First Congregational Church of Boylston (1927)

by Dan//Boylston, Churches, Greek Revival

First Congregational Church of Boylston

The origins of the First Congregational Church of Boylston go back to 1742, when the North Precinct in Shrewsbury (now Boylston) was incorporated. The congregation’s first meeting house was built near the site of the present Old Cemetery. When the time came to build a new meeting house (constructed in 1793), there was a protracted controversy over where in town it should be located. After the decision was finally made to build the Church on the site of the present Sawyer Memorial Library, residents in the western side of town, who had wanted the church built closer to their homes, began the process which eventually led to the incorporation of West Boylston as a separate town. The third meeting house was built in the Greek Revival style in 1835. After it burned in 1924 it was replaced, on the same site, by the current church, completed in a similar style in 1927. The original bell of the third meeting house is used in the present building.

Salisbury House (1837)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Houses, Neoclassical, Worcester

Salisbury House, Worcester

At 61 Harvard Street in Worcester is the impressive Salisbury House, an unusual example of the Greek Revival style, built in 1835-1838 for Stephen Salisbury II by master builder Elias Carter. Stephen Salisbury II was a wealthy financier, civic leader and philanthropist. His son, Stephen Salisbury III, continued to live in the house after his father’s death in 1884. He was also a philanthropist and a founder of the Worcester Art Museum in 1896. When Stephen Salisbury III died in 1905, he left the house to the Museum, which used it for the Art Museum School until 1939. Two years later it was sold to the Worcester American Red Cross which uses the building as its headquarters. When Harvard Street was widened in 1931, the house was moved a few feet northwest of its original site.

Morgan Block (1820)

by Dan//Commercial, Federal, Westfield

Morgan Block, Westfield

The Morgan Block, 3-7 Court Street in Westfield, was built c. 1817-1820 by Major Archippus Morgan (1772-1857). Morgan operated a general store on the premises with his partner Martin Cowles and rented additional space for other shops. The YMCA’s first hall in Westfield opened in the building in 1866 (it was here for only three years). Sarah Morgan Way made alterations to the building later in the nineteenth century, adding the bay windows, dormer windows and entry door surrounds. The Morgan Block today houses various professional service offices.

The Manse, Northampton (1744)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Northampton

The Manse

The Manse is a house at 54 Prospect Street in Northampton. It was built in 1744 (or as early as 1737?) on the foundation of the original 1684 parsonage house of Rev. Solomon Stoddard, Northampton’s second minister and the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. The original house passed to Rev. Stoddard’s son, Colonel John Stoddard, who built the current house. Col. Stoddard negotiated the return of the captives taken to Canada from the Deerfield Raid of 1704. The Stoddard family owned the house until 1812. A later resident was Josiah Gilbert Holland, an editor of the Springfield Republican and a founder and editor of Scribner’s Monthly. Holland also wrote novels, poetry and such non-fiction works as a History of Western Massachusetts (1855) and an influential biography of Abraham Lincoln, published in 1866. He and his wife Elizabeth were also friends and frequent corespondents of Emily Dickinson. The house’s cupola is a mid-nineteenth-century addition. The house was an inn for a time in the twentieth century.

Corcoran School (1900)

by Dan//Clinton, Colonial Revival, Queen Anne, Schools

Corcoran School

The Corcoran School, at 40 Walnut Street in Clinton, opened in 1900 as a public grammar school. It is the third school to occupy the southwest corner of Walnut and Church Streets since 1846: the original wooden schoolhouse on the site was replaced by a high school, built in 1854, which became a grammar school in the 1880s and stood until it was taken down in 1899 in preparation for building the current structure. Designed by Boston architect Charles J. Bateman, the school was originally called the New Grammar School or School House #10, until 1918 when it was officially named in honor of John W. Corcoran, a former member of the school committee. Closed as a school in 1981, the building was rehabilitated in the 1990s to become the Corcoran House, an assisted living facility. The building has two notable facades, as seen in the images above and below.

Corcoran School

Abbott Tavern (1800)

by Dan//Boylston, Federal, Taverns

Abbott Tavern, Boylston

The building at 4 Church Street in Boylston, known as the Abbott Tavern or the Christian House, was built c. 1800 and perhaps has portions built earlier. The property was acquired in 1803 by Capt. Jason Abbott (1772-1843), who operated a tavern there from 1806 to 1809. He later became a blacksmith. Squire Aaron White (1771-1846) acquired the property between 1809 and 1812 and either rebuilt or, more likely, just remodeled the existing tavern to become his mansion house. His wife, Mary Avery White (1778-1860), was an abolitionist and a prolific diarist and letter-writer. Charles Bray of Boston, a building contractor, bought the building in 1863 and also remodeled it. In 1963, it was acquired by the First Congregational Church of Boylston for use as offices and meeting rooms. Continue reading “Abbott Tavern (1800)”