Ransom F. Taylor House (1907)
The house at 6 Oak Street in Worcester was built in 1906-1907. It was the home of Ransom F. Taylor, son of Ransom C. Taylor (d.1910), a wealthy real estate developer who became Worcester’s largest property owner. According to Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts, Vol. II (1907), Ransom Frederick Taylor
was born in Worcester[.] He married Virginia Byrd Chapman, of York, Pennsylvania. He was educated at the Highland Military Academy, Worcester, and Phillips Andover Academy. He has for a number of years been associated with his father in business and has shared the management of his property largely. In recent years he himself has been a large investor in real estate and is accounted as one of the shrewdest and most accurate judges of the values of real estate in the city.
The house was purchased by Becker College in 1955 and is now a dormitory called Merrill Hall, named for civic leader and trustee of the college, Everett E. Merrill.
I only remember my grandparent’s house
vaguely. My grandfather was long gone
& my grandmother was very old & I was
just shy of 5. Still, I remember her as an
imposing figure, all 4 feet 11 of her. FFT
Was the house used as a funeral home for any period of time before Becker College acquired it. Also thought I heard that there used to be a carriage house in the rear of the property that used to be the college library at one point?