The backroads of New England always lead you to great discoveries! This time, driving around Weare, New Hampshire, I stumbled upon this large farmhouse on the side of the road. The home was owned by Cyrus Hazen by 1858 and due to its style, I would date it to be built in the 1850s. Cyrus Hazen married Louisa Bartlett (as her second marriage) in 1847 and they appear to have had this home built a few years later. The Hazen’s ran a farm from this home for decades. Sometime after the Civil War, the home would have gotten the full-length verandah (front porch) and a side tower, both Victorian-era additions. The home is now attached to the historic barn by an ell.
Clinton Grove Academy of Weare, New Hampshire was the first Quaker seminary in the state when it was founded in 1834 by Moses Cartland (1805–1863). Moses Cartland was a Quaker abolitionist who served as the first Principal of the school and for fourteen years after. He later would move to Lee, NH, and aided those who escaped slavery in the south, sheltering them and assisting them on their way north to Canada. The original Academy here served as a private high school and included a classroom building, boarding house, barn and sheds. Students came from as far away as Ontario, Nova Scotia, Minnesota and Texas to study here under Mr. Cartland. In 1872, the Academy complex burned. It was quickly rebuilt as one structure here, in 1874. This building served as a district school until the 1930s. Today, it looks like the building is largely vacant, anyone know what its purpose is?
Weare, New Hampshire has a pretty cool history. Located at the northern edge of Hillsborough County, the land presently known as Weare was granted to veterans of the Canadian wars in 1735 by Governor Jonathan Belcher, who named it “Beverly-Canada” after many of the veteran’s hometown, Beverly, Massachusetts. After various disputes over the settlement and naming of the town, it became known as “Weare’s Town” before being incorporated by Governor Benning Wentworth in 1764 as Weare, after Meshech Weare, who served as the town’s first clerk and later went on to become New Hampshire’s first Governor. The town grew slowly during the 18th and 19th centuries around five major villages, with farmland and forests connecting them. Near the geographic center of town, this Town House was built in 1837 to be a government and religious center of the town. Originally, town meetings were held on the first floor and the Universalist Church met on the second floor and the local high school was installed on the second floor in 1919. The building remains the town offices with event space for rent inside today. The building is a great example of a vernacular Greek/Gothic Revival town house of the period with a two-stage tower with pinnacles at the corners of each stage and a louvered belfry at the bell.
Founded in 1895 by George Henderson, the Dorchester Pottery Works successfully produced commercial and industrial stoneware for many years and its building is a significant piece of Dorchester’s industrial heritage. Located in the Harrison Square/Clam Point area of Dorchester, the building began as a two-story wood-frame industrial structure for the young company. It saw immediate success and Henderson oversaw the construction of a large, brick addition which housed an enormous beehive kiln 28-feet in diameter of his own design made of bricks. Here he could fire pottery and other clay goods from his modern facility. Besides clay pots, tableware, and jugs, the company became known for the production of foot warmers, which became known as the ‘Porcelain Pig’ or ‘Piggy’. Foot warmers were widely used in the days before central heating. These clay vessels would be filled with hot water and placed under bedding for overnight warmth. The company made foot warmers until 1939. The company saw dwindling sales after WWII, and eventually closed in 1979. The structures began to decay and the towering smokestack and brick structure was open to the elements. The local neighborhood advocated for its preservation, listing it on the National Register of Historic Places and protecting it as a City of Boston Landmark. After decades of neglect, Bay Cove Human Services acquired the property in 2001 and renovated the building for its own use, keeping the kiln room and the kiln itself intact for community exhibitions. Today, it provides an important historic survivor of Dorchester’s industrial past.
The Putnam Nail Company was founded in 1860 and located at the northern tip of the Port Norfolk neighborhood of Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts. The company was founded by Silas Safford Putnam (1822-1895), who was the seventh of nine children by Israel Smith Putnam and Charlotte Safford of Hartford, NY. He moved to Boston and found work as Boston’s industrial growth took-off. He owned a curtain factory before patenting a process to manufacture wrought nails in the 1850s. After some time in Abington and Roxbury, he moved to Dorchester, purchasing large pieces of land and began building a manufacturing complex for his new Putnam Nail Company. The company made world-class horseshoe nails until it closed in the early 1900s. The property here was acquired by the George Lawley & Son Shipyard, who moved from their cramped City Point, South Boston shipyard to this newer yard. Already an established and respected New England manufacturer, the Lawley company had been building wooden ships in Massachusetts since 1866. The site was later the home to Seymour’s Ice Cream and was abandoned in the late 20th century. The large 1890s brick factory is now occupied by RISE, a development/construction management firm, with other buildings occupied by the Boston Winery and Boston Harbor Distillery.
The Newburgh Center Union Church was built in 1878 as a non-denominational religious building for the small, rural town of Newburgh, Maine. At this time, the small town had just over 1,000 residents and it was not economically feasible for each congregation to build its own meeting house. The vernacular Greek Revival/Italianate style church building was eventually the house of worship of a local Pentecostal congregation, but that too appears to have disbanded. The building has been falling into disrepair, so hopefully it will be preserved.
In the year 1812, Jackson, Maine, was organized as a plantation, and the Congregational Church of Jackson was organized the same year with Rev. Silas Warren, as its Pastor. Mr. Warren was born in Weston, Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard University in 1795. He was ordained as Pastor of the Jackson and Brooks Church in 1812 when it opened. The town of Jackson has not grown much since then (610 according to 2020 census) and has maintained its very rural character. The Congregational Church here was likely more vernacular when built and given the belfry after the Civil War. Gotta love these old churches on back roads!
Dixmont, a small rural town in central Maine was originally originally a land grant by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (of which Maine was then a part) to Bowdoin College, which sold the first settlers their land for profit to build on their campus. As a result, the town was originally called “Collegetown”, which was obviously short-lived. Dr. Elijah Dix (1747-1809) of Boston, who never lived there but took an interest in its settlement, encouraged others to settle there, and when the town was officially incorporated in 1807, it named itself after Dix, as Dixmont. A “malignant fever” broke out among the settlers in the early years, also killing Elijah Dix while in Dixmont on a trip there in 1809, he was buried in the Dixmont Corner Cemetery. Elijah was the grandfather of reformer and nurse Dorothea Dix. The early settlers had this Town House built in the center of the township around 1836 as a vernacular structure. The building (like many early town houses) was used for both secular and religious purposes. This small structure is one of the oldest surviving town houses in the state and served as the town government center until 1952 when it hosted its last town meeting. It was restored in the early 2000s and looks great!
Welcome to Gouldsboro, Maine! The town is a charming community made up of many small fishing villages and neighborhoods dotting the rugged Maine coastline. Land in what was then part of Massachusetts, was given to Colonel Nathan Jones, Francis Shaw and Robert Gould in 1764 by the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Francis Shaw and Robert Gould were both merchants from Boston. Francis Shaw had worked hard to develop Gouldsboro, and reportedly died broke because of it, and his son Robert Gould Shaw returned to his parents’ native Boston. Development in the area was slow and never really took-off due to the distance from Boston, but fishing, mills, and villages were built and remain to this day. Now, much of the area is home to summer residents flocking to the area from urban areas. This building was Gouldsboro’s second townhouse. It was constructed in 1884, soon after the first townhouse burned a year prior. The structure was used for town meetings and elections until 1983. It is now owned by the Gouldsboro Historical Society. It is a late, vernacular example of a Greek Revival townhouse.
The Hawkins Company was originally organized by Ira L. Hawkins for the manufacture of tacks, buttons, and other metal specialties. The firm appears to have begun operations in Waterbury, Connecticut around 1890 acquired control of the former Blake, Lamb and Company, an animal trap manufacturer established in Waterbury during the mid-19th century. In 1899, Hawkins purchased this four-story woolen mill located in the South Britain section of Southbury that had formerly been operated by the Bradley and Hoyt Company. All of the Hawkins Company’s operations were moved to this plant c. 1900. Production of animal traps quickly became the primary focus of the Hawkins Company and the former Bradley and Hoyt Company mill was enlarged in several phases in order to accommodate demand. The Hawkins Company eventually closed its doors during the late 1960s. The building has been recently painted and maintained well, but it is unclear to me what it is used for, anyone know more?
Buildings of New England 