The Samuel Chase House is one of six brick houses built in the towns of Newbury and Haverhill in the early eighteenth century. Mistakenly identified as “garrison houses” in local folklore, these buildings were architecturally ambitious houses in an era when brick construction was rare in New England. The house was constructed for Samuel Chase (1690-1743), a farmer and housewright, presumably at the time of his second marriage in 1713. Local tradition reports that Chase fired bricks for the house in his own yard. The practice of firing bricks as close as possible to the building site would have been common in the pre-industrial era, especially for sites that were not easily reached by water transport. The house has been substantially modified in several subsequent periods of construction and restoration.
Samuel Chase House following the removal of its scored render
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