Ames Shovel Works Stable & Offices // 1897

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The former Ames Shovel Works comprises an area of roughly eight acres in the middle of the village of North Easton, Massachusetts, and it was here that the Ames Family and the village became known for incredible wealth and amazing architecture. The firm was started by Oliver Ames (1779-1863), who moved to Easton and began manufacturing shovels. After a fire destroyed many of the original wooden shops in 1852, O. Ames & Co., now run by Oliver Ames’s sons, Oakes and Oliver, Jr., opted to rebuild in fireproof granite for the new buildings. The company saw rapid growth in the second half of the 19th century, and by 1879, the company is said to have produced 60 percent of all the shovels in the world. Ames shovels were bought as America was expanding westward with its products used to move dirt for the transcontinental railroad and the Panama Canal. After a fire destroyed the company’s old barn/stable in 1887, the company held horses and oxen in a nearby structure until 1897, when this handsome stable building was constructed. The new, elaborate barn is designed in the English half-timbered style, with its proximity to the Ames family’s fancy residences Main Street, likely leading to its distinctive architectural appearance. In 1928, the stable was converted to company offices and after the company closed following WWII, it was rented until a massive rehabilitation of the site into housing, was completed in 2014. The stable building was converted into seven condominium units by PCA Architects, who preserved the stately exterior and modified the interiors to meet the new residential use.

I could not locate the architect of the 1897 building, so if anyone knows, please share!

Ames Shovel Works // 1852

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The former Ames Shovel Works comprises an area of roughly eight acres in the middle of the village of North Easton, Massachusetts, and it was here that the Ames Family and the village became known for incredible wealth and amazing architecture. The firm was started by Oliver Ames (1779-1863), who moved to Easton and began manufacturing shovels. After a fire destroyed many of the original wooden shops in 1852, O. Ames & Co., now run by Oliver Ames’s sons, Oakes and Oliver, Jr., opted to rebuild in fireproof granite for the new buildings. The company saw rapid growth in the second half of the 19th century, and by 1879, the company is said to have produced 60 percent of all the shovels in the world. Ames shovels were bought as America was expanding westward with its products used to move dirt for the transcontinental railroad and the Panama Canal. After WWII, North Easton, like many other industrial villages, saw disinvestment and industry change. Production in Easton wound down by the early 1950s, and the sturdy stone buildings sat neglected for decades, with only a few serving commercial tenants. Instead of letting them be demolished, the town and local preservationists rallied behind a plan to save them. In late 2013, the Ames Shovel Works was rehabilitated and converted to a mixed-income apartment community. The project by PCA Architects, restored these significant stone buildings and provide much-needed housing, where residents live inside the walls where the shovels that helped build a nation were made.

Keith-Dean House // 1717

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Built as early as 1717, the Keith-Dean House on Bay Road is thought to be the oldest extant house in the town of Easton, Massachusetts. Its original owner, Josiah Keith (1678-1754) settled in present-day Easton and purchased 108-acres of land, building his house on the site that year. It was used as an inn as early as 1724. In 1735, Josiah property to his nephew, Eleazer Keith (1703-1794), who farmed here until around 1771, when the property was acquired by James Dean (1717-1803). Besides his wife and children, another person occupied this dwelling, a Cate Dean, an enslaved person who was just eleven years old when she was “purchased” by Mr. Dean for 30 pounds. Cate Dean was legally free since 1783, when the State Supreme Court ruled that slavery was illegal in Massachusetts, but Cate remained in bondage at the home until the death of her enslaver in 1803. In Dean’s will she received a bed, bedding and a sheep worth five dollars. She died at 49 in 1809 at the home of Edward Johnson and is buried in the Williams Cemetery on Prospect Street, seemingly in an unmarked grave. The Colonial cape style house is oriented to the south and has its prominent saltbox roof visible from the street. The property was largely renovated in the early 19th century with the addition of ells and twin chimneys, but it retains its unique Georgian character. The property is lovingly preserved and maintained by its current owners and it operates as the Josiah Keith House Museum and Inn. It is one of the oldest inns in the country.

Unity Church Parsonage // 1878

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Built next to its earlier neighbor, the Unity Church in Easton, Massachusetts, the church parsonage stands as an architectural companion building of a similar style and materials to create a special composition. For the parsonage, the Ames Family hired Boston architects, William Robert Ware and Henry Van Brunt, who designed this residence in an early interpretation of the Queen Anne style, with asymmetrical form, steeply pitched roofs, decorative bays and ornate porches with turned posts. Completed in 1878, the Parsonage was the last gift to the town by Oliver Ames Jr., who died in 1877, and funded the church and lived nearby at his mansion, Unity Close. The Unity Church Parsonage remains in a great state of preservation by the congregation.

Unity Church of North Easton // 1875

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The stunning Unity Church of North Easton, Massachusetts, was built on a slight knoll near the Village Cemetery, where many members of the generous Ames Family are buried. The Ames Family were famous for building an industrial empire out of Easton, where the Ames Shovel Works helped produce shovels that allowed the westward expansion of the United States. The family’s deep commitment to Unitarianism is felt from their funding and designing of the Unity Church, its parsonage, and lavish stained glass windows inside. Unity Church was built in 1875 on land set aside by Oliver Ames Jr., who lived next door in a large mansion. He hired his nephew, John Ames Mitchell, who was educated at Harvard College, and studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The Victorian Gothic style church is constructed of stone and presents a cruciform plan with an attached side chapel. Gothic trim is used throughout the building and frame multiple stained glass windows designed by John LaFarge (1835 -1910), which are Angel of Help (1886) and Figure of Wisdom (1901). The interior of the church was remodeled in 1895 by Henry Vaughan, a prominent Gothic Revival architect.

North Easton Fire Station // 1905

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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the village of North Easton, Massachusetts saw immense growth, largely due to the Ames Family, who operated a massive factory and funded many civic buildings for the community. The town previously operated a volunteer fire station, but due to the growth and significance of the buildings in town, a modern fire station and propert fire department was needed. In 1904, Mary S. Ames (later Mrs. Louis Frothingham) donated land for the purposes of building a fire station across from the Ames Shovel Works. The fire station, completed in 1905, remained active until 1968, when the town’s modern firehouse that could accommodate larger fire apparatus, was constructed. In 1991, the former fire station became the home of the Children’s Museum in Easton, which it maintains the building to this day.

North Easton Savings Bank and Post Office // 1904

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Located across the street from the iconic Oakes Ames Memorial Hall and the Ames Free Library, the North Easton Savings Bank and Post Office building perfectly compliments the Richardsonian Romanesque enclave found in the village, but it was not designed by the renowned architect whom the style is named after. The building was constructed in 1904 from plans by the firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, a Boston-based firm that grew out of Henry Hobson Richardson’s practice after his death in 1886. For this building, which served as a bank and local post office, the firm employed many of the hallmarks of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, just in a refined, less elaborate style. The building has walls of rough-faced granite ashlar blocks with brownstone trim and engaged columns. The three-bay front façade contains the centered entrance, recessed within a wide brownstone arch in the signature Richardsonian manner. The bank moved out of the building in the 1960s, and the building has served as professional offices ever-since, and is a contributing resource in the iconic enclave of buildings in North Easton.

Oliver Ames High School // 1895

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Not far from and predating the North Easton Grammar School, the Oliver Ames High School in Easton, Massachusetts, is one of many civic buildings gifted to the community by members of the Ames Family. In 1893, Oliver Ames (1831-1895), a grandson of the Ames Shovel Works founder Oliver Ames, and son of Oakes Ames, offered to fund the construction of a new high school building if the town would pay the cost of digging its foundation and grading the site. They accepted. Oliver Ames hired Boston architect, Carl Fehmer, to design the school in Easton, after he had a positive experience with him as consulting architect to the Commonwealth for the extension to the Massachusetts State House years prior while serving as Governor. The refined Colonial Revival school building features a central pavilion with an entrance set within an ornate stone architrave with a Classical entablature with central pediment. The high school was outgrown and for years, became the town’s middle school until a consolidated school was built elsewhere. In the 1990s, the town sold the Oliver Ames High School to a developer, along with preservation restrictions, with the structure converted to apartments. A great example of adaptive reuse!

Oliver Ames Jr. House // 1864

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Located on Main Street in Easton, Massachusetts, this stately Italianate style mansion stands as a reminder of the wealth and status of the Ames Family in the 19th and 20th centuries. The residence was built in 1864 for Oliver Ames Jr. (1807-1877), who along with his brother, entered into the family business of Oliver Ames & Sons, shovel manufacturers. It was a prosperous time to be in the shovel business, as the nation was experiencing a dramatic expansion of canals, railroads, and other major infrastructure, all of which were built by men swinging shovels. From this, Oliver Ames also served as president of Union Pacific Railroad while the railroad was busy building the First transcontinental railroad in North America, making him an immense fortune. For his residence in his hometown, Oliver Ames hired the Boston architect, George Snell, to design this mansion, which was called Unity Close by its owner. Square in plan, the residence features a symmetrical facade, elaborate window hoods, bracketed cornice, and a hipped roof capped by a belvedere.

North Easton Grammar School // 1916

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Built in 1916, the North Easton Grammar School was a gift to the inhabitants of the town of Easton by three of the children of Frederick Lothrop Ames (1835-1893) and Rebecca Caroline Blair Ames, in memory of their parents. The gift to the town was made to alleviate overcrowding in the village’s existing schools and consolidate them in a handsome, modern school building. For the new school, the Ames heirs hired architects, Charles Munroe Baker and Stanley Brampton Parker, who formed an architectural office in the early 20th century. The two-and-a-half-story red brick school building is rectangular in plan and is capped by a hipped roof. Sited upon a rise on the town’s Main Street, its grandiose scale and design showcases the wealth and influence the Ames Family had on this small town. Eventually, the town schools consolidated into larger, Modern buildings and the former North Easton Grammar School was converted to professional offices.

Wayside Estate – Easton Town Offices // 1912

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One of the many grand estates built in Easton, Massachusetts, by members of the Ames Family, Wayside is the last constructed as the Gilded Age was coming to an end. Mary Shreve Ames (1867-1955) was the daughter of Frederick Lothrop Ames and the granddaughter of Oliver Ames Jr., President of the Union Pacific Railroad and great-grand-daughter of Oliver Ames Sr. who founded the Ames Shovel Works in Easton in 1803. In 1912, Mary hired Boston architect, Guy Lowell, to design her country estate in her ancestral home of Easton. The grand Georgian Revival style estate has two main elevations, a grand entrance accessed by a circular drive, and the street elevation, which is more restrained. Four years after completing Wayside, in 1916, at the age of forty-nine, Marry married Louis Adams Frothingham, a Harvard graduate who had served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as Speaker of the House before he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts in 1908 and re-elected in 1910. After Mary’s death in 1955, the Wayside Estate was placed on the market as the family sought an owner who could properly care for it. At the time, Easton’s Town Offices were overcrowded, and after discussions with the town officials, the Ames heirs donated Wayside and the surrounding property to the town with the restriction was that no building would be constructed from the front line of the house to Elm Street, obscuring its view. Wayside remains a great example of the Ames Family’s generosity and the impact that the wealthy family had on this small town.

Ames Free Library // 1879

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One of the most architecturally significant library buildings in the United States, the Ames Free Library in the small town of Easton, Massachusetts, is a landmark example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style designed by its namesake, Henry Hobson Richardson. The library in the village of North Easton was funded as part of the will of Oliver Ames Jr., who left $50,000 for the construction of a library for his native town. The request was carried out by Ames’ children, Frederick Lothrop Ames and Helen Angier Ames, who hired Henry Hobson Richardson to design the new structure. Richardson had recently completed the Trinity Church in Boston and was designing a library in Woburn at the time the Ames Family first commissioned him to put Easton on the map. Richardson would later design four other buildings in Easton for members of the Ames Family, including the Oakes Ames Memorial Building next door to the library. The Ames family also contracted architect Stanford White for the fireplace in the reading room and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens for the decorative medallions of the library’s benefactor. Construction started on the library in 1878 and it was completed in 1879, but the library did not open until 1883, possibly due to cost overruns. Essentially rectangular in plan, the Ames Library features three main masses: a longitudinal block; a stair tower with a pyramidal roof; and larger gable entry projection. The library is built of ashlar granite blocks and brownstone trim, which frames the openings. Over fifty years after the library was completed, the 1931 children’s wing was added onto the rear. The gift of Fanny Holt Ames, the addition was designed by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, who continued Richardson’s architectural firm upon his death in 1886. The addition of brick showcases how materiality and certain design changes can effectively showcase the evolution of a building without detracting from its original design and integrity.

Edgar and Julia Belcher House & Carriage Barn // 1896

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While the town of Easton, Massachusetts, may be known for its iconic Henry Hobson Richardson designed buildings and Ames Family mansions, there are many other houses and buildings that warrant a closer look! This is the Edgar and Julia Belcher House & Carriage Barn on Purchase Street in Easton. The residence and corresponding carriage barn behind were built around 1896 for Edgar Belcher and his wife, Julia Rankin Belcher, who acquired the land from Julia’s father, who owned the surrounding property as a farm. The couple had one child who did not survive infancy and the property was sold out of the family. The residence and barn retain their architectural integrity, including the shingle siding and porch at the house, and the cupola and original hay door in the barn.

Oakes Ames Memorial Hall // 1881

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Located in the center of North Easton, Massachusetts, the landmark Oakes Ames Memorial Hall is the work of famed architect, Henry Hobson Richardson, and among one of the finest of his buildings. In 1879, the children of Oakes Ames (1804-1873), an extremely wealthy businessman, industrialist and congressman from Easton, commissioned the great American architect to design a Memorial Hall as a tribute to their father. Richardson, the architect of Boston’s beloved Trinity Church in Copley Square, responded with this picturesque masterpiece in his eponymous Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style, with walls of rusticated granite that are articulated with contrasting brownstone at the arches, window and door surrounds, and deep band courses. The Ames Memorial Hall is sited atop a rocky outcropping with the building accessed by a grand brownstone stair and landscaping designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The building is relatively square in form and features a prominent corner tower, an arcaded entry of five massive arches on squat columns, and a steeply peaked roof finished in red terracotta. Often overlooked, the frieze at the top of the tower is lined with ornamental carvings of the signs of the Zodiac in brownstone. The building was provided to the Town of Easton by the Ames Family “for all the ordinary purposes of a town hall”, but it was never used for its intended purpose as the town hall, and has mainly served as a meeting space for groups and events. The Town of Easton does a commendable job preserving these nationally significant Richardson-designed landmarks for all to enjoy.

Windham Train Depot // 1849

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Tucked beside the rail trail on Depot Road, this historic depot is a quiet reminder of the era when the railroad shaped life in towns just like Windham, New Hampshire. The structure was built in 1849 by the Manchester & Lawrence Railroad, which serviced the community through 1980 when the last train rolled through. In the 1870’s the Depot Area was the heartbeat of the town with two railroads intersecting at the station called “Windham Junction”. The Boston & Maine Railroad ran both the Manchester to Lawrence and Worcester, Nashua, Portland lines at the time that the company ran one of the busiest tracks in the country. The Depot became an official Historic Landmark in town in 2003, and today visitors can stroll past the surviving depot buildings, a blue railcar, and placards explaining what the area looked like in its railroad days.