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Hart House, ca. 1890. Ipswich, Massachusetts.
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People and Places
Thomas Hart (1611–1674) arrived in the American colonies from England on the ship Desire in June 1635 as a twenty-four-year-old servant to the tailor John Browne. By 1639 Hart was listed as a landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Ipswich, where he settled. Originally, the Hart house was probably a simple structure with one room, usually called a hall, on the first floor and another, a hall chamber, on the second. The hall functioned as a multipurpose room where the important family activities—including food preparation, eating, and sleeping—took place. The upstairs chamber served as an additional bedroom and storage space.
A tanner by trade, Hart was also a farmer; at his death, he left a moderate estate that included a fair amount of acreage as well as his tan yard, dwelling house, and barn. Although he bequeathed the house to his son Samuell, he stipulated that his wife, Alice, should continue in "the use of my parlor for her self and rome [room] in the cellar & the other romes in my house." He also left her the bed in the parlor, clearly their marriage bed, which was by far the most valuable item in the inventory of his "goods and chattells" taken after his death. During this period, the "bed" included bedding, curtains, and frame; the textiles were the most expensive element of the ensemble.
The reference to Alice's use of the parlor and bed suggests that Thomas Hart's house had at least doubled in size by the time of his death in 1674. As New England settlers became more affluent, they often added a second back-to-back fireplace to the chimney mass and an adjoining pair of rooms—the parlor and parlor chamber—across from the original hall and hall chamber. The parlor then functioned as the best room, where the father and mother slept, and the hall was dedicated to cooking and eating. By the early 1900s the house had been further expanded and made into an inn, but the woodwork remained intact.
