new england history

Sherman’s Inn – Beverly Yacht Club // 1784

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One of the oldest homes in Marion, Massachusetts is this beautiful gambrel-roofed Cape house on Water Street, backing up to the town’s iconic harbor. The residence dates to at least 1784 constructed seemingly as an inn for sailors who would dock their ships in the harbor just behind the property. It was later acquired by Edward Sherman (1790-1867), a shipwright and carpenter who built schooners at the wharfs in town, becoming Sherman’s Inn. In 1868, his son Edward Franklin Sherman (1821-1907), also a ship carpenter, sold the waterfront property after his father’s death to Andrew A. Harwood, an admiral in the United States Navy, Commodore of the Washington Navy Yard, and through his mother, a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin! During the early twentieth century, the iconic property became the home of Dr. William McDonald, physician to Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1920s. Roosevelt sought Dr. McDonald’s medical advice after contracting polio. The Beverly Yacht Club acquired the building in 1955 and have maintained the building ever since. Interestingly, the Beverly Yacht Club was originally named after the town of Beverly, north of Boston, when members broke from the Eastern Yacht Club of Marblehead. For the first 23 years, the club had no fixed location, but eventually settled in Bourne, and then merged with the local Sippican Yacht Club. The Great Hurricane of 1938 destroyed their clubhouse and they were “homeless” for years until moving to Marion into this 1784 home, later expanding it to meet growing needs.


Hadley’s Store – Ryder-Harwood House // c.1806

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This late-Georgian style residence on Main Street in Marion’s Wharf Village is a stone’s throw from the harbor and has been conveniently located near the town’s Long Wharf since it was constructed around 1806. The building was constructed as a store for A. J. Hadley, where ships were outfitted for voyages. While Hadley’s store occupied the eastern half of the first story, the left side of the ground floor was Marion’s first post office. The second floor served as a clothes-making factory with the top floor operating as a sailmaker’s loft. By 1855, the structure was converted to a residence and owned by Sumner Ryder, who served as the Town Clerk and later joined the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. During the early 20th century, the property, with its widow’s walk, was owned by members of the Harwood family, including Ms. Sarah W. Harwood, who lived here with Margaret French (1860-1935) who was listed in the Census for decades as her partner, housemate, and boarder. 

Eastman House – Fleetwood Farm // c.1792

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Perched on a hill just outside Tamworth Village, the Eastman House stands as a stately Federal period farmhouse that later became a summer residence, a parallel to many similar homes in this community. The house was built around 1792 for William Eastman (1738-1800) a Revolutionary War veteran who settled in Tamworth and became selectman, Deacon of the Congregational Church, and Constable in town. The property functioned as a proper farm with detached barns and other agricultural structures that remain today. By the late 19th and early 20th century, the farm became a summer residence and given the name, Fleetwood Farm by residents.

Thaddeus Leavitt Jr. House // 1800

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One of the many grand homes on Main Street in Suffield is this Federal style home built in 1800 for a 21-year-old Thaddeus Leavitt. Like his father, Thaddeus was a merchant with a store in Suffield and . Immediately after the home was completed, Thaddeus got married and moved into the home with his new wife, Jemima Loomis. The home was altered in the 1850s with Italianate features including a belvedere and bay windows, which lasted into the 20th century. Since then, the home was restored back to its original Federal style.

Phelps-Hatheway House // c.1762

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Set back from tree-lined Main Street in Suffield, Connecticut, the Phelps-Hatheway House stands as one of the largest, and best-preserved Colonial era homes in New England. The center-chimney residence was built by 1762 by Thomas “Shem” Burbank, where he and his wife, Anna Fitch Burbank, raised nine children. Due to the unstable national economy during and after the American Revolution, the family’s financial situation suffered and they would sell the residence in 1788 to Oliver Phelps. at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Phelps joined the Continental Army and fought in the Battle of Lexington. He served as Deputy Commissary under George Washington and following the War, he became a prominent businessman and was elected to the Massachusetts Senate in 1785 and served on the Governor’s council in 1786 (Suffield was still a part of Massachusetts at this point). In 1794, Phelps commissioned the addition of a substantial wing designed by Thomas Hayden of Windsor. Under the employ of Hayden, a young Asher Benjamin, later to become one of the most important architects of the Federal period, was one of the workers on the new wing and is believed to have carved the Ionic capitals of the wing’s entryway. Inside, the addition was decorated with imported Parisian wallpaper. When Phelps died, the house was owned by the Hatheway family for a century and is currently open as a house museum, the Phelps-Hatheway House & Garden, administered by Connecticut Landmarks.

Elihu Kent Jr. House // 1787

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In 1775, when news of the Battle of Lexington reached Suffield, Connecticut, Elihu Kent Sr. (1733-1814) at the age of 42, took command of a local militia of 59 men the next day. The militia, along with his son Elihu Kent Jr. (then 16 years old) and a person whom he enslaved, Titus Kent, marched to Springfield, before heading east to Boston. The troops would end up on Long Island and Elihu Kent Jr. was captured by British forces and confined for a long time as a prisoner of war in the old Rhinelander Sugar House in New York. After his return to Suffield, Elihu Kent Jr. had this Georgian home on Main Street built for his family, where he ran an inn and operated a farm.

Old Kent Memorial Library // 1899

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In 1897, Sidney A. Kent (1834-1900), a native of Suffield, Connecticut and later a successful Chicago businessman, sought to gift his hometown a library in the memory of his parents, Albert and Lucinda Kent, who died nearly a half-century earlier. A site was purchased from the Suffield Academy and funding was set aside for the new library before the turn of the 20th century. For the memorial building in Suffield, Sidney Kent hired architectural giant, Daniel Burnham, designer of the famous Flatiron Building in New York, who had also designed Kent’s home in Chicago. The Kent Memorial Library was dedicated in 1899 and is a stunning example of a library built in the Classical and Beaux Arts styles. Executed in smooth, granite ashlar, the facade has a central portico of two Ionic columns in antis and a shallow dome in the center of the copper clad roof. The library would eventually be outgrown and a contemporary library was built nearby on the town’s Main Street. The old Kent Memorial Library was acquired by Suffield Academy and renamed the S. Kent Legare Library.


West Suffield Academy Hall // 1855

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Built in 1855 as the West Suffield Village school, Academy Hall served as one of Suffield’s public school buildings until 1913, when consolidated schools were built in town. Like in many New England communities, the old, wood-frame school building was repurposed, and due to the large agricultural community in Suffield (it was a major grower and exporter of tobacco), the old Academy Hall was occupied by the local Grange club, a social organization that encouraged families to band together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture. The handsome structure is owned by the non-profit West Suffield Village Improvement Association, and as of April 2026, the building is leased to the Suffield Historical Society, and is available for events. The structure features a Classical door surround, corner pilasters, entablature, and a large square cupola at the gable roof.

Milmore Memorial, ‘Death and the Sculptor’ // 1889

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The haunting yet beautiful monument, “Death and the Sculptor” in Forest Hills Cemetery is quite possibly my favorite piece of sculptural art and a gentle reminder to not take life for granted. Commissioned in 1889 and dedicated in 1893, the bronze monument was designed by Daniel Chester French, a sculptor best known for his 1920 monumental statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial, to memorialize sculptor, Martin Milmore and his brother Joseph, a stone-cutter. Rather than portraying death as frightening or violent, French depicts a serene winged figure gently staying the hand of a young sculptor at work, suggesting a peaceful transition from earthly labor to eternal rest. The sculpture’s quiet grace, emotional depth, and masterful craftsmanship have made it a landmark of American memorial art, inviting visitors to reflect on mortality, creativity, and the enduring power of beauty in the face of loss. To tie the work to its subjects, the young sculptor is carving a Sphynx, modeled after the 1873 sculpture the brothers worked on together that is located at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. A marble version of the work can also be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, carved in 1917 by the Piccirilli Brothers.

Hotel Lincolnshire // 1924

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The Hotel Lincolnshire is a stunning eight-story apartment building on the west side of Charles Street in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. The building was developed in 1924 by William Coombs Codman, a real estate developer and member of the Beacon Hill Associates, a group of preservationists who bought and resold properties in the neighborhood with the aim to limit unsympathetic development. The group helped the Beacon Hill Flat area, which was a higher concentration of former stables west of Charles Street, a gentrified artist and residential enclave. The Hotel Lincolnshire was marketed as a residential apartment hotel, with furnished and unfurnished apartments with greater amenities than a traditional apartment building. Beacon Hill resident and architect, Richard Arnold Fisher, was responsible for designing the building, where he employed the use of courtyards (similar to his design nearby at 101 Chestnut Street) and walls of brick with cast-stone details. Of special interest is the use of perforated terracotta panels laid in half-round forms and the stone pinnacles at the parapet.

Wrentham State School // 1910

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The Wrentham State School (also known as the Wrentham State Hospital) was authorized in 1906 as a school for the “feeble-minded”, and the campus is comprised of a few dozen buildings largely from the early to mid 20th century. The school was founded to house and treat developmentally disabled children and was the first in the state of Massachusetts to employ a standardized plan for wards and employee housing. A site occupied by farmhouses just north of Wrentham Center was selected and purchased by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The school officially opened in 1910 and brick structures were built to house students and workers. In its first year, 217 pupils were admitted to the facility, roughly half boys and girls. A majority of the early ward buildings were constructed in the early years of the school, with most designed by the Boston architectural firm of Kendall, Taylor & Stevens, who also designed many other similar facilities around the country in the early 20th century. Most buildings are examples of the Arts & Crafts and Colonial Revival styles built of brick. Today, the campus is comprised of roughly half, deteriorating historic buildings and half are used as part of the Wrentham Developmental Center, which continues the important (and under-funded) work of treating psychiatric and developmental disorders of patients.

Draper Corporation Factory Complex // 1892-2021

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2021 aerial photo

Hopedale, Massachusetts separated from Milford and incorporated in 1886. The “downtown” of the community encompasses industrial, institutional, and residential buildings in Hopedale Village, also known as Draper Village after the long-driver of the local economy, Draper Corporation. Hopedale was largely developed as a planned company town, and its architectural significance and ultimate preservation was largely due to the success of the Draper Corporation as majority owner until the 1950s. The Draper Corporation was originally a small operation in Hopedale in 1841 managed by George Draper (1817-1887), but grew exponentially thanks to his son, George Albert Draper (1855-1926), who had a passion for finding innovative technology to make the production of cloth more efficient. He led the company’s charge to become the nation’s leading producer of machines for the cloth-making industry. In the ensuing decades the factory village of Hopedale became a “model” company town under his leadership, with the business controlling every aspect of the town and worker life in a paternalistic program that extended beyond social structure to include architecture and urban planning of the village. The company developed hundreds of homes for workers, a town hall, library, churches, schools, a fire station, and recreational facilities, along with its factory complex at the center. In1892, with the advent of the Northrop Loom, Draper became the largest producer of textile machinery in the country. Due to their success at the end of the 19th century, much of the complex was built and rebuilt in fire-proof brick factory buildings with large windows to allow light and air into the facilities. Draper’s dominant position within the textile machine manufacturing industry began to erode shortly after World War II, and the company began to sell its company houses to their occupants as private homes in 1956. During the 1960s American textile machinery makers such as Draper lost their technological leadership to foreign manufacturers due to cheap labor, and the general American textile industry collapsed. The plant eventually closed in 1980, and sat vacant until it was decided by the local officials to raze the once great complex, as adaptive reuse was not feasible in the market for such large structures. The mill was demolished in the summer of 2021 and the lot at the center of town remains a brownfield site.

Southworth House – Deep River Historical Society // 1842

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The Southworth House, also known as the Old Stone House, in Deep River, Connecticut, is a significant example of a stone, Greek Revival style house built for an important local family. The Southworth House was constructed in 1842 for Deacon Ezra Southworth (1803-1859) from stone harvested from one of the Southworth family’s quarries. Ezra was the son of local shipbuilder, Job Southworth who began building ships at the Deep River landing in the 1790s. Ezra Southworth branched off into manufacturing, becoming a partner and patent holder producing ink wells. His son, Ezra Job Birney Southworth (1844-1919), went into business with his father-in-law in shipping and served as a member of the State Legislature twice. In 1882, Ezra Jr. added the wooden ell onto the rear of the Stone House along with the wrap-around veranda and likely the rear barn as well. Ada Gilbert Southworth Munson was Ezra J. B. Southworth’s only child to live to adulthood and inherited the family home. She was a founding member of the Deep River Historical Society and bequeathed her family home to the Society in 1946, who have maintained the significant home here ever since. 

Captain Calvin Williams House // c.1820

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This Federal period stone house with a later Victorian-era porch, is located on Kirtland Street in Deep River, Connecticut, an area dominated by homes built for sea captains and ship builders in the 19th century. Calvin Williams (1785-1833) married Eunice Southworth of Deep River in 1809, and in 1820, built this stately home from granite from the Southworth family quarry. Captain Williams did not get to enjoy his home much as he was often out at sea commanding shipping vessels out of New York. Likely due to failing health, in 1832, Capt. Calvin Williams retired from the sea and returned to his home on Kirtland Street before he died in August of 1833. Federal style features of the house, like the elliptical fanlight and modillons in the gable and a fanlight over the main entry remain, while later alterations after his death include the spectacular enclosed porch from the late 19th or early 20th century. 

Providence County Courthouse // 1926

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S. Main Street Elevation

The Providence County Courthouse complex occupies an entire city block running between Benefit Street and South Main Street and while of immense scale, is broken up into more human-scaled wings and masses that make the building one of the finest and contextual designs in a city full of amazing architecture. The courthouse here replaced the first courthouse, a stunning palace of justice designed by Stone & Carpenter in the High Victorian Gothic style, that was completed in 1877. The old courthouse was soon outgrown and a larger building was planned following WWI. The present courthouse was built between 1926 and 1930 following a design by Jackson, Robertson & Adams in the Georgian Revival style, fitting of its context amongst some of the finest Colonial-era houses and buildings in New England. The building today contains the Rhode Island Supreme Court, Providence County Superior Court, and the local trial court. The South Main Street facade is my favorite with the Guastavino tile roof entry and stunning colonnade at the street level. A multi-stage clocktower emerges from the center of the building, at a height of 216-feet, making the courthouse the 11th tallest building in Providence.

Benefit Street Elevation