The Nathaniel Bowditch House (circa 1805), sometimes called by Bowditch-Osgood House or Nathaniel Bowditch Home, is a historic house located at 9 North Street in the Federal Street District in Salem, Massachusetts. It was once the home of Nathaniel Bowditch, the founder of modern navigation, and is now a National Historic Landmark and listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It currently serves as the home of Historic Salem, Inc.
The Bowditch House is significant both architecturally and historically. It is a three-story, low-hipped, clapboarded house in the Federal style, with a recessed front doorway (added circa 1825) and a recently restored roof balustrade, originally built for the Corwin family, famous for their part in the Salem Witch Trials. It was owned by Bowditch from 1811 to 1823. Subsequent owners included the Massachusetts General Hospital and Joseph B. F. Osgood, a Salem lawyer, judge, and mayor.
The house was originally located at 312 Essex Street, but in 1944 was moved to its current site and restored (along with the adjacent Corwin "Witch House") when street widening threatened the house.
The Nathaniel Bowditch House was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
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“There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,—that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
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—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)