25 Water Street

History

A stark and austere example of the Greek Revival style, the Newburyport Custom House was constructed in 1834‐35 according to drawings by the prominent national architect Robert Mills.

The two‐story building has a fortress‐like appearance with heavy proportions and minimal ornamental detail. The primary façade faces south along Water Street. It is dominated by a heavy Doric entablature supported on 2‐storey pilasters at the four building corners. It sits on a high base with a gable roof and a pediment that is inspired by Greek temple forms. The walls are rough quarry‐faced Rockport granite, while the details are smooth dressed stone. The spandrel panels on the south façade between the first and second storey windows are solid blocks of dressed granite.

The center of the three‐bay south façade is vertically accentuated by a slight break in the wall and entablature and by a one-storey portico with 11.5’ high Greek Doric granite columns supporting an entablature. The columns are 28” in diameter at the base and taper approximately to 20.5” at the capital, making them proportionally five diameters high. The doors are original, with tall panels and stepped flat moldings, surrounded by decorative wrought-iron buttons. The stone architrave is recessed with a simple chamfered backband molding.

Window openings on the first and second floors feature 2/2 double-hung windows, with remnants of the original wrought-iron shutter hardware visible in the surrounding granite. Windows in the high base contain in-swing hopper windows set behind wrought-iron bars.

The rooftop observatory is supported by four offset, granite chimneys that serve eight fireplaces within. The observatory has “fancy” wrought-iron handrails spanning between the chimneys, according to Mills’s specification.

The east and west façades have a continuous dressed stone entablature with a simplified chamfer bed molding in contrast to the shaped cove bed molding found on the more formal south façade entablature. The walls are quarry-faced granite infill with a dressed stone water table and window sills.

The north elevation facing the Merrimack River is simplified; fewer, darker stones were used, with minimal dressed stonework between the corner pilasters. The continuous entablature is omitted, and a simple flat stone course aligning with the corona is substituted. The pediment has a stone inscribed with “1835” in its center.

The Newburyport Custom House retains many architectural features from its 1835 construction that distinguish it from the other two surviving New England custom houses designed by Robert Mills. They are in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and New London, Connecticut (the Middletown, Connecticut, custom house was demolished in 1918 to make way for a new post office).

The distinguishing exterior architectural features of the Newburyport Custom House include a “fancy” handrail at the observatory, original Greek Revival entrance doors, and 3 double-hung windows that date to the 1872 renovation. The interior consists of fireproof masonry groin vaults, a granite “hanging” stair, and patterned marble floors.

The US Custom House in Newburyport was built in 1834‐35, one of five such port facilities constructed in Massachusetts. It is one of four Custom House buildings designed by Robert Mills (1781‐1855), who served as draftsman at the General Land Office, a bureau of the US Treasury Department. In July 1833, Congress appropriated funds for the design and construction of custom houses in Newburyport and New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in New London and Middletown, Connecticut.

In 1836, Robert Mills was appointed Federal Architect by President Andrew Jackson, serving until 1852. Mills became a nationally prominent architect designing over 160 projects including many vital buildings: the County Records Office in South Carolina (1822‐27), the US Patent Office (1836‐40), the US Treasury Building (1836‐42) (seen on the back of the $10 bill), and the Washington National Monument (1845‐1852).

The Federal collection of duties on merchandise imported through Newburyport began in 1789, following the adoption of the US Constitution. Before the construction of the Custom House, customs were first collected in offices in a building on State Street that was destroyed by fire during the Great Fire of 1811 and later in the Phoenix Building at 18‐26 State Street (MHC2203). In 1833, the US Government purchased land on Water Street, near the foot of State Street. The building was constructed by Palmer and Haselton, contractors selected for their prior experience on a Federal project, the Whaleback Lighthouse in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. They were contracted in August 1833 to build the foundations of the Newburyport Custom House “to the spring of the arches” and subsequently contracted to complete the entire project in August of 1834.

In a letter from Samuel Phillips, Newburyport’s custom collector, to the treasury secretary, Levi Woodbury, in July 1834, Phillips notes: “the external finishes of the sides and rear of the building will be similar to that of the Unitarian Church at Portsmouth, but it will be of longer dimensions than the example referred to.”

As initially constructed, the Newburyport Custom House had its own slip on a natural embayment of the Merrimack River. From ships tied there, goods for customs duty would have been inspected and sometimes impounded in the building’s basement storage rooms until duties were paid. The slip and adjacent wharves were filled between 1869 and 1872 for the city railroad line, which marked the beginning of the decline of waterfront activity in Newburyport.

The building underwent significant renovations in 1872 that included installing a slate roof to replace the original sheet-metal roofing and replacing the iron windows with conventional 2/2 light sash. The second floor of the building was renovated for the offices of the Assessor and the Collector of Internal Revenue.

Receipts gathered at the port reached a peak in 1875 and 1876 when more than $100,000.00 was collected annually, mainly in duties on sugar and molasses imported from the West Indies by the firm of Bayley and Sons in what is now 65 Water Street (MHC399). The firm dissolved in 1877, and after that time, principal revenue was derived from the import of soft coal, with occasional cargoes of molasses or tea.

The collection of duties at the Custom House ended in 1910. However, weather signal flags continued to be flown on the building until about 1920.

The US government ceased using the building as a Custom House in 1911. It sold it to William F. Chase and William F. Lunt of the Chase & Lunt Insurance Company as surplus property in 1913. Later owners included Michael and Daniel Cashman, the Custom Heel Co. of Newburyport, Edward F. Pierce, and Frederick H. Tilton. During this period, the building was used to store hay and as a shoe heel factory. The building and property were purchased by Jacob Checkoway in 1935, and it was operated as a junk storehouse and scrap metal yard. The building was taken under eminent domain proceedings in 1968 by the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and underwent extensive renovation and restoration by the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority between 1973 and 1975, according to plans by the Boston architectural firm of Perry, Dean, and Stuart.

The restoration generally interpreted the building as it appeared in c. 1872 rather than the details of its original 1835 construction. The work included installing a new slate roof with lead-coated copper flashings, gutters and downspouts, 100% repointing of all exterior masonry, and replacing all but three of the 1872 wood windows with new sash and frames. The interior was replastered throughout, along with new plumbing, electrical, and heating systems. It was then leased to the Newburyport Maritime Society for use as a museum. The Society was established in 1968 to protect, preserve, and communicate the maritime heritage of the Merrimack Valley and its role in American history. The Custom House Maritime Museum opened to the public in the newly restored building on June 28, 1975.

Subsequently, the north and east building façades were repointed, the gutters and first three courses of slate roofing were restored, along with new downspouts, and eleven double-hung windows were replaced between 2005 and 2006. In 2011, the observatory was repointed, and the chimneys were capped with venting stainless steel covers. Between 2012 and 2013, the south and west façades were repointed, the observatory roof was replaced with a new 20‐ounce flat-seam copper roof and an aluminum access hatch, the southeast chimney was lined, and the wrought iron guardrails were restored.

The building continues to be owned by the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority and operated as a maritime museum under a 99‐year lease by the Newburyport Maritime Society, Inc. to the present day.