New England History Blog

Nathaniel Thayer Mansion // 1902

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The Thayer Family is one of the most prominent and well-connected families of New England, and that stature comes with handsome estates. Nathaniel Thayer (1801-1883) was born in Lancaster as the son of Reverend Nathaniel Thayer (1769–1840), a Unitarian congregational minister. Nathaniel Thayer Jr. made his fortune in businesses and held deep ties to his hometown, despite spending most of his time in Boston. He took down the original Thayer home on this site and developed the estate in the 1850s. After his death, the property was inherited by his son, Nathaniel Thayer III (1851-1911), and the house was enlarged and remodeled in the Georgian Revival style in 1902 by the architect and interior designer Ogden Codman Jr. The mansion served as a summer home to Nathaniel, who too spent much of his time in Boston. After his death, the 46-room mansion was sold out of the Thayer family with many of its furnishings sold at auction. The Nathaniel Thayer Mansion house was sold to Atlantic Union College in 1943 at a cost of $12,500. It was used as the school’s administration building between 1945 and 1951, and then as a dormitory until about 1970. From 1973 to present-day, the estate has been home to Thayer Conservatory, Center for Music and the Arts, who do a great job at preserving this significant landmark.

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.

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.

Bessie & Murray Potter House // 1909

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Murray A. Potter (1871-1915) and his wife, Bessie Lincoln Potter lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Murray worked as a Professor of Romance Languages at Harvard College. The couple spent summers in Lancaster, Massachusetts, where they would purchase a house in 1909 that was built just a decade or so earlier. The couple were said to be big fans of history and decided to make their house resemble the 1782 Pierce-Nichols House in Salem, having the brown shingle Victorian house “modernized” in the current three-story near-symmetrical form.

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.

Lancaster Central School // 1904

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Located across the Town Common from the iconic Bulfinch Church in Lancaster, Massachusetts, this handsome 1904 Colonial/Classical Revival style school building was designed in response to its neighbors and Colonial context of the town of Lancaster. At a Town Meeting in 1903, a local building committee determined that “Bulfinch Colonial” would be the best style for the architecture for a new high school that would be built in the town center, with Herbert Dudley Hale, selected as the architect for the planned two-story brick building. The Center School had been used continuously as a public school until 2001, when it outlived its utility as school facility in town, which was vacated for years until grant funding and a restoration of the building, now known as the Prescott Building, for Town Offices, including the Lancaster Historical Commission. The facade is dominated by its seven-bay symmetrical façade featuring brick
corner quoins, double-door entrance, and two-story white-painted brick pilasters framing the entrance and “supporting” the pediment that contains the town crest in high-relief.

Lawrence-Bartol House // 1861

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This handsome Victorian residence on Main Street in Lancaster, Massachusetts, was built in 1861 for Rev. Amos E. Lawrence (1812-1897), pastor of the local Evangelical Congregational Church. Amos Lawrence lived in the house for just 4 years until he sold it to Rev. George Bartol, of the First Church of Christ, Unitarian in Lancaster. George Murillo Bartol (1820-1906) served as the pastor for the iconic Bulfinch church for over 50 years until his death in 1906. The residence was then inherited by Reverend Bartol’s son, John Washburn Bartol, a prominent Boston physician who would spend time away from the city at his family home. The unique form of this mansard/gambrel-roofed house stands out along with its Colonial Revival alterations, which likely occurred in the late 19th or early 20th century.

First Church of Lancaster // 1816

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Built in 1816, the First Church of Lancaster is one of just two extant church buildings designed by famed American architect, Charles Bulfinch, and is said to be one of the finest churches in the Federal style in the United States. The fifth meetinghouse of the Unitarian First Church of Christ in Lancaster, this building was constructed of local brick, slate, and lumber from master-builder, Thomas Hearsey. Hearsey is said to have modified Bulfinch’s design, which had proposed one tall center arch flanked by two lower arches to reflect the unequal heights of the three vestibule doors behind them; instead going with three, identical arches. Other than this change, the church remains substantially as originally built, even without artificial lighting or central heat inside. Besides the iconic arched portico, the two- stage brick tower topped by a beautifully proportioned wood cupola surrounded by Roman Ionic columns, and fronted by a giant arcuated portico, is especially noteworthy. The congregation, which dates back to 1653 as a Puritan congregation was the first parish established in Central Massachusetts and remains active to this day.

Jabez Sargeant Jr. House // 1797

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Deacon Jabez Sargeant (1720-1788) was born in Malden, Massachusetts, and later moved to the newly established town of Chester, Vermont in 1763. He is thought to have been the first settler of European ancestry in the town. Upon the outbreak of the Revolution, he served in Captain Little’s Company in 1778, returning home to Chester after. His son, Jabez Sargeant Jr. built this stately three-story late-Georgian residence in 1797 as a tavern along the Green Mountain Turnpike, a highway connecting Boston and Montreal. The dwelling originally fronted directly on the road, but was moved back sometime in the 19th or 20th centuries. The building boasted a large ballroom on the second floor, likely for community and fraternal organizations, and a tavern in the brick first floor. It is likely that Jabez and his family lived on the third floor. Outside, the property contained a large apple orchard and cider house, providing drinks to weary travellers. Although the tavern is built to a large size, it lacks many of the high-style features often found in large Georgian houses, telling for its time of construction in a sparsely developed area without seasoned builders.

Sherwin-Goldsmith House // 1844

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The Stone Village of Chester, Vermont, is said to be the largest collection of stone buildings in the state. Built around 1844, the Sherwin-Goldsmith House is one of a few dozen “snecked ashlar” buildings in the region, where rubblestone is laid up with mortar using long stones called “snecks” to tie an outer and an inner wall together. The construction method is said to have been brought to the area by masons from Scotland and Ireland which is known there as ‘Celtic Bond’. Oral tradition state that Scottish masons from Canada introduced the technique to local masons while erecting a mill in nearby Cavendish in 1832. Local Chester resident, Dr. Ptolemy Edson became such a fan of the building that in 1834, he had his home, the first stone building in Chester, built in this method. He then would influence the rest of the North Village of Chester, where many of his neighbors, as well as the church and schoolhouse, built their structures in snecked ashlar. The Sherwin House is one of three near-identical houses built around the same time that are colloquially known as the “Three Sisters” because they were built for members of the same family. The Greek Revival form is toned down in this smaller side-hall house, which playfully uses large blocks of schist and mica which read as quoins at the corners. Simeon Sherwin (1813-1874) was a farmer, postmaster, and justice of the peace in Chester. Later owner, Olivia Goldsmith, wrote her bestseller, First Wives Club when she lived here.