Great House (Cape Ann)

Great House in Cape Ann was a seventeenth century structure built by colonists in present-day Gloucester, Massachusetts.

When Thomas Gardner with his party of "old planters" came to Cape Ann to establish a fishing colony, they arrived with the necessary provisions to become self-sustaining and to ship seafood product back to England.

The area turned out to not allow easy success at the endeavor, but a little-known accomplishment of the small group was to build a house that was the first of its kind in New England.

[4][5] When Reverend Francis Higginson arrived in Salem, he wrote that "we found a faire house newly built for the Governor," which was remarkable for being two stories high.

George Francis Dow did a detailed study of the house and included a replica in the Pioneer Village built up for the 300th anniversary of Salem's founding.