Category: Natick

Masonic Block, Natick (1874)

by Dan//Commercial, Gothic, Natick, Organizations

A while back, I had a week on this blog featuring buildings in South Natick. Now I’ll be featuring some buildings in downtown Natick. In 1874, a massive fire destroyed 35 buildings in the downtown. New brick and stone structures were soon built to replace the lost ones. One of the these is the Masonic Block on Main Street, constructed of Vermont marble and completed in 1874. The polychromatic High Victorian Gothic building was designed by S.S. Woodcock and has commercial space on the lower floors and rooms on the upper floors used by the Meridian Lodge, originally established in 1797 by Paul Revere. A glimpse of the building’s occupants in the late nineteenth century can be found in the History of Middlesex County, Vol. I (1890):

Masonic Brick and Marble Block.—This was erected in 1874, and belongs to the estate of the late Leonard Morse. The front is of marble, the other walls are brick. It is occupied on the lower floor by the Atlantic Tea Stores Company, Messrs. Wilde & Soule, who deal in teas, coffees and crockery; by James F. Gray, manufacturer of confectionery and keeper of fruit for sale; by Leonard P. Stone, dealer in meats and vegetables, and by Beals’ Clothing and Furnishing establishment. In the second story are Mulligan’s billiard-room, Finn’s barber-shop, Dr. Abbott’s rooms for dentistry, and Miss Mabel Morse’s musicroom. The third and fourth stories are wholly occupied for Masonic purposes.

Sacred Heart Church, Natick (1889)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Natick

While Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Oldtown Folks depicts life in South Natick at a time in the late eighteenth century, when Congregationalists still dominated New England towns, other denominations would be established in the course of the nineteenth century. The first Catholic Church in Natick was Sacred Heart, constructed between 1873 and 1889 on Eliot Street. Services were held in the church before it was finally completed, with members meeting in the basement, sitting on plank and barrel benches, on Easter Sunday 1874. Sacred Heart Parish continued for 130 years, but was closed at Christmas 2004. The Archdiocese of Boston announced the closing of several parishes due to a shortage of priests and dwindling attendance and, perhaps, the financial impact of the priest sex abuse scandal. Most members of Sacred Heart soon joined other parishes, but others protested the decision. The appeals of Sacred Heart and nine other Boston-area parishes were denied by the Vatican earlier this year, although vigils continue at many closed parishes.

Bacon Free Library (1881)

by Dan//Libraries, Natick, Renaissance Revival

Funding for the Bacon Free Library, which overlooks the Charles River in South Natick, came from the estate of Oliver Bacon, who died in 1878, in memory of his wife. She had been the first librarian of the Bacon Library’s predecessor, which was initially located in her own home and then in a small brick building built in 1870. The Bacon Free Library, built in 1880-1881, also houses the Natick Historical Society Museum on the building’s lower level.

Goin Bailey House (1839)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Houses, Natick

In 1782, Eliakim Morrill (the model for the character Uncle Fly Sheril in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Oldtown Folks) built a tavern in South Natick, which he operated for seventeen years. He was followed by several other owners, until Goin Bailey took charge of it in 1849. In 1872, the original building burned and Bailey built a new hotel on the site, known as Bailey’s Hotel. After Goin Bailey’s death, in 1875, his son Almond Bailey ran the hotel, until 1907, when Mrs. R.G. Shaw bought the building and renovated it under the name of the Old Natick Inn. In 1930, she razed the old hotel and hired Charles Gorely to landscape a park in its place, which she gave to the town in 1932. Adjacent to Shaw Park is the Greek Revival house, built by Goin Bailey in 1839. When Moses Eames built a similar Greek Revival house in the same year on nearby Pleasant Street, he sought to distinguish his home from the Bailey House by adding a cupola and using Doric instead of the Bailey House’s Ionic columns. The Bailey House was occupied by Goin Bailey’s widow after his death and it now contains offices. Continue reading “Goin Bailey House (1839)”

Rev. Horatio Alger, Sr. House (1824)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Houses, Natick

Located on Pleasant Street in South Natick, not far from the Stowe House, is the house occupied by Rev. Horatio Alger, Sr. during the period when he served as minister at Eliot Church. Alger was the father of the popular author, Horatio Alger, Jr. Rev. Alger had been the minister at West Church in Marlborough from 1845 to 1859, before moving to Natick, where he died in 1881. The Alger House was built by Oliver Bacon about 1824 (Bacon had acquired the land from the Bigelow family). In 1869, Bacon sold it to H.H. Hunnewell, a wealthy businessman, philanthropist and horticulturist. Hunnewell bought the house to provide a residence for Rev. Alger, who lived there until he died. In 1909, Hunnewell deeded it to the church as a parsonage.

Sam Lawton House (1798)

by Dan//Houses, Natick, Vernacular

In her 1869 novel, Oldtown Folks (1869), Harriet Beecher Stowe presents the lives of people in a old Massachusetts town, based primarily on reminiscences of real individuals by her husband, Prof. Calvin Ellis Stowe, who grew up in South Natick. One of the prominent characters in Oldtown Folks is Sam Lawson, who also appears as the narrator in another work by Stowe, Sam Lawson’s Oldtown Fireside Stories (1872). Sam Lawson was based on Sam Lawton, an actual resident of South Natick. As written in Proceedings of the reunion of the descendants of John Eliot “The Apostle to the Indians” at Guilford, Conn., Sept. 15, 1875; Second Meeting at South Natick, Mass., July 3, 1901, and the 250th anniversary of the founding of So. Natick, July 4th, 1901 (1901),

Near the tavern, about where Cooper’s drug store now stands, was the store, where was sold everything from hoe handles up to cambric needles, where the post office was kept, and where was a general exchange of news. There Sam Lawton, the village gossip and do-nothing, whose name Mrs. Stowe has changed in her story to Lawson, used to sit on a convenient barrel and swap stories with the farmers whose wagons stood hitched around the door, while their wives and daughters were shopping among the dress goods and ribbons.
“Sam Lawson” is the most unique character in the Oldtown story, and is also one of the most true to life. Those who remember the real Samuel Lawton say the sketch of him is not at all exaggerated.

In an article called “South Natick in Fact and Fiction,” (The New England Magazine, Vol. 23, no. 2. Oct. 1904, Edith A. Sawyer writes that

The “Sam Lawson,” or Lawton, house stands on Eliot street, between the Parson Lothrop house on the one hand and the tavern-site on the other, and not far from the Bacon Free Library. The basement, Sam used for his blacksmith shop. He occupied this place from 1798 to 1812, when he sold it, and leased a small one-story house with basement below, nearly opposite. Here he lived until his removal to Newton Lower Falls, in 1828, where he died.

The Sam Lawton House was purchased in 1812 by Benjamin Bird of Needham, who was also a blacksmith, and was occupied by his family after his death in 1836. In 1867 the house was sold to William Selfe. When Eliot Street was widened in the 1870s, the house was moved back 16 feet from the street to its present location.

Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Natick (1816)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Natick

The sign in front says “The Harriet Beecher Stowe House,” but the historic structure at 2 Pleasant Street in South Natick, which now serves as lawyers’ offices, was not a residence of the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Instead, it was built during the childhood of her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe, who had grown up in the neighborhood. Stowe was born in Natick in 1802, but the death of his father in 1808 left Calvin, his mother and brother in need of financial support. They went to live with the family of Calvin’s grandfather, Col. William Bigelow, in Natick and, with the help of local ministers, Calvin was able to graduate from Bowdoin College with honors in 1824. By the 1830s, Calvin was teaching sacred literature at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. After the death of his first wife, Eliza Tyler, in 1836, he married her best friend in Cincinnati, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, daughter of the Seminary‘s president, Lyman Beecher. The couple later made visits to the house at Pleasant Street in Natick. It had been built in 1816 by Dr. Alexander Thayer, on land he had acquired from Col. Bigelow. Dr. Thayer, who had married Bigelow’s daughter, built the house for his father-in-law. Thayer’s son, Alexander Wheelock Thayer, later became the author of a famous biography of Beethoven.

Drawing on reminiscences of her husband and in-laws and possibly the written source, “A Brief Account of the Customs and Manner of Living in the Days of our Forefathers” in Oliver N. Bacon’s A history of Natick (1856), Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the novel, Oldtown Folks, published in 1869, and the story collection, Oldtown Fireside Stories, published in 1872. According to the Genealogy of the Bigelow family of America (1890), Stowe’s grandfather, William Bigelow

was the original character described by Harriet Beecher Stowe in the story of “Old Town Folks” as “Deacon Badger,” his wife Hepsibah is described as “Grandmother Badger,” and those who remember them say that their characters were most accurately depicted. William, the eldest son, is described as “Uncle Bill,” Hepsibah (the mother of Prof. Calvin E. Stowe), was known as “Susy,” while Eunice figured as “Aunt Lois,” and Abigail as “Aunt Keziah.”

Calvin Stowe was also an author. His book, Origin and history of the Books of the Bible was published in 1868. Continue reading “Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Natick (1816)”