The “Art of the Americas” wing at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts features building artifacts from Ipswich and the surrounding North Shore area. The second-floor framing of the Manning house built in Ipswich about 1692 at the intersection of Manning and High Streets is in the America’s wing. It was once used as the town’s alms house. When it was razed in 1925, the timber frame was preserved and put on display at the Museum.

The Manning House is circled in this view from the 1893 Birdseye map of Ipswich.

The photo below shows how it was displayed in the 20th Century.

Display of the Manning House framework after it was installed in 1925.

The framework is now displayed on the first floor of the “Art of the America’s” Wing of the museum. Shown below is the summer beam from the Manning house, with its floor beams attached.

The Manning House was probably built by William Stewart in 1693. In 1818, the house was purchased by Jacob Manning. Photograph of a photo of the Manning House at the Museum of Fine Arts, taken by William Sumner in 1923.

Manning house frame in its new display in the Art of the Americas Wing

“Summer beams” such as this were a standard feature in the First Period architecture of colonial Massachusetts and are still found in many of the houses in the historic district of Ipswich.

Also on this floor is a recreation of a section of the interior of a West Boxford home from the early 1700’s, including original beams, bricks, woodwork and flooring. On the next level is the re-creation of rooms from the 19th century Oak Hill mansion in what was South Danvers from land now occupied by the North Shore Mall in Peabody.

These houses were across the intersection of High and Manning Streets from the Manning House. The house on the left was the Caleb Lord House. Notice the very steep slope of the roof which hangs over the second story windows, and the massive center chimney. These are traditional charactieristics of Ipswich’s First Period houses built between 1640 and 1725. Behind the Caleb Lord house is an early double house. Both were demolished in the 20th Century along with the Manning House.

Read:

• Three old houses that stood on High Street at Manning and Mineral, by Paul McGinley
• Manning House display at the Museum of Fine Arts