38 Washington Street

History

The Jacob I. Danforth Building is a two-story, wood-frame Italianate-style structure located at the northwest corner of Washington and Winter Streets. The primary gable end faces Washington Street, while the longer, five-bay façade extends southward along Winter Street. The building retains the characteristic massing and decorative features associated with the Italianate style in Newburyport during the late 19th century.

The building at 38 Washington Street was constructed circa 1878 by Jacob Israel Danforth (1821–1886), a restaurant keeper whose name appears on contemporary maps and in the 1878 deed conveying adjacent land to the City of Newburyport. In that deed, Danforth explicitly reserved the right to maintain the existing projections of his buildings and to erect new projecting bay windows on both the Washington and Winter Street elevations, features that survive as key identifiers of the structure today. The Sanborn and city maps of the late 19th and early 20th centuries document the building’s long-standing commercial use at street level.

Danforth and his family resided at 22½ Winter Street according to the 1880 U.S. Census. His household included his wife, Harriet, their daughter Flora, and his son Clarence Danforth (1857–1914), who later appears in the building’s chain of title. The 1884 atlas labels the parcel under “J.I. Danforth,” covering this building and adjoining structures to the west on Washington Street and to the north on Winter Street.

Historic maps indicate that the building served a succession of small commercial enterprises:

1884–1900: Labeled “Variety” or “Variety S.”

1914: Marked as “Bakery, No Oven.”

The building has remained a mixed-use commercial and residential structure for nearly 150 years, reflecting the enduring character of the Washington–Winter Street corridor as a hub of small-scale neighborhood commerce.