Central MA

Wilder Mansion // c.1738

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The Wilder Mansion at 101 Wilder Road in Bolton, Massachusetts, was built in about 1738 as an early Georgian farmhouse by Josiah Richardson, a Revolutionary War veteran who died in the home in 1799. By 1814, Sampson Vryling Stoddard Wilder purchased the property and “modernized” the old farmhouse which due to its location along the Bay Path, a major east-west route from Lancaster to Boston, operated it as an inn and tavern. Mr. Wilder expanded the property, purchasing additional nearby farmland to create a country seat worthy of a wealthy agent for some of the most influential merchants in the shipping trade in Boston. During his tour of the United States in 1824, Marquis de Lafayette spent the night here on September 2nd between visits to Boston and Lancaster. Sampson V. S. Wilder lost the property following economic crises, and the property changed hands many times until the early 20th century. Stockbroker John L . Saltonstall (1878-1929), first cousin to Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall, hired Boston architects Bigelow & Wadsworth in 1910, to return the house to a more Colonial appearance. He and his family were apparently only summer residents here, and he was probably absent for a long period during the First World War, when he worked with the Navy and the War Trade Board in Washington, D.C. In about 1915, he sold the property, and in the early 1920’s he relocated to Topsfield, Mass. After WWI, the house had a series of short-term owners, one of which was Henry Forbes Bigelow, who designed the renovation of the house just years prior. Bigelow would later relocate to a new summer house nearby in Lancaster.

Abraham Wilder House // 1827

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This exceptional vernacular example of a brick, Federal period house in Bolton, Massachusetts, sits on the town’s Main Street in the East Bolton village. Built in 1827, this house with attached wooden ell was the home to Abraham Wilder, a local blacksmith who followed his father’s footsteps in his professional pursuits. The house is two-stories with historic six-over-nine sash windows. The main center entry, rather than displaying a common elliptical fanlight for the period, is surrounded by trim boards, four-pane sidelights and a vertical-board door. Abraham’s blacksmith shop was once located next-door but was moved and reassembled in Old Sturbridge Village in 1957.

Captain Samuel Blood House // c.1793

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This grand federal-period house was built around 1793 by Capt. Samuel Blood (1749-1834), who had served in the American Revolution. He came to Bolton from Lancaster by 1788, and purchased a farm here, where he began working as a hat manufacturer, building a large shop where he made beaver and silk hats. The land As his business grew, his original house was demolished to make way for this more stately, Federal-period home which dates to around 1793. Samuel Blood and his wife, Lucretia (Heywood) had twelve children. Their eldest son, Thomas (1774-1848) became a doctor and settled in Peterborough, New Hampshire, but returned to Bolton to take charge of the factory as his father got older. The family sold the home and the property, then about 120-acres, operated as a farm by subsequent owners. In 1916, the property was sold to Howard Atwood, who had been a successful Boston wool merchant, and he raised pedigreed cattle, thoroughbred horses, and sheep on this property, possibly as a gentleman’s farm. He and his wife, Rose, built a large new barn near the main house where they held many parties and barn dances over the years. The couple also renovated the old house, adding the dormers, porticos and side additions, creating the current composition we see today. The property has been owned by a corporation and appears to be offices today.


Nourse-Sawyer House, Bolton Historical Society // c.1805

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The building that became the Bolton Historical Society in Bolton, Massachusetts had unusual beginnings. According to town records, this residence-turned-historical society was built around 1805 as an addition to the famed Holman Inn, which stood in town from 1767 until its demolition in the 1870s. The wing contained a ballroom on the first floor, and guest chambers on the second. The main part of the inn was eventually torn down in 1874, but the east wing, this structure, was moved down the street to the present site, where it was converted to a house by owners Charles S. Rich, a Civil War veteran, and his wife Mary. In 1904, the house was bought by Arthur H. Nourse, who enlarged the property by purchasing adjacent land from his uncle, and bought two small buildings from the Town of Bolton, the historic engine house and old hearse house, which he moved to the site. The house was purchased in 1923 by Perley and Florence Sawyer. Mrs. Sawyer was a charter member of the Bolton Historical Society at its founding in 1962, and later, by 1970, she gave the house, with over three acres of land, to the Society. The property is still owned by the Historical Society, which operates it as a house museum and a repository for local historical documents.

Old Houghton School // 1849

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In 1849, the Town of Bolton, Massachusetts, built its first high school, the Houghton School at 697 Main Street in the town center. Blending Greek Revival and Italianate styles, similar to Bolton’s 1853 Town Hall, the Houghton School is a large, two-story, pedimented building of wood-frame construction. Interestingly, the school was largely funded privately by a local resident, Joseph Houghton (1772-1847), who in his will, bequeathed land and $12,000 for a public high school for the town. By the terms of the donation, nine men (all of whom had at one time served as a Bolton tax assessor) and their descendants, were barred from attending the school for a hundred years. Questions about the bequest were put before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which disallowed this clause. An additional requirement, stipulated that no teacher could serve there longer than two years. That restriction was eventually put aside in the early 20th century. In 1917, the high school was discontinued. The fenestration was likely altered around this time. Bolton began sending its high-school students out of town to a school of their choice, and the Houghton School became the Bolton junior high school. In 1970-71, the building was converted to town offices, with the Town Clerk and Assessor on the first floor and the Police Department on the second. Since 2012, the building houses Bolton Access TV, as well as The Conservation Trust and Friends of the Bolton Library.


Dr. Amos Parker House // 1801

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Built in 1800-1801, this house on Main Street in Bolton, Massachusetts, had multiple owners in quick succession until 1806, when it was purchased by Dr. Amos Parker. Amos Parker (1777-1861) was born in Hubbardston and later moved to Bolton to work as the town’s doctor, and also served as Bolton’s first Postmaster, from an ell that was once attached to this residence. Dr. Parker and his wife, Elizabeth (Whitney,) had at least four children, who of which died as infants and two daughters remained unmarried. Elizabeth Lydia Parker (1809-1882) and Louisa Jane Parker (1812-1900) inherited their parent’s home and lived here until their deaths. Louisa worked as a teacher in Bolton schools, and was forced to remain unmarried to keep her teaching position by law. In 1904, the Parker home was acquired by the local Baptist church and occupied as a parsonage and was later sold to private owners who restored the home to its near-original condition.

Bolton Powder House // 1812

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Hidden away in the woods behind the Bolton Town Hall, this small brick structure sits atop a rocky outcropping and showcases a piece of early history we often do not think about. Built in 1812 as a powder house, a storage facility far from homes and businesses to store the town’s supply of gunpowder, musketballs and cannonballs, the structure remains as the town’s oldest extant municipal building. Since the founding of the colonies, the procurement and storage of ammunition had been the responsibility of local governments. Before this structure was built in the forest, Bolton‘s gunpowder and ammunition had been kept under the meetinghouse pulpit, not the best place suitable for highly explosive storage. The structure is a well-preserved example of a typical early 19th-century powder house, built of brick manufactured in town, laid in common bond, measuring just over seven-feet square with a pyramidal wood shingle roof.

Joseph and Ruth Sawyer House // c.1782

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The town center of Bolton, Massachusetts, as we know it, was largely an early Colonial landholding and farm held by William Sawyer (1679-1741) who possessed roughly 300 acres in the area when Bolton was still a part of Lancaster. The Town of Bolton seceded along the Still River from Lancaster and incorporated in 1738. A year later, an aging William Sawyer gifted two acres of his land for the town’s newly designated burying ground, now the Old South Burying Ground, where his own grave (dated 1741), is the oldest marked burial in the cemetery. In 1780, William’s son, William Sawyer, Jr., sold over sixty-acres of the family farm to his son, Joseph Sawyer (1756-1828) who was to marry Ruth Walcott in 1782. This house was probably built about the time of their marriage. Joseph had previously fought in the Revolutionary War, and marched with the Bolton militia to Lexington on April 19, 1775, and upon his return, he worked as a blacksmith and operated the farm while serving in various town offices.

Bolton Town Hall // 1853

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The Town Hall building in Bolton, Massachusetts, is significant as the hub of the town’s municipal activities for the past century and a half and architecturally as a mid-19th century town hall built in the transitional Greek Revival and Italianate styles. The structure was completed by the town in 1853 as a replacement for the former 1834 wood-frame town hall, which had burned down in 1851. The original wood-frame building was constructed at the time that municipal functions were being moved out of town meetinghouses across Massachusetts following the desire to separate church and government functions. Like many town halls of its era, the larger 1853 building was designed to accommodate multiple aspects of the community’s institutional and public life. The two-story building included a fireproof vault for town records, with town meetings held in the second floor meeting hall, with selectmen meeting in a room on the first floor. A small room was fitted for a library until the early 20th century when the town’s first purpose-built library was constructed farther down Main Street. The fairly unadorned Town Hall was modernized in around 1916 with the addition of the front portico and a rear addition. The Bolton Town Hall remains as a source of pride for the small, yet charming town of just under 6,000 residents.

John E. Thayer Mansion // 1883

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Photo from real estate listing.

A lesser-known residence built for a member of the wealthy Thayer Family is this stately Queen Anne mansion tucked away in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. The John E. Thayer Mansion was built in the 1880s for its namesake, John Eliot Thayer (1862-1933), who graduated from Harvard College in 1885 and engaged in business before becoming one of the world’s most prominent ornithologists. John began collecting and housed his collections in several wooden buildings close to his home in Lancaster, but when these became unsafe and crowded he built a beautiful brick building in 1903 nearby, opening it to the public as a museum a year later. John Thayer hired esteemed Boston architect, John Hubbard Sturgis, who was then working with his nephew, Richard Clipston Sturgis, to design the English Queen Anne style country mansion. The residence features a stone first floor with wood-frame above that is given half-timbering treatment, suggesting the English design. John Thayer’s country mansion was a short walk away from his twin brother, Bayard Thayer’s mansion, and his other brother, Eugene’s country house, both in Lancaster. The house remained in the Thayer family until the 1960s, and was recently sold to new owners. The interiors are some of the best preserved for a country estate I have seen and worthy of the Thayer name.