The neighborhood of Touisset in Swansea, Massachusetts overlooks Mount Hope Bay and was largely developed in the early 1900s by Fall River real estate dealer Jacob Fash who worked with local architect, Edward I. Marvell to lay out house lots and likely design houses for middle-class residents. One of the more fashionable houses on the waterfront is this residence, built in 1914 for Charles Smith, an inventor who patented rollers and machinery to lay gold-leaf. Soon after moving into this house, he filed for bankruptcy and the house was sold at auction to William R. Randall of Providence. The house can be categorized as an example of the Arts and Crafts style with elements of Tudor Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival styles, all reaching their height of popularity in the early 20th century. The use of stucco walls, stone porches and red terracotta roofing tiles enhances its curb appeal.
This large, gambrel-roofed Georgian house is located on Pearce Road, a winding road that runs the waterfront of the Cole River that spans between Swansea, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. The house was owned by Captain John Brown (1675-1752) of the wealthy trading and slave-holding Brown Family which the prestigious Ivy League Brown University is named after. While extensive deed research of this home is not known, the property was mentioned in John Brown’s will of 1752 so it dates to at least 1750. It is possible that the house was expanded in the second half of the 18th century to its current form. The property remained in the Brown Family until 1911, and has been lovingly preserved by its successive owners.
This elongated farmhouse on Gardner’s Neck in Swansea, Massachusetts, was built at the end of the 18th century for Hanna and Joseph Gardner, who had purchased his brother’s half of the land they inherited by their late father, Peleg. The house was one of a few farmhouses on the peninsula which became known as Gardner’s Neck as much of the land was owned and farmed by members of the Gardner Family. This c.1795 farmhouse began as a five-bay, center-entrance Federal cape house and was expanded in the 1870s by Fall River businessmen, William Almy and Andrew Jackson Borden. Yes, THAT Andrew J. Borden. The farmhouse was expanded to the south (left) with the addition of a second entrance and two bays by the business partners as a summer retreat. The Borden Family with daughter, Lizzie Borden, would spend summers here to escape the hot and polluted industrial city for cool coastal breezes until Andrew and his wife, Abby Borden, were brutally murdered by an ax in their Fall River home.
This large mansion in Swansea, Massachusetts, was constructed in the early 1800s for Mason Barney, a shipyard owner, likely by his own shipwrights. Barneyville, formerly known as “Bungtown” in the early 1770s, was a bustling village in Swansea where young men worked from sunup to sundown sawing, filing, shaping, boring, and fastening planks and timbers together for the Barney Shipyard. The shipyard was founded in the 1770s by Jonathan Barney, a prominent boat builder in New England established the shipyard in the 1770s. The Barney Shipyard saw its greatest success under Barney’s son, Mason, in the early 18th century. When Mason Barney (1782-1868) inherited his father’s shipyard, he also had this house built for his family, just a stone’s throw from the shipyard where he could oversee the many ships built and sailed down the river to Warren, Rhode Island, for fitting. By the early 20th century, the shipyard had already closed and this property was purchased by Lorenzo P. Sturtevant, a jeweler who completely updated the old Barney House in the Colonial Revival style, adding the entry porch and oversized dormers. By the end of the 20th century and early 21st, the house was abandoned and decaying until a few years ago when new owners renovated the old Barney-Sturtevant Mansion back to a livable home.
The Wellington House at 72 Main Street in Swansea, Massachusetts, is an early 19th century Federal period residence that was “modernized” in the mid-19th century into its current form. It is unclear who the original owner of the residence was, but the property was acquired by Julia and James Birch in the 1850s as they built their Italianate style mansion next-door. They modified this cottage in the Italianate style to match their home and likely rented the property to Dr. James Lloyd Wellington (1818-1916), a Harvard-educated doctor who split his time between Swansea and Cambridge. The house was later donated to the Town and rented for years with profits going to the Public Library, until it sold and was restored by area residents, with the proceeds for the sale funding the library as well.
This unique two-story house on Main Street in Swansea, Massachusetts, is said to date to about 1734 but for the most part, its appearance dates to 100 years later. It is possible this was once a one-story, brick house, but by 1836, the property was owned by Samuel Sherman Hull (1788-1862) and Sarah Waite Hull (1799-1863) who married in 1835. It was during their ownership, that the house was expanded and “modernized” in the Greek Revival style in the 1830s or 1840s, when the wooden upper floor was added with elaborate central entrance with sidelights and pilasters at the corners and entry. The property was farmed by Mr. Hull and by the end of the 19th century, was owned by Mrs. Caroline A. Chace. It is possible that the brick floor operated as a store with a residence above but now is a single-family home.
Built in 1855, the Birch-Stevens Mansion of Swansea, Massachusetts, is a grand Italianate style residence distinguished by its low hipped roof with belvedere, broad overhanging eaves with brackets, paired arched windows, and expansive wrap-around porch, all of a scale not commonly found in such a small community. The residence was built for James Birch and overseen by his new bride, Julia Chace. Before construction on the home, James Birch (1828-1857), not a wealthy man, worked as a stagecoach driver in Providence. His bride-to-be desired a large mansion in her native Swansea, equipped with servants and all the finer things of life. Since this dream was not attainable in his present circumstances, Birch, an enterprising 21 year old, decided to join the Gold Rush in California to make his fortune. In California, James became a stagecoach line entrepreneur and founder of the California Stage Company, the largest stage line in California in the 1850s. James made a fortune and returned to his wife in Swansea bringing money for her to begin constructing their grand mansion. James left again, this time establishing the San Antonio -San Diego Mail Line, the first transcontinental mail route in the United States. In 1857, while heading home, James sailed from San Francisco to Panama, took a train across the Isthmus, and sailed for New York on the steamer SS Central America. During the voyage, his ship was struck by a hurricane and later sunk. Many survivors clung to pieces of the ship’s wreckage for days with many dying to exposure or were swept away to their deaths, like James. He was just 28 years old. Back in Swansea, Julia was heartbroken but remarried her late-husband’s business partner, Frank Shaw Stevens, an equally successful businessman. Julia died in 1871, and Frank married a younger Elizabeth Case. The couple resided in this mansion for decades and donated substantially to their community, including funding the Town Hall, Public Library, Episcopal Church, and local public schools. In her will, Elizabeth Case Stevens bequeathed the large mansion in 1837 to the Frank S. Stevens Home for Boys which began as a boy’s orphanage. The organization remains to this day with an expanded mission, and maintain the sprawling estate and its various outbuildings, including the historic stable and farm structures.
Deborah Sampson (1760-1827) was born in Plympton, Massachusetts, and after a troubled childhood, she worked as an indentured servant until the age of 18. She subsequently worked as a teacher during the summer, though she had little in the way of formal education. In the early 1780s, Deborah tried to disguise herself in men’s clothing and enlist in the military to fight against the British forces. She was rebuffed but tried again under the name Robert Shirtliff (sometimes spelled Shurtleff) and this time was successful. Deborah was described as being exceptionally tall, plain looking, and masculine in appearance and mannerisms. She spent at least 17 months as a combat soldier and participated in several skirmishes and sustained multiple injuries. She was reportedly hit by musket fire in the summer of 1782 but refused medical treatment for a leg injury due to fears that her true identity would be discovered. Sampson is said to have extracted one piece of shrapnel from her leg by herself; another remained in her body for the rest of her life. Sampson’s time as a Revolutionary fighter came to a halt a few months before the end of the war, after she fell ill in Philadelphia and a doctor realized that Shurtleff was, in fact, a woman. Sampson received an honorable discharge and went back to Massachusetts. She married Benjamin Gannett (1757–1837), a farmer, on April 7, 1785, and the couple moved to this farmhouse in Sharon, Massachusetts, where she lived the remainder of her life as a farmer’s wife. After Deborah Sampson died at the age of 66, her husband petitioned Congress to receive a pension as the widower of a Revolutionary veteran. A committee ultimately decided to award him the money, concluding that the war had “furnished no other similar example of female heroism, fidelity and courage.” She was the only woman to earn a full military pension for participation in the Revolutionary army. The Deborah Sampson Gannett Farmhouse is a private residence.
Buildings of New England 