Worcester County

Old Houghton School // 1849

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In 1849, the Town of Bolton, Massachusetts, built its first high school, the Houghton School at 697 Main Street in the town center. Blending Greek Revival and Italianate styles, similar to Bolton’s 1853 Town Hall, the Houghton School is a large, two-story, pedimented building of wood-frame construction. Interestingly, the school was largely funded privately by a local resident, Joseph Houghton (1772-1847), who in his will, bequeathed land and $12,000 for a public high school for the town. By the terms of the donation, nine men (all of whom had at one time served as a Bolton tax assessor) and their descendants, were barred from attending the school for a hundred years. Questions about the bequest were put before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which disallowed this clause. An additional requirement, stipulated that no teacher could serve there longer than two years. That restriction was eventually put aside in the early 20th century. In 1917, the high school was discontinued. The fenestration was likely altered around this time. Bolton began sending its high-school students out of town to a school of their choice, and the Houghton School became the Bolton junior high school. In 1970-71, the building was converted to town offices, with the Town Clerk and Assessor on the first floor and the Police Department on the second. Since 2012, the building houses Bolton Access TV, as well as The Conservation Trust and Friends of the Bolton Library.


Dr. Amos Parker House // 1801

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Built in 1800-1801, this house on Main Street in Bolton, Massachusetts, had multiple owners in quick succession until 1806, when it was purchased by Dr. Amos Parker. Amos Parker (1777-1861) was born in Hubbardston and later moved to Bolton to work as the town’s doctor, and also served as Bolton’s first Postmaster, from an ell that was once attached to this residence. Dr. Parker and his wife, Elizabeth (Whitney,) had at least four children, who of which died as infants and two daughters remained unmarried. Elizabeth Lydia Parker (1809-1882) and Louisa Jane Parker (1812-1900) inherited their parent’s home and lived here until their deaths. Louisa worked as a teacher in Bolton schools, and was forced to remain unmarried to keep her teaching position by law. In 1904, the Parker home was acquired by the local Baptist church and occupied as a parsonage and was later sold to private owners who restored the home to its near-original condition.

Bolton Powder House // 1812

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Hidden away in the woods behind the Bolton Town Hall, this small brick structure sits atop a rocky outcropping and showcases a piece of early history we often do not think about. Built in 1812 as a powder house, a storage facility far from homes and businesses to store the town’s supply of gunpowder, musketballs and cannonballs, the structure remains as the town’s oldest extant municipal building. Since the founding of the colonies, the procurement and storage of ammunition had been the responsibility of local governments. Before this structure was built in the forest, Bolton‘s gunpowder and ammunition had been kept under the meetinghouse pulpit, not the best place suitable for highly explosive storage. The structure is a well-preserved example of a typical early 19th-century powder house, built of brick manufactured in town, laid in common bond, measuring just over seven-feet square with a pyramidal wood shingle roof.

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.

Bolton Town Hall // 1853

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The Town Hall building in Bolton, Massachusetts, is significant as the hub of the town’s municipal activities for the past century and a half and architecturally as a mid-19th century town hall built in the transitional Greek Revival and Italianate styles. The structure was completed by the town in 1853 as a replacement for the former 1834 wood-frame town hall, which had burned down in 1851. The original wood-frame building was constructed at the time that municipal functions were being moved out of town meetinghouses across Massachusetts following the desire to separate church and government functions. Like many town halls of its era, the larger 1853 building was designed to accommodate multiple aspects of the community’s institutional and public life. The two-story building included a fireproof vault for town records, with town meetings held in the second floor meeting hall, with selectmen meeting in a room on the first floor. A small room was fitted for a library until the early 20th century when the town’s first purpose-built library was constructed farther down Main Street. The fairly unadorned Town Hall was modernized in around 1916 with the addition of the front portico and a rear addition. The Bolton Town Hall remains as a source of pride for the small, yet charming town of just under 6,000 residents.

John E. Thayer Mansion // 1883

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Photo from real estate listing.

A lesser-known residence built for a member of the wealthy Thayer Family is this stately Queen Anne mansion tucked away in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. The John E. Thayer Mansion was built in the 1880s for its namesake, John Eliot Thayer (1862-1933), who graduated from Harvard College in 1885 and engaged in business before becoming one of the world’s most prominent ornithologists. John began collecting and housed his collections in several wooden buildings close to his home in Lancaster, but when these became unsafe and crowded he built a beautiful brick building in 1903 nearby, opening it to the public as a museum a year later. John Thayer hired esteemed Boston architect, John Hubbard Sturgis, who was then working with his nephew, Richard Clipston Sturgis, to design the English Queen Anne style country mansion. The residence features a stone first floor with wood-frame above that is given half-timbering treatment, suggesting the English design. John Thayer’s country mansion was a short walk away from his twin brother, Bayard Thayer’s mansion, and his other brother, Eugene’s country house, both in Lancaster. The house remained in the Thayer family until the 1960s, and was recently sold to new owners. The interiors are some of the best preserved for a country estate I have seen and worthy of the Thayer name. 

Fairlawn Mansion // 1883

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One of the great mansions built for the wealthy Thayer Family, “Fairlawn” stands as one of the finest Gilded Age homes in Lancaster, Massachusetts. This home was built for Eugene Van Renssalear Thayer (1855-1907), a financier and businessman, and his wife, Susan Spring Thayer. The gracious Richardsonianeque Shingle style house was designed by the Boston architectural firm of Andrews & Jacques as one of their first commissions after leaving the office of H. H. Richardson to establish their own practice. After the deaths of Eugene and Susan, the property was inherited by Susan Thayer Bigelow, the youngest daughter of the couple, and her husband, architect, Henry Forbes Bigelow. Under the ownership of Henry and Susan Bigelow, a massive renovation occurred, where Henry F. Bigelow oversaw in 1923, the removal of the south wing of the house, which was relocated to the south and became a detached residence, painted the brown-stained shingles white, and removed the Richardsonian arches to create a 20th century country house more in the Tudor Revival mode. From 1965, the property was owned by the former Atlantic Union College, and was colloquially known as the White House, but has since been sold to private owners. The former south wing, now a detached house, is under separate ownership. 

Detached portion of original house.

South Lancaster Engine House // 1888

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The South Lancaster Engine House is located in the village of South Lancaster, Massachusetts, and is one of the town’s three remaining historic fire stations and the oldest that remains in use by the local fire department. At the Town Meeting of June 18, 1887, it was decided that $3, 500 would be expended to build a station for the Fire Department in South Lancaster. Construction began in 1887, and was completed in March of 1888 from plans by architect, C.A. Woodruff. The station housed horse-drawn wagons, including one sleigh, and featured a bell in the belfry to call attention to the public. The station appears much like it did when built in 1888, besides the bright white paint color and the modification of the engine doors for the new, larger fire trucks. 

Thomas Jones House // 1834

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Thomas Jones of Lancaster married Mary Tweed of Lunenburg, Massachusetts, in June 1834 and immediately began building this house on Main Street in Lancaster for his new family. The Greek Revival style house is a refined example of brick with six-over-six sash double-hung windows and a Classical entry portico supported by Doric columns. The house was later owned by Sewell T. Rugg (1821-1892), a blacksmith who had a shop nearby.

John Bennett House // 1717

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The oldest residence in the North Village of Lancaster, Massachusetts, the John Bennett House dates to 1717 and evokes the old Colonial days of New England towns. John Bennett settled in Lancaster and built this large First Period house for his family and operated it as a tavern to weary travellers passing through town along the main turnpike. After Bennett’s death, local legend identifies that the property was a stopping place on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves escaping to Canada. This, however, has never been substantiated. From 1872 to 1874, the house was occupied by the first Adventist missionary, John Nevins Andrews, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The house is well-preserved and remains as one of the oldest in Lancaster and an important landmark of the early days of the community.