Built in 1848 for Rev. James Conway of Salem, this stunning Greek Revival home on Winter Street blends architectural integrity with a bold pop of color! James Conway was born in Ballinamore, Ireland and moved to the United States and was ordained as a Catholic priest. He was a missionary with the Penobscot Tribe in Maine, before preaching in Lowell and later in Salem, Massachusetts. When he moved to Salem, he had this house on Winter Street built with flush board siding, paneled side-hall entry, and moulded window surrounds with corner blocks. Conway would later sell the property to Edward Trumbull, a Salem merchant and later to Ebenezer Putnam. It was likely Putnam who added the oversized second-story bay window on the facade of the house.
This lovely brick house on Winter Street in Salem was constructed for Capt. John Bertram in 1842-3. John Bertram (1795-1882) as a boy had his first job as a cabin boy and would work his way up to become a commander, ship owner and investor. He was extensively involved in shipping around the world including to Zanzibar, South America, and California and later he invested in railroads and real estate. He retired from actively commanding boats at age thirty-six with a vast fortune which he would become a philanthropist, giving much of it to charitable causes and his home city of Salem. Captain Bertram continued to own this property until 1855, when he moved to his new house on Essex Street, which he later gifted to the City of Salem as its public library. By the time of his death in 1882, he donated funds to the Salem Hospital, Old Men’s Home, Home for Aged Women, and various colleges and scholarships. Bertram sold this Winter Street house to John Jewett in 1855 for $10,000. Jewett began his career as a cabinet maker in Beverly in 1817 and subsequently became a dealer in mahogany, fancy woods, furniture and grain. Jewett died in 1874 and the property was sold by his heirs to Henry Appleton Hale in 1890. Engaged in the hardware business, Hale also served as president of the Salem Gas Light Company and as a vice president of the Salem Five Cents Savings Bank. Mr. Hale also served the country during the Civil War, and was shot in the face at Antietam on September 17, 1862. The bullet knocked out his front teeth and sliced off a piece of his tongue. Despite the severity of his wound, he recovered and returned to the regiment months later, and mustered out in 1865 following another injury. Henry A. Hale died in 1927. The property is significant not only for its owners, but also for its architectural quality and integrity. The transitional Federal-Greek Revival house features a recessed entry with original leaded sidelight and transom windows, brownstone trimmings, and alterations (likely by Hale) from the second half of the 19th century, including the projecting bay and arched window in the gable.
In 1847, George Clark (1815-1890), a Salem carpenter, purchased a house lot on Oliver Street, a block away from the Salem Common. That year he began constructing this cottage for his family. The Clark Family resided here for just a year until 1849, when George got caught up in the California Gold Rush, selling the property and moving west to make his fortune. Since Mr. Clark was back in Salem by 1850 (according to the federal census), he was likely one of the thousands of forty-niners who did not strike it rich. The Greek Revival style house is unique for its more Gothic style gable, brackets, and segmental arched windows.
Nathaniel B. Perkins (1813-1885) was born in Salem the son of Captain Joseph Perkins (born 1785) and Elizabeth Hunt. Perkins was a wealthy ship owner in Salem and served on the Salem School Committee and was Treasurer of the Essex Marine Railway. He married Susan Breed in 1836 and built this house on Oliver Street in Salem soon-after. The high-style Greek Revival house is notable for its prominent recessed center entry with engaged, fluted Ionic columns and a modillioned entablature. Perkins likely had one of his ship carpenters work on the carvings as they are so unique.
Aligned in a row on the north side of Federal Street in Salem, the Essex County Court complex is a tour de force of the evolving architectural tastes of three centuries. At the eastern edge of the complex, the Old Granite Courthouse stands as the oldest of the group. The two-story temple-form building is of rectangular plan with gabled roof oriented towards the street. The facade features a recessed porch with paired columns surmounted by Greek Corinthian capitals which are set between broad, squared Doric corner pilasters. The granite building was designed by architect, Richard Bond (1797-1861) of Boston, and the structure is often referred to as one of the finest Greek Revival-style Civic buildings in New England. The courthouse remained in use until the J Michael Ruane Judicial Center at the end of the block was completed in 2012. The Old Granite Courthouse and adjacent Old Superior Courthouse were both vacated and have been essentially mothballed ever-since under the ownership of the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance as surplus. The fate of the two buildings remains undetermined.
One of the finest houses in New Haven is this stately residence, the Aaron Skinner Mansion on Hillhouse Avenue. The mansion was built in 1832 for Aaron Nichols Skinner (1800-1858) from plans by architect Alexander Jackson Davis. Skinner was a Mayor of New Haven (1850-1854), and for a short time, ran a boy’s boarding school out of this house. Skinner was also a CT State Representative, serving two terms. The house was originally built as a three-bay, two-story house with one-story side wings and a rear ell. After his death, the house was purchased by Judge William W. Boardman, who in 1859, modernized the property hiring architect, Henry Austin, who filled in the side wings and added Italianate window mouldings. The monumental portico supported by fluted, Ionic columns, creates such a stately presence for the early house on the street. In the early 20th century, the mansion was owned by Rutherford Trowbridge, who renovated the house for his own use. The house remained in the Trowbridge family until the death of his last daughter, Miss C. Rachel Trowbridge, when the estate became the property of Yale University.
One of the earliest houses built on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven, Connecticut, is this stately Greek Revival mansion with monumental portico. The house was built in 1836 for Mary Pritchard from plans by great American architect, Alexander Jackson Davis. The mansion is two stories and is constructed of brick and stucco with a distinct two-story portico supported by fluted Corinthian columns. The architect also may have designed a barn at the rear of the house for Ms. Pritchard. Like many other former residences on Hillhouse Avenue, the house was acquired by Yale University, and is now the house of the Provost.
The Liberty Tree Block is located at one of Boston’s oldest and most important intersections, Boylston and Essex streets. It is said that near this site, the Liberty Tree stood, and where in 1765, Patriots in Boston staged the first act of defiance against the British government under its branches, The Stamp Act protests. The tree became a rallying point for the growing resistance to the rule of Britain over the American colonies. The Liberty Tree was cut down by British Loyalists in 1775, but the tree’s symbolism lives on in the building constructed on the site 75 years later. Nineteenth-century real estate developer David Sears had this commercial block built in 1850, which housed stores at the street with ballrooms on the upper floors. The Liberty Tree Block is best-known and named so due to the wooden relief plaque of the Liberty Tree on the Washington Street elevation. The motif stands 8′ high and 5′ wide and was carved by ship carvers. The bas relief is inscribed with “Liberty–1765” across the top, “Law and Order” at its roots, and at the bottom, “Sons of Liberty, 1765. Independence of their Country, 1776.” The building (and its carving) are protected Landmarks in Boston.
This is your reminder to get lost and explore your city or town. Tucked off Boylston Street sits Boylston Place, a short, dead-end way that is passed by thousands every day, many not knowing about the little enclave of surviving 19th century buildings there. At the end of the street, the Hilt-Rayner Double House remains in great condition and a reminder as to the residential character of the area in the first half of the 19th century. The houses were built by Henry Hilt, a housewright who owned one unit after completion. The other unit was owned by Thomas L. Rayner, who appears to have rented the unit out. The late example of the Greek Revival style in the rowhouse form is well preserved through nearly 200 years of use. Beginning in the 1920s, the two homes were acquired by the Tavern Club, a private social club established in 1884 in the house next door. It remains owned by the Tavern Club today.
In 1843, Elias Gates (1801-1886) a young farmer, purchased land from the family of his wife, Mary A. Stedman, and had this handsome brick, Greek Revival style house built. The family would reside here less than ten years, and relocate to Albany, where Elias worked as a bookseller. The house was purchased numerous times throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and operated as a farmhouse until much of the land was sold and subdivided for new housing. The Gates House is a great example of the Greek Revival style with a side hall plan, recessed entry with original sidelights and transom, and bold facade with brick pilasters dividing the bays with brick entablature and gable end facing the street.
The First Congregational Church Society of Chicopee was organized as the Second Church of Springfield in 1751, when residents of land today known as Chicopee and Holyoke (then a part of Springfield) sought a parish church closer to their homes. Before Chicopee officially split from Springfield in 1844, the Second Church of Springfield built this Federal-Greek Revival style church building in 1825. Shepherd and Whitmarsh, prominent builders of Springfield were hired to erect the church. Both were trained under architect, Isaac Damon, thus the close resemblance to his designs for this church in Chicopee. The clapboard structure is simply designed but holds strong proportions and symmetry. The church has a four-columned portico with Ionic columns and a two-story square tower containing the belfry, blind octagonal stage with molded trim above, all capped by a dome surmounted by a weathervane. While the church now has replacement windows and plastic, ill-fitting shutters, the building is in great shape and tells the story of the early days of the development of Chicopee from sleepy parish town to industrial city.
The Dwight Manufacturing Company is named for Edmund Dwight (1780-1849) of Boston, an industrialist who envisioned an industrial town on the Chicopee River. Dwight, having a country home in Chicopee, had begun a venture with his brother, Jonathan, at Chicopee Falls creating the Chicopee Manufacturing Company, to produce cotton cloth. Due to the company’s immediate success, the Dwights along with other investors formed the Springfield Canal Company in 1831, with the goal to create the “new Lowell”, an industrial community in what is now Chicopee Center. In 1856, the Dwight Mills purchased some earlier mill complexes, creating the Dwight Manufacturing Company and consolidating all their cotton cloth manufacturing into one organization. In addition to the mills, the Company also built employee housing along Depot and Dwight Streets, a stone’s throw from the mills. The creation of employee housing allowed the Company to attract new employees in particular women and children, nearly all immigrants, who could be housed together. My favorite part of the complex is the entrance gate, built in 1894, connecting the Office and Cloth Building. It is amazing to think of all of the people who passed through this portal, working long hours for a better life. Overtime as production methods changed and technology evolved, nearly all the original mills would be replaced or retrofitted. Despite the changes, the Company could not remain profitable and shut down production in 1927 and ultimately selling the land and equipment in 1930. Some smaller manufacturing has since occupied some of these buildings, but they remain largely (if not entirely) vacant, awaiting a new life.
The Edward Bellamy House is the only National Historic Landmark in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Its landmark designation was in honor of journalist and Utopian writer Edward Bellamy (1850–1898), whose home it was for most of his life. The house is located on Church Street in Chicopee Falls, an industrial village in town, which developed around mills and the Chicopee River. Built in for Harmon Rowley, a town selectman and local merchant around 1840, the house would later be purchased in 1852 by Rufus King Bellamy, a Baptist minister, moved the family into this house after its construction. The house, where Edward Bellamy spent much of his childhood is a well-preserved example of a late-Greek Revival residence, and today serves as a museum with rented offices that explores Bellamy’s ideas on social reform, economic justice, and the future of society. From this house, Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backward, a utopian novel that was instantly popular. Within a year it had sold 200,000 copies, and by the end of the 19th century had sold more copies than any other book published in America up to that time except for Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. His visionary work, which proposed a world free of poverty and class divisions, sparked a nationwide movement and influenced early American socialism. Edward Bellamy died of tuberculosis at his home, ten years after the publication of his most famous book. He was 48 years old. Today, the house stands as a reminder of Bellamy’s lasting legacy and his role in shaping conversations about social progress in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Cornwall Congregational Church in Cornwall, Connecticut, was erected at 8 Bolton Hill Road in 1842, replacing the colonial-era meetinghouse which had first stood on Old Meetinghouse Hill at Cornwall Center. When members of the church split into two separate congregations due to religious differences, the original congregation moved to South Cornwall in 1790. Another Congregational church was built in North Cornwall for the other group. This wonderful Greek Revival church reflects the enormous popularity the style in the first half of the 19th century. The structure rests on a stone block foundation and is sheathed with clapboard siding. The building incorporates a central entry of paired doors with a Greek Revival surround, flanked by 20/20 windows. The street elevation of the building is dominated by a monumental portico with pedimented gable, broad frieze and fluted Doric columns. The showstopper is the two-stage square belfry, each stage Doric columns and pilasters. The church is active today as the United Church of Christ and is often utilized for town events.
In about 1850, William Hopkins Harrison (1813-1878) purchased farmland from the Pierce Family of Cornwall, Connecticut, and built this stately Greek Revival style home upon it. The house was built around the same time as its neighbor, the Dwight W. Pierce House (last post), also an example of the Greek Revival style, but in a very different finish. The seven-bay residence has its main block at the end with a shallow hip roof and overhanging eaves, showcasing the emergence of the Italianate style form to come into popularity. The solidly Classical pilaster and entablature surround at the entry firmly places the house in the Greek Revival style.
