Simon Wickes House
Water Street

The date of 1736 on the side of this handsome small Georgian style residence apparently refers to the original sale of the lot "and tenements" by one John Falconer to Richard Bennett.

In 1780, a blacksmith named Simon Wickes bought what was then known as "water lot #10" for 222 bushels of "good merchantable wheat" and built the present house -- modeling it on the recently completed Frisby house across the street. Both have the same floor plan, a center hall flanked by two rooms, the interior walls of which are simple vertical board partitions.

However as this house was built into the riverbank, it is one story higher on the water side. The kitchen, then as now, was in the basement, although what is now an office/family room was probably the original kitchen with the present kitchen occupying what was once a storeroom. The garden overlooking the river is beautifully landscaped and enclosed by a handsome wooden picket fence.