Atkins-Fair House (1839)

The Atkins-Fair House is a Greek Revival-style dwelling at 39 Eliot Street in South Natick. The house was built in 1839 for the newly-married John Atkins. As written in the entry by Horace Mann on the “David Morse Place and Pelatiah Morse Place” in A Review of the First Fourteen Years of the Historical, Natural History and Library Society of South Natick, Mass. (1884):

In 1794, the old house and a portion of the David Morse estate had passed to the Welles family, and Hon. John Welles sold it to Capt. John Atkins of Truro. Atkins became a leader in society at Natick, and held important town offices. In the adjustment of “Lady Lothrop‘s” estate and the litigation that attended it, he was a conspicuous party; he is also one of the stars of Mrs. Stowe’s “Old Town Folks.” For a number of years he was one of the guardians of the Natick Indians, and during his administration of their affairs the last of their lands, the possessions of Hannah Thomas, passed to white ownership. In 1847 John Atkins sold the Morse estate to Hon. John Welles, and the so-called Eliot acre was deeded to Atkins by Hon. Chester Adams.

In 1883, the 1839 Atkins House was bought by William Fair.