Category: Greek Revival

Capt. Harvey Coffin Mackay House (1842)

by Dan//Gloucester, Greek Revival, Houses

Capt. Harvey Coffin Mackay (1786-1869) was a master of packet boats that sailed between Boston and England and sailing vessels that traded in other parts of the world. His original name was Joshua Gee Whittemore Jr., but he changed it to Harvey Coffin Mackay in 1813. He married Sally Somes in 1816. Mackay was Captain of the ship Boston, which made its first passenger voyage to Liverpool in May, 1828. He was in command of the ship on May 26, 1830, when it was struck by lightning and sank after catching fire.

Capt. Mackay’s house in Gloucester, located at 19 Pleasant Street, was built in 1842. From 1889 to 1907, the house was owned by Dr. Joseph Everett Garland (1851-1907), who had his surgery in the attached ell. The house is now used for commercial purposes and the windows on the first floor were enlarged at some point.

Mark Dewey Hat Shop (1816)

by Dan//Commercial, Greek Revival, Houses, Sheffield, Vernacular

On the grounds of the Sheffield Historical Society is a building, constructed about 1816, that once served as a hat and cap manufactory for Mark Dewey and his three apprentices. While conducting his business in the building, Dewey lived next door, in the Dan Raymond House, which is also owned by the Historical Society. He sold his hatter’s shop in 1828. In the 1980s, the building was restored by the Society to house the Mark Dewey Research Center, a collection of historical materials relating to Sheffield and surrounding towns. Continue reading “Mark Dewey Hat Shop (1816)”

Cassidy Building (1845)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Houses, Sheffield

The Greek Revival commercial building at 116 Main Street in Sheffield was built c. 1845. In the early twentieth century it was known as the Cassidy Building and housed Sheffield’s Post Office, with James G. Cassidy as postmaster from 1914 to 1922, succeeded by Miss Beatrice Ellis from 1922 to 1934. The building was again the Post Office from 1957 to 1966, with J. Wesley Warren as postmaster. The building has housed a number of antiques dealers over the years. Most recently, it is home to Samuel Herrup Antiques.

Ralph Waldo Emerson House (1828)

by Dan//Concord, Greek Revival, Houses

The home of Ralph Waldo Emerson, where the philosopher, essayist, and poet lived from 1835 until his death in 1882, is located at 28 Cambridge Turnpike in Concord. The house was built in 1828 by the Coolidge family and was known as the “Coolidge Castle.” Emerson purchased it from John T. Coolidge for $3,500 and moved in just after he married his second wife, Lydia Jackson (called Lidian). Emerson had previously lived in Concord in his family’s home called the Old Manse. Emerson wrote numerous works while living in the house, which he called Bush, and had many famous visitors, including Henry David Thoreau, who lived with the Emersons at different times and built his famous cabin on Emerson’s land at Walden Pond. The house had to be extensively repaired after a fire in 1872. After Emerson’s death, his wife occupied it and then their unmarried daughter, Ellen Tucker Emerson, until her death in 1909. Still owned by the Emerson family, the house opened to the public as a private museum in 1930. The contents of his study are now located at the Concord Museum, across the street.

Concord Bank (1832)

by Dan//Banks, Concord, Greek Revival

The building at 46 Main Street in Concord was erected in 1832 for the Concord Bank (which later became the Concord National Bank) and the Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Company (incorporated in 1826), which occupied the first floor for many years. The Middlesex Institution for Savings was founded in 1835 and shared space with the Concord Bank on the second floor. Both institutions were robbed in a famous incident in 1865. By the 1880s, the insurance company had moved out of the first floor, part of which was then occupied by Frank Tuttle’s tailor shop. Starting in 1886, the post office was also located in the building for many years. When the bank vacated the second floor in 1894, Tuttle moved his tailoring business upstairs and continued there until his death in 1913, while the National and American Express companies had their offices on the first floor until 1914. Various office tenants and commercial businesses have occupied the building over the years.

Theodore Sedgwick House (1761)

by Dan//Colonial, Greek Revival, Houses, Sheffield

Although it now has a nineteenth-century Greek Revival appearance with eleven columns, the house at 126 Main Street in Sheffield dates back to 1761. In the 1760s, the house was rented by Dr. Lemuel Barnard, a physician who was one of the signers of the Sheffield Declaration, which was drawn up at the home of John Ashley in 1773. Seen as a predecessor of the Declaration of Independence, the Sheffield Declaration (or Sheffield Resolves) was a list of grievances against the British government and an outline of the basic rights of citizens. In 1768, David Ingersoll sold the house to Theodore Sedgwick, a Sheffield lawyer (born in West Hartford, Connecticut) who had written the text of the Sheffield Declaration. In 1781, he and Tapping Reeve represented Mum Bett, an enslaved woman at the house of John Ashley, who sued for her freedom under the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, part of which stated that “All men are born free and equal.” She won her freedom and took the name Elizabeth Freeman. Sedgwick was a delegate to the Continental Congress and would go on to serve as in the U.S. House and Senate. He was the forth Speaker of the House of Representatives (1799-1801) and served on the Massachusetts Supreme Court from 1802 until his death in 1813. In 1785, he sold the house at 126 Main Street to Elisha Lee, also an attorney, who was appointed the first postmaster of Sheffield in 1784.

Old Town Hall, Westfield (1837)

by Dan//Greek Revival, Italianate, Public Buildings, Schools, Westfield

The building at 20 Broad Street in Westfield, erected in 1837-1838, served as Town Hall from 1839 until 1920, when a city government was organized. It then continued as City Hall until 1958. The building also held the first formally organized Westfield High School classes from 1855 until 1867. The old Town/City Hall once had a cupola, which was removed in 1912. The neighboring First Congregational Church purchased the building in 1962. It now houses The Carson Center for Human Services.