Historic Home

Pousland House // c.1865

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Built around 1865, this stately residence in Wayland, Massachusetts, was originally owned by sea captain, Edward Pousland who came to Wayland with his family around 1859. Interestingly, Mr. Pousland continued working as a sea captain, travelling to Salem and Beverly, where he would be at sea for months at a time. Likely due to his profession, the house features a ‘widow’s walk’, a common feature of houses by the sea where folklore holds that the wives of ships’ captains looked out for the return of their husbands. Edward, his wife Hannah W. (Langmaid) Pousland lived in this house at least until Edward’s death. After successive ownership, the property was purchased by Jonathan Maynard Parmenter (1831-1921), who gifted the house to the First Parish Church across the street, for use as a parsonage a use that continued until 1984 when the church sold the house back into private ownership. The house, designed in the Italianate style, was “modernized” in the early 20th century with Colonial Revival alterations, which added the portico and likely removed the brackets at the eaves.

Coolidge-Burnham House // 1822

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This charming old home on Burnham Road in Bolton, Massachusetts, was built in 1822, but as a one-story three-quarter cape house with the additional story added later in the 19th century. The residence was built for William Coolidge, a Revolutionary War veteran. After successive ownership, the property was sold in 1855 to Reuben Burnham, a carpenter, who soon after added the second floor onto his new home, keeping the original cornice which now serves as a visual reminder of the home’s changes. Sadly, around 100 years later, the highway cut through the town, bisecting this property, which now abuts the busy road, but owners have maintained and preserved this stunning property which is evocative of the early days of Bolton.

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.

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.

John Bennett House // 1717

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The oldest residence in the North Village of Lancaster, Massachusetts, the John Bennett House dates to 1717 and evokes the old Colonial days of New England towns. John Bennett settled in Lancaster and built this large First Period house for his family and operated it as a tavern to weary travellers passing through town along the main turnpike. After Bennett’s death, local legend identifies that the property was a stopping place on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves escaping to Canada. This, however, has never been substantiated. From 1872 to 1874, the house was occupied by the first Adventist missionary, John Nevins Andrews, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The house is well-preserved and remains as one of the oldest in Lancaster and an important landmark of the early days of the community.

John Sprague House // 1785

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Judge John Sprague (1740-1800) was a Harvard graduate and settled in Lancaster, Massachusetts as one of only three lawyers in Worcester County following the departure of his Tory colleagues during the Revolution. From this, a young Sprague climbed the professional ladder quickly and represented Lancaster in the General Court beginning in 1782 and occasionally sat in the Senate. He was first appointed judge in 1784 and in 1798 became chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Worcester County. After being appointed a judge in 1784, Sprague purchased a house lot on Main Street in Lancaster and hired local housewrights Eli Stearns and Jonathan Whitney, to design and build this stately home. Judge Sprague moved from his 1771 house a short distance away, to this more substantial late-Georgian home with projecting entry with pilasters and pediment. After his death in 1800, the property was inherited by his daughter, Ann Sprague Vose and her husband, a merchant, Peter Thatcher Vose. 

Mary S. Johnson Mansion // 1910

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Mary Elizabeth Spiers (1847-1915) married Iver Johnson (1841-1895) in 1868 and raised their children until Iver’s death in 1895. The couple lived in Worcester before moving to Fitchburg where Iver Johnson was head of the Iver Johnson’s Arms & Cycle Works in Fitchburg, and had sporting goods stores in Worcester, Fitchburg, and Boston. After his death in 1895, his widow Mary, became president of the stores and trustee and operator of the Iver Johnson Sporting Goods Co. in Fitchburg. Ms. Mary S. Johnson sought retirement and purchased land on Main Street in the bucolic town of Lancaster and built this large mansion in 1910. The estate sat on 75-acres of land and comprised of an older farmhouse, the 20th century mansion, two caretaker’s cottages, and a large stable. Ms. Johnson died suddenly in 1915 and the estate of over $4 Million dollars was distributed amongst the couple’s children. In 1934, the estate became the Dr. Franklin Perkins School, a K-12 school for students with special needs.

Rice-Carter House // 1796

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In 1796, attorney Merrick Rice (1764-1819) built this stately Federal style farmhouse on Main Street in Lancaster. The house exhibits a symmetrical facade with hipped roof and twin chimneys and portico at the entrance sheltering the front door with fanlight transom. The house has end porches which may have been added sometime in the 19th century. The property was later purchased by Rev. Asa Packard, who rented the residence to his daughter, Ann, and her husband, James Gordon Carter, a state representative and education reformer who wrote Influence of an Early Education in 1826, and in 1837, as House Chairman of the Committee on Education, contributed to the establishment of the Massachusetts Board of Education, the first state board of education in the United States. The Rice-Carter House is excellently preserved both inside and out.

Solon Wilder House // 1883

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On Main Street in the central village of Lancaster, Massachusetts, the Solon Wilder House stands as one of the town’s finest Victorian-era residences. The house dates to 1883 and was built for Solon Wilder (1828-1889) and his wife, Olive. Mr. Wilder ran a store and served as town treasurer, doing well enough financially to build this handsome, and modern house and rear stable for the time. The Stick style house features a porch with cut woodwork, decorative trusses in gables, and wooden wall cladding interrupted by “stickwork” patterns raised from the wall surface that is meant to symbolize the structural skeleton of the home.

Frederick Fullerton House // 1861

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This distinctive Italianate Villa style house in the charming village of Chester, Vermont, was built in 1861 for wealthy merchant, Frederick Fullerton (1817-1869). Mr. Fullerton worked in his family’s mercantile business in Chester, and was involved with cotton manufacture in Springfield and with the Cavendish woolen mill managed by his older brother, Henry, who built an equally distinctive residence in Cavendish called “Glimmerstone“. Basically cubic with asymmetrical gabled corner pavilions, the Fullerton House is an excellent example of an Italianate Villa with bracketed cornice, two-over-two sash windows, a wrap-around porch, and second floor balcony with a bracket-supported hood with decorative valance and an oculus window above. The residence is said to have been designed by architect, William P. Wentworth, who designed the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church across Main Street a decade later.