Vernacular Architecture

Kingston Powder House // 1806

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Kingston Powder House is located at 16 Green Street adjacent to the historic Faunce Schoolhouse in Kingston, Massachusetts. The astylistic, 10-foot-square wooden building may seem like a generic structure, but it is significant as a rare, intact example of wooden powder house, and one of only four extant in New England (there are more numerous examples of brick or stone powder houses). The Kingston Powder House was constructed in 1806 to store gunpowder and shot for the town militia. It was likely constructed on footings or directly on the ground, making it relatively easy to move, possibly to keep it away from the growing town in case of explosion. The Powder House has been moved several times in its lifetime and has been settled here in the town center and is awaiting a restoration using Community Preservation Act grants. I can’t wait to see this building preserved!

Corbett House // c.1789

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Corbett House is a charming Federal-period house in Westborough, Massachusetts, and was the birthplace of Henry W. Corbett, an important figure who helped develop Portland, Oregon in the 19th century. This house was built around 1789, the year that Henry’s parents, Elijah and Malinda Corbett, married. The property was farmed for years until Elijah Corbett began an axe manufacturing company here, becoming the first edge-tool manufacturer in Westborough. The rear ell was likely added in 1815 for this purpose. Elijah retired and the family sold the property in 1831 to Lawson Harrington, who continued the business until around the time of the Civil War. The Corbett family settled in New York, where Henry would engage in business. By the mid-19th century, westward expansion and opportunity took hold, and the Oregon Territory became a U.S. territory, leading Henry to establish business there, followed by many of his siblings. Corbett set sail from New York on the long voyage through the Straits of Magellan around Cape Horn up the Pacific Coast to Portland with $25,000 worth of goods to establish business in this new territory. Henry would become City Treasurer of Portland, member of the city council and chairman of the Republican Oregon State central committee. In 1867, he was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, serving until 1873. Who would have guessed that this house in Westborough would have connections to the growth of Portland, Oregon!?

Rice-Harrington House // c.1731

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This charming Federal style house sits on Maynard Street in Westborough, Massachusetts, and according to local records, dates to the early-mid 1700s. The property was originally owned by Eliezer Rice (1703-1767), a farmer and town constable, and likely built around the time of his marriage to Persis Newton, who died in 1746 during childbirth. After Eliezer’s death, the property was owned by an E. Harrington, who likely rotated the earlier structure 90 degrees and built the Federal style residence facing the street, utilizing the 100-year old house as a rear kitchen ell, or completely modernized the old residence, retaining the central chimney. The Federal house features a symmetrical facade, pilastered entry with fanlight transom window, and a large central chimney.

Stonington Opera House // 1912

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The Stonington Opera House in Stonington, Maine, is a historic early 20th century community center and theater in a vernacular style. The theater was built in 1912, on the site of an earlier hall built in 1886, that seated more than 1,000 people and hosted national touring shows that arrive via steamboat from Rockland. The original theater was destroyed by fire in 1910 and was soon-after rebuilt. It continued the practice of the earlier facility, hosting theatrical productions, lectures, and community events. Its floor was covered with removable folding chairs, so that the space could be used for dances and other social events. It was fitted for screening films around 1918, which came to dominate its uses in the mid-20th century. Unlike other early theaters, which were generally incorporated into municipal buildings, this one was specifically built as a profit-making venture, and was designed to accommodate elaborate theatrical productions, and is probably the oldest of this type in the state. After being vacated for much of the later half of the 20th century, the Stonington Opera House was restored and reopened by Opera House Arts, a local nonprofit, in 2000, and is once again used primarily for film screenings and theatrical productions.

Scotland Town Hall // 1896

Buildings of New England2 Comments

The town of Scotland, Connecticut, is a rural community centered around agriculture and is the smallest municipality in Windham County’s ‘Quiet Corner‘. European settlement began in earnest following the purchase of 1,950 acres of land from then Windham, by Isaac Magoon, a Scotsman, who named the new village after his ancestral home. The present-day town hall and offices of Scotland, was originally built in the 1840s as a one-room schoolhouse. In 1894, the town voted to consolidate all the school districts in a single building, and to expand the one-room village school to accommodate them. The present two-story structure was completed in 1896 and was added to the front of the old building. It is unclear if anything remains of the original schoolhouse. The vernacular, Stick style building served as the town’s consolidated school until a modern school building was constructed in the 1960s. This building became the town hall/offices and remains a significant visual anchor to the town’s common.

West Cornwall Old Toll House // c.1800

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

This modest, vernacular frame structure in West Cornwall, Connecticut, perhaps erected as early as 1800, has served a number of commercial purposes in its history, most significantly as a toll house. The structure was a toll booth for the two turnpikes which crossed near the site – the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike, and the Warren Turnpike, which ran along the Housatonic River. Before the days of EZ-Pass and transponders, travellers would pay their tolls to a worker in this building. Eventually the street became free to use, and the building was acquired for commercial use. It now serves as a showroom for a local cabinetmaker, but retains the original charm and historic sign above the door. How charming is that?

Old Goshen Town Hall – Goshen Players // 1895

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

The first purpose-built official town building of Goshen, Connecticut, was this wood-frame structure at the main junction in the central village as the town’s first town hall. Built in 1895, the structure originally housed offices for the selectmen and town clerk, a fireproof vault for records, and a large audience-room with stage for town meetings and ceremonies. The building employs a more traditional form similar to the old Greek Revival meetinghouses built in New England in the first half of the 19th century, but with a shingled, Victorian entry tower with bell roof. When the Town of Goshen moved into its present town hall building, this structure became the home to the Goshen Players, a community theatre established in 1949, and is the second oldest continuously performing theatre group in the state.

Georgetown Engine House No.5 // c.1860

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Following a devastating fire in Georgetown in 1874, local residents of the town petitioned at a town meeting to purchase a fire engine and a lot to erect a new engine house to prevent such a loss again. Within a year, voters approved not only the construction of a new engine house on Middle Street, near the commercial center of town, but also to move this charming single-engine firehouse at to a site to “the south part the town”. This structure was deemed inadequate for the dense commercial village and instead of demolishing it, town voters decided it could be relocated to another area and put to use. A volunteer company was formed for the new engine house and the small structure remained as a firehouse until the early 20th century when modern fire apparatus would no longer fit in the building. The building was sold by the town and has remained in private ownership since the 1920s, and its use is unknown to me, but the owners are doing a great job maintaining this significant structure.

Dry Mills Schoolhouse // 1858

Buildings of New EnglandLeave a comment

Before the use of automobiles for everyday use, the winding roads in towns all over New England were once lined by charming one-room schoolhouses, to educate children without forcing them to travel too long of distances (like many of our parents and grandparents who had to walk to school uphill both ways!) The Dry Mills School was built by 1858 and is the last one-room schoolhouse of twelve that were built in Gray, Maine. All of the others have  been sold by the town, converted into houses, and/or torn down.  The school was in operation from before the Civil War until it closed its doors to public education in 1958.  In the early 1990’s, at a cost of $12,000, the building and the original granite slab foundation were moved to their current location on the Maine Wildlife Park Road and has been restored to its original appearance thanks to local residents who advocated for the preservation of the building. The interior retains an original chalkboard, period wood stove and furnishings. Today, it is a living museum, attesting to the educational environment in the mid 1800’s and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Old Ashby Academy – Ashby Grange Hall // 1820

Buildings of New England1 Comment

In 1819, less than a decade after the First Parish Church in Ashby, Massachusetts was built, a group of parishioners split to form their own congregation, erecting this Federal style building as its new house of worship a year later. The congregation grew and eventually would build a new church, the Ashby Congregational Church, in 1835. The building was soon after, sold to a group of citizens interested in starting an academy. In 1836 they opened Ashby Academy, which offered education beyond the eighth grade for those who could afford it. Ashby Academy closed in 1860 and the Town of Ashby purchased the building in 1864 for a high school and town offices, a use that remained until a new school was built in 1902. Since the 1970s, the building has been occupied as a local grange hall, and maintained by a local group, the Friends of the Ashby Grange Hall. The building is a significant, transitional Federal/Greek Revival style building in town with its pediment and elliptical windows.