Tag: Museum

Sargent House Museum (1782)

by Dan//Colonial, Gloucester, Houses

Sargent House Museum
Sargent House Museum

The Sargent House Museum is located at 49 Middle Street in Gloucester. Also known as the Sargent-Murray-Gilman-Hough House, the home was built in 1782 for Judith Sargent Murray (1751-1820), an author and early advocate for women’s rights, and her first husband, Capt. John Stevens, a merchant in the West Indies trade. Her second husband was John Murray, a founder of the Universalist Church in America. The museum has a collection of American furniture and art, including paintings by Sargent family descendant John Singer Sargent.

The Wayside (1717)

by Dan//Colonial, Concord, Houses, Victorian Eclectic

The Wayside in Concord (not to be confused with Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury) is a historic home (now part of Minute Man National Historic Park) that was the residence of several famous authors over the years. The oldest part of the house may date to as early as 1717. Minuteman Samuel Whitney, who owned two slaves, lived in the house at time of the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775. The first of the authors to live in the house was Louisa May Alcott, whose parents, Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May Alcott, owned it from 1845 to 1852. They named their home “Hillside” and made additions to the original saltbox structure (see image below). Many of Louisa’s experiences in the house were later incorporated in her famous book Little Women. The family would eventually move to Boston, but later in the 1850s would live back in Concord in nearby Orchard House. Nathaniel Hawthorne purchased the house from the Alcotts in 1852. Hawthorne renamed the house the Wayside and made his own additions to the building around 1860. He died in 1864 and his widow sold the house in 1870, but their daughter Rose and her husband, George P. Lathrop later owned it for a time, selling it in 1883 to Boston publisher Daniel Lothrop and his wife Harriett. Under the pen name Margaret Sidney, Harriett wrote The Five Little Peppers series of children’s books, published between 1881 and 1916. They added a large piazza to the west side of the house in 1887. The house was inherited in 1924 by their daughter, Margaret Mulford Lothrop (1884-1970), who worked to preserve the house and opened it for tours. Margaret also wrote a book about the house, The Wayside: Home of Authors (1940). In the 1960s, the house became the first literary site to be acquired by the National Park Service.
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Babson-Alling House (1740)

by Dan//Colonial, Gloucester, Houses

The Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester purchased the Babson-Alling House in February 2019 and the historic home is currently undergoing restoration to become part of a new museum campus that will include a new storage and programming facility, slated to open in June 2020. Located at the modern address of 243/245 Washington Street, the house was built in 1740 by Joseph Allen (1681-1750) or his son, William Allen (1717-1815), at what was then the town center, called the Green, adjacent to the White-Ellery House, also owned by the museum. In 1765, William Allen sold the house to Isaac Smith (1719-1797), a wealthy Boston merchant and slave owner who was the uncle of Abigail Adams. Scipio Dalton was an enslaved person who is thought to have lived in the attic of the house. He eventually gained his freedom from Smith in 1783 after a period of indenture.

Smith sold the house in 1779 to John Low, Jr. (1754-1801), a merchant and lieutenant in the militia. The house passed to his daughter, Eliza Gorham Low (1786-1862), who married Nathaniel Babson (1784-1836), a merchant and ship captain, in 1809. The house was eventually inherited by their son Gustavus Babson (1820-1897). Most of his brothers became seafarers, but Gustavus was a successful farmer on the property. He married his first cousin, Susan Stanwood Low (1820-1880). Their daughter, Ann Prentiss Babson Alling, moved to the house after the death of her husband in 1894 and maintained the property with her brother Nathaniel. Her daughter, Elizabeth L. Alling, also lived in the house for many years. The house may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War.

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Salisbury Mansion (1772)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Worcester

Salisbury Mansion

The Salisbury Mansion in Worcester was built in 1772 by merchant Stephen Salisbury to serve as both a residence and a store. The latter, where Salisbury sold imported goods, was closed down and converted to residential use in 1820. After Salisbury’s widow, Elizabeth Tuckerman Salisbury, died in 1851 the house was used as a rental property. In later years the house served as the Hancock Club, a gentleman’s social club. The mansion was originally located at Lincoln Square, which by the early twentieth century had become an industrialized area. In 1929 the mansion was willed to the American Antiquarian Society, which three years later transferred ownership to Worcester Art Museum. The house was moved to its current address at 40 Highland Street to make way for the Lincoln Square Boys Club. The Museum sold the mansion in 1950 to the Worcester Employment Society for use as a craft center. When that group later sought to tear down the building, concerned citizens formed the Salisbury Mansion Associates in 1955 and three years later purchased it. After sharing use of the mansion with the Worcester Girl Scouts Council for many years, the Associates restored the house, which in 1984 opened as Worcester’s first historic house museum. The following year the Associates merged with the Worcester Historical Museum, which now operates the historic site.

Still River Baptist Church (1832)

by Dan//Churches, Gothic, Harvard

Still River Baptist Church

The Baptist Church in the community of Still River in the town of Harvard was organized in 1776 by fourteen members of Harvard’s First Church. In 1782, the Baptist Society acquired the first meeting house building used in nearby Leominster. It was dismantled and reassembled as the Still River Baptist Church on land donated by the congregation’s first pastor, Dr. Isaiah Parker. The old meeting house was moved again to serve as a parsonage when the current church was built in 1832. Various alterations were made to the 1832 church over the years, including an addition in 1902. In 1967, the building, which is located at 213 Still River Road, was acquired by the Harvard Historical Society with the stipulation that they preserve the sanctuary, organ (added in 1870), and various furnishings. The Society converted the vestry into exhibit space

Worcester Historical Society Building (1892)

by Dan//Organizations, Romanesque Revival, Worcester

Worcester Historical Society Building

The Worcester Society of Antiquity was first organized in 1875. The Society acquired a permanent home after Stephen Salisbury III donated land at 39 Salisbury Street and $25,000 towards the construction of a new building. Built in 1890-1891, it was designed by Barker and Nourse. It was formally opened on June 28, 1892. The organization’s name was changed to the Worcester Historical Society in 1919 and to the Worcester Historical Museum in 1978. The Museum moved to a new and larger location at 30 Elm Street in 1988. The Museum’s former home is now used as a commercial building.