitalize on his steady access to this most valuable of imports.
The fact that the codfish he sent to Barbados was used to feed the African slaves who toiled on the sugar plantations, and the sugar he acquired was used to make the rum that might lead to the enslavement of additional Africans, didn't stop Turner or other Salem merchants from pursuing the lucrative trade. Slavery in the 17th-century Puritan world was an accepted part of life.
Not long after taking possession of his new home, Turner commenced to build a wharf and warehouse on his property. By law he had to leave a 12-foot right-of-way between his buildings and the shoreline. The wharf served not only his ever-growing fleet of ketches — he owned some outright, others in conjunction with partners — but also the ferry to Marblehead, which the town authorized him to operate.
Tickets were reportedly sold in a small shop selling penny goods, and customers sometimes also purchased a glass of grog to ease the crossing. (Turner was also licensed to sell alcohol from 1673 until his death in 1680.)
The profit to the town from Turner's ferry service was used to benefit the Salem public schools. So was the income from the lease of Baker's and Misery islands in Salem Sound. The lessee of Baker's Island — for "1,000 years and a day" — was John Turner, who promptly built a second house, a wharf and a warehouse on the practically deforested 55-acre island.
Like most Salem men of his stature, the prosperous Turner was called upon to provide leadership in the community.
According to various sources, Turner served at one time or another as a selectman, constable, juror on the quarterly court, and on an occasional special committee. He was also deemed worthy of membership in the Salem church.
When the ketch "Supply" was outfitted as a privateer by the colonial government in 1677 — after 13 Massachusetts vessels had been taken by Native American foes — Turner was the foremost lender of funds.
But his brilliant career would be cut short by some unknown force in 1680 when Turner was just 36 years of age.
His property and business would be maintained by his widow and, after 1684, her new husband, the merchant Charles Redford. After their deaths the estate passed on to their children.
John Turner II, a powerful political and military leader in Massachusetts, would occupy the home built by his father and carry on the family mercantile business. During his lifetime substantial additions would be made to the Turner mansion.
The house would pass from the Turner family's hands in 1782 thanks to reckless spending and probably poor business practices of John Turner III. The new owner, Samuel Ingersoll, was his opposite — a modest, low-profile, fiscally conservative merchant who made a comfortable living in the maritime trade.
Curiously, Ingersoll was still going to sea when he was 60, an age at which most of his peers had long since retired to the comfortable life of a merchant prince.
The practice would prove his undoing; both he and his son Ebeneazer would die in 1804 aboard their schooner Peacock on the way home from the West Indies.
Samuel's sole surviving child, Susannah, a cousin of Nathaniel Hawthorne, would then occupy the house until her death in 1858. A shrewd property manager and real estate investor, she left a substantial estate to her ersatz "adopted son," Horace, who promptly blew it all.
For the second time in its history, the magnificent mansion built by John Turner had been the victim of the "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations" syndrome.
Finally, in 1908, Caroline Emmerton acquired the house and had it restored as the House of the Seven Gables, thereby preserving the architectural treasure for future generations to experience.
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Jim McAllister of Salem writes a weekly column on the region's history. Contact him at culturecorner@gmail.com.
