Joseph Burnett House (1850)

by Dan//Houses, Second Empire, Southborough

Joseph Burnett (1820-1894) was born in Southborough and studied chemistry in Worcester. In 1837, he moved to Boston, working for, and eventually partnering (in 1845) with, Theodore Metcalf. They had a chemist shop on Tremont Row (now Tremont Street). A woman’s request for vanilla in 1847 led him to develop a premium vanilla extract, which previously had to be imported from France. He eventually established his own business as a manufacturing chemist, Joseph Burnett and Company. Back in Southborough, Burnett purchased land and established the Deerfoot Farms Company, originally a dairy farm, which later also became known for its sausages. Burnett also established an estate, off Main Street in Southborough, where he built a stone mansion. Here he lived with his wife, Josephine Cutter Burnett, and twelve children. Constructed in 1849-1850, the house was updated in 1860. The house was sold out of the family in 1947.

Charles Burnett-Warner Oland House (1815)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Southborough

In 1783, Charles Ripley Burnett, farmer and rope maker, married Lovina Mathews, a descendant of the earliest settlers of Southborough. The couple lived in the Matthews Homestead, known as the garrison house, on Gilmore Road, in the Southville section of Southborough. Their son, Charles R. Burnett Jr., married Keziah Pond in 1815 and soon built a house, adjacent to his father’s, on Gilmore Road. It was here that Charles and Keziah‘s son, Joseph Burnett, was born in 1820. He would become a prominent businessman and chemist. In the twentieth century, the Burnett House became the summer home of actor Warner Oland and his wife, artist Edith Gardener Shearn. Born in Sweden, Oland is most remembered for his role as Charlie Chan in the 1930s. He and his wife also translated plays by August Strindberg. Oland died while visiting Sweden in 1938 and his ashes are buried in Southborough. The stone marker is from his Southborough home, called Smoke Tree Farm.

Southborough Community House (1906)

by Dan//Houses, Shingle Style, Southborough

William A. White, a Boston lawyer, built a shingle-style home on Main Street in Southborough in 1906. In 1921, the house was acquired by White’s friend, Charles F. Choate, who donated it to the Southborough Village Society, a village improvement society organized in 1922. Called the Community House, the building became a focal point for local activities and even had a bowling alley at one time. When he gave the house to the Society, Choate stipulated that it be shared with the Leo L. Bagley Post of the American Legion. Choate hired architect Charles M. Baker to design a one-and-a-half story east wing (1921-1922) to serve as the Post’s headquarters.

Southborough Town House (1870)

by Dan//Italianate, Public Buildings, Southborough

This week, we’ll look at some buildings in Southborough. The current Southborough Town House was dedicated in 1870 and replaced its predecessor, built in 1840. That wood Greek Revival structure burned in 1869 and there were insinuations at the time that local residents had had a hand in its destruction so it that it could be replaced by a grander building, although no evidence to that effect was ever found. The new brick structure had an upstairs hall that was used for town meetings until 1969. Joseph Burnett, Southborough businessman and philanthropist, made a large donation for the building’s construction and chose Framingham architect Alexander Rice Esty to design it. The town hall building‘s interior was eventually subdivided and is currently used for town offices.

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)”