Historic House

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.

Smith-Curtiss House // c.1714

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The Smith-Curtiss House, which is possibly the oldest extant building in Derby, Connecticut, has sat vacant and decaying for years and is owned by the State of Connecticut. Believed to have been built sometime between 1714 and 1740, this historic saltbox farmhouse at 411 Hawthorne Avenue is slowly decaying due to lack of maintenance and funding. Early ownership is difficult to determine, but by the 19th century, the property was owned by Ms. Alice E. Curtiss. The old estate was sold by Ms. Curtiss in 1913 to Frances Osborne Kellogg, a businesswoman, philanthropist and environmentalist, as part of her 350-acre dairy farm and land-conservation holdings. The Smith-Curtiss House was used as a residence for the herdsmen who ran the farm nearby. Before her death in 1956, Frances deeded the property to the state as a public park, and allowed her head herdsman life-occupancy of this house for the remainder of his life. The State of Connecticut assumed possession of this house in 1981. The building has suffered from deferred maintenance since this period, with the State attempting to lease the building to tenants. I hope that local and statewide preservation groups can mobilize to secure grants and funding to restore this important property.

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 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.

Joseph Andrews House // 1831

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This stately temple-front Greek Revival style house in Lancaster, Massachusetts, faces southward and when originally built, had sweeping views of fields and the Nashua River which abuts the property. The residence was built in 1831 for Joseph Andrews (1806-1873), a renowned 19th century artist who engraved portraits and landscapes, and was also an elder in the local Swedenborgian Church when it still met at residences. The Andrews House was likely a wedding gift to his wife, Thomazine Minot of Brookline, when they married. Tragically, Thomazine died just years later in 1834 at the age of 22. Joseph Andrews remarried soon after and would later move to Waltham. The house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, features a full-length projecting porch with pediment supported by four, two-story fluted Ionic columns and a flush-board facade.

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.

Comfort C. Dresser House // 1799

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Built just before the turn of the 19th century, this handsome five-bay vernacular Federal period house is located on the charming Main Street of Chester, Vermont, and is one of the oldest extant houses in the village. The residence was built in 1799 by Comfort Carpenter Dresser (1777-1856), who with his family, moved from Bridgewater, Massachusetts, to the town of Chester, where he found work as a carpenter and housewright, a fitting profession due to his middle name. The family resided here for nearly 30 years until they moved to New Hampshire. The beautiful home, painted a bright white sometime in the 20th century, features a front door with sidelights, 12-over-12 sash windows, and a symmetrical facade, common for the style. 

Jaquith Homestead // c.1820

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Erected in the 1820s by Joshua Jaquith, a prosperous mill owner who operated a sawmill and grist mill on the river directly behind his house, this residence in Andover, Vermont, exemplifies vernacular Federal period residential architecture in rural New England. The residence is said to have been carved up inside into apartments in the mid-1800s but was restored by Alden Jaquith, the third generation of the family later in the 19th century back into a single-family residence. The handsome brick home is symmetrical with a five-bay facade, 12-over-12 sash windows, and large end chimneys. Of particular note are the relief arches above first floor windows and above the door and the attached sidelight windows.

Leland Homestead // 1843

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The small, rural Town of Baltimore, Vermont, was originally a part of Cavendish but due to the geography and a mountain separating the village from the main town, residents here voted in 1793 to set off as its own town. The nomenclature of the town name, Baltimore is not clear, as the city in Maryland was named for George Calvert, first Baron Baltimore, who was granted that colony in 1632, but there is no evident connection between the two communities. The word Baltimore itself is Celtic for “large town”; appropriate for Calvert’s colony, perhaps, but hardly for this Vermont town, which is one of the smallest in the state in terms of population or square miles. The town has always been a community without a distinctive village center and has long been primarily farmland, with properties bounded by stone walls and forests. This stone house on Harris Road in Baltimore was built in 1843 by Joshua Leland and his wife, Betsy Boynton. A history of the town speaks of the house, “It was one of the most attractive houses ever built in Baltimore, a well-built front hall and stairway, four fair-sized pleasant rooms downstairs, three well-arranged chambers and a convenient back stairway, all well-finished”. The home, with its date of construction over the front door, remains one of the most historic and well-preserved buildings in the town of just over 200 residents.