Vernacular/No Style

Hiram Village Store // c. 1850

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Hiram is a small, rural town in Oxford County, Maine, and has a handful of notable old buildings. The town was incorporated in 1814 and was occupied by white settlers as early as 1774. The land here has long been heavily wooded and the town’s name was inspired by the biblical King Hiram of Tyre whose kingdom was set among “timber of cedar and timber of fir.” The town’s two villages, Hiram Village and South Hiram, grew along the Saco River, and are typical rural villages built around industry and modest frame dwellings. This commercial building is one of the larger structures in Hiram Village and it dates to the mid 19th century. The structure was owned by Thomas B. Seavey, who purchased a store built on the site as early as 1816, from a Simeon Chadbourne. The store was enlarged and became a major hub of the sleepy town in the 19th and 20th centuries, but like many such structures, struggled due to changing of shopping habits and rural decline. The building, with its vernacular and Greek Revival lintels, appears vacant today.

Old Porter Meetinghouse // 1818

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Welcome to Porter, Maine! The town is located on the Maine/New Hampshire border and was first called Portersfield Plantation. Porter was incorporated in 1807 and named after its first proprietor, Dr. Aaron Porter (1752-1837). The Porter Meetinghouse was built beginning in 1818 and it is said that it was not completely finished until 1824. The original congregation was a Freewill Baptist organization led by Reverend Jeremiah Bullock, and were known locally as “Bullockites“. The structure housed the Baptists and town meetings as needed. The plain vernacular, meetinghouse is typical of many early meetinghouses of the period in rural New England. The inside retains its original character with its space as a single large chamber with a gallery above on three sides. The walls are plaster, much of it original, with trowel marks visible. The main floor is populated with original box pews and a replica pulpit. The structure is a rare survivor!

Effingham Academy // 1819

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The small town of Effingham, New Hampshire, is the home to the state’s first Normal School. This building was originally constructed in 1819 as a vernacular, Federal period academy for the youth in the rural town of Effingham on land formerly owned by wealthy resident Isaac Lord. A normal school for the training of teachers was established on the school building’s second floor in 1830 with James W. Bradbury, a Bowdoin College graduate, to head it. Bradbury, later a United States Senator, took the position only on condition that it should be for the instruction and training of teachers, a novel idea at the time. The school, like many small academy buildings of the period, eventually closed. The building is now managed by the Effingham Historical Society.

Drake Store // c.1816

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The Drake Store is a vernacular, early 19th century commercial building located in the center of Effingham, New Hampshire. According to local sources, the building was erected around 1816 by Weare Drake, an original settler of the town at age 78, and his 23-year-old grandson, Thomas Parsons Drake. The store sold provisions and was home to a post office, when Thomas Drake served as the town’s postmaster. Within a few years, the store fell into disuse and the building was fitted up as an academy known as the Carroll Literary Institute. Due to insufficient enrollment, in the 1850’s, it was again occupied as a store by Alexander Mellen Drake (hence the sign) and changed hands several times before being purchased by Grange No. 313 in 1913, operating as a grange hall for local farmers. The building was given by the Grange to the Town in 1994 and purchased from the Town for $1 by the Preservation Society in 2002. The Preservation Society has been restoring the building through capital campaigns and grants and the old store shines once again!

Bread Loaf Campus – Bridgman & Cornwall Cottages // 1881

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Welcome back to the Bread Loaf Campus! For more early history and context of the complex, check out the post on the Bread Loaf Inn. By 1900, owner Joseph Battell’s enterprise exceeded the capacity of the original inn, and cottages were added to accommodate more guests visiting his new permanent home in the mountains of Ripton, Vermont. Special friends who summered regularly at Bread Loaf purchased lots with water and sewage rights, and with Battell’s assistance, built their own family cottages to spend their summers. The first two, Bridgman and Cornwall, were constructed across the street from the Inn around 1881 and are near-identical, modest vernacular cape houses with full-length front porches. The original owners were Charles William and Ellen Campbell Bridgman and Henry Bedinger Cornwall respectively. Both cottages have since been donated to Middlebury College and are important preserved pieces of its Bread Loaf campus.

Bread Loaf Campus – Maple Cottage // c.1900

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Welcome back to the Bread Loaf Campus! For more early history and context of the complex, check out the post on the Bread Loaf Inn. By 1900, owner Joseph Battell’s enterprise exceeded the capacity of the original inn, and cottages were added to accommodate more guests visiting his new permanent home in the mountains of Ripton, Vermont. Located adjacent to the Mansard-roofed Birch Cottage, one of the most visually striking buildings in the campus is Maple Cottage, which reads more porch than cottage, but it’s 100% perfect. It was the last cottage built by Battell for his family and friends to stay at when visiting. They must have loved evenings on the three-floors of porches looking out over the Green Mountains.

Robert Frost Farm // c.1820

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Robert Frost, the famed American poet is best known for his realistic depictions of rural life in New England. Frequently honored during his lifetime, Frost is the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and in 1961, he was named poet laureate of Vermont, one of his favorite places to write. Though his writing is often beautiful, Robert Frost did suffer tragedies. His beloved wife, Elinor, died in 1938, causing him to resign from a teaching position at Amherst College. In the fall of 1940, the Frost family experienced another tragedy when Robert’s only son Carol committed suicide at 38 years of age. Robert Frost, who suffered from depression himself, would buy this farm in rural Ripton, Vermont, that year. The farm was a respite to escape to nature and be free from painful memories of the past. Frost chose the site eight miles from Middlebury College, and two miles from the Broad Loaf Inn, where each summer the college sponsored the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the oldest and most prestigious writers conference in the country. The farm he purchased was established by and known as the Homer Noble Farm. The farmhouse seemingly dates to the early 19th century, and the property was added to by a cabin built for Mr. Frost to write and occupy when spending summers on the farm. The property would serve as his country retreat for summers away from his main residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, until his death in 1963. The property is now owned by Middlebury College. The grounds are open to the public during daylight hours.

Ripton Community Church // 1864

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Located a stone’s throw from the Ripton Community House in Ripton, Vermont, this church building helps contribute to the village center’s distinguished architectural presence for such a small community. The vernacular church building was constructed in 1864, the same time that the Congregational Church (now the Community House) was built. The Methodist Episcopal parishioners in town met in local homes and schools even before formally organizing their society in 1829, but it wasn’t until the onset of the Civil War that they started construction of a church building. During its full life as a methodist church, the building has also housed members of all faiths, and has been the place of worship for poets, authors and lecturers including Robert Frost, who was a summer resident. The building is well-preserved 160 years later!

The Old Hancock Tavern // c.1810

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Before the Centre Turnpike was laid out in 1808, better-connecting Middlebury, Vermont to towns east of the Green Mountains, visitors would have to travel hours longer to divert around the mountains. This new route cut right through the small village of Hancock, Vermont and the town prospered as a result. Along the route, this vernacular, Federal period tavern was built shortly after the turnpike aimed to take advantage of the new visitors driving through the town. This tavern/inn was operated for a time by a J. E. Wright as a hotel and the building has a perfect wrap-around porch.

Rockport Lime Kilns // c.1800

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During the 19th Century, Rockport, Maine, (then named Goose River as a village in Camden) was a major supplier of lime to East Coast markets. These kilns near the harbor converted limestone rock supplied by 15 local quarries into lime used to make mortar & finish plaster. The burned lime was packed into wooden casks and shipped by schooner to cities all down the coast. In 1817, three hundred casks of lime from Rockport were sent to Washington, D.C. for use in the rebuilding of the United States Capitol, which had been damaged by the British during the War of 1812. In 1852, the citizens of Goose River voted to change their village’s name to Rockport for its rocky terrain. In 1891, Rockport split off from Camden, taking its industry and lucrative harbor with it. A disastrous fire destroyed many of the lime kilns here in 1907, which occurred about the time that cement began to replace lime in building construction. After a few years the kilns were shuttered and remained here as fossils of industry ever since. Local residents in the 1970s gathered together and advocated for the preservation of these significant local structures and gathered funds to stabilize the kilns.