 The house was built by Levi Preston and Stephen Whipple for Samuel Fowler, Jr., a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and early Danvers industrialist.Analysis of the records of the house construction (archived at the Peabody Essex Museum) show that was little changed at the time of its listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.The house was purchased by SPNEA in 1912, and was its second acquisition after the Swett-Ilsley House in Newbury, Massachusetts.