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)”

Eliot Church, South Natick (1828)

by Dan//Churches, Federal, Natick

This week we will be looking at buildings in South Natick. The Puritan missionary John Eliot first settled Natick in 1651. It was the first of the towns he established for settlement by the Praying Indians, who had converted to Christianity. Eliot, working with Praying Indian translators, produced an Indian grammar and the Natick Bible. The Praying Indian village was in South Natick, along the banks of the Charles River. The Indian church that Eliot established in Natick in 1651 continued under his successor, the first Native American minister, Rev. Daniel Takawambpait. The church suffered through the breakup of the Praying Indian villages during King Philip’s War. By 1699, the original meeting house had fallen into disrepair, and the remaining Christian Indians of Natick petitioned the General Court to allow them to sell a portion of their plantation to John Coller, Jr., a carpenter, in exchange for his building them a new church. This was accomplished by 1702 and Daniel Takawambpait preached in the new church until his death in 1716.

Another new meeting house was built on the same site in 1721 and in 1729 a new church society was established, consisting of both Indians and English settlers, the latter of whom were rapidly migrating into the area. But the experiment of a communal church did not last: Indian membership continued to decline and the church experienced internal conflict over theological issues and the location of the new meeting house. It was begun, on the site of its predecessors, in 1749, but not finished until until 1767. This occurred during the tenure of Rev. Stephen Badger, last missionary to the Natick Praying Indians, whom many English-descended residents refused to accept as their minister. After Rev. Badger’s retirement in 1799 and death in 1803, the South Natick church was abandoned and in 1802, a new First Congregational Church was organized to the north, in what is now the center of Natick. In 1828, the South Parish Congregational Church was organized and built a church on the site of the four earlier Praying Indian meeting houses. The church became Unitarian in 1870, under the ministry of Rev. Horatio Alger, Sr. The building’s clock was installed in 1872 and the vestry was added in 1880. In 1944, the Unitarian church joined with the John Eliot Congregational Church, both of which had been experiencing financial difficulties, and the two churches used the Unitarian meeting house for worship. The congregations merged in 1990, becoming the united Eliot Church of South Natick.

Granville Public Library (1902)

by Dan//Granville, Libraries, Romanesque Revival

The libraries designed by Hartford architect George Keller are considered by some to be the high points of his career. Like the libraries he had designed earlier for the Connecticut communities of Norfolk (1888) and Ansonia (1892), Keller’s plan for the Granville Public Library is in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The building, which opened in 1902, features a rubble foundation, yellow brick construction with red sandstone, round tower and slate hip roof. Keller may have been influenced by the design of the library in Shelton, Connecticut, designed by Charles T. Beardsley, which also used yellow brick and was in turn influenced by Keller’s Ansonia Library. The Granville Library was founded after Milton B. Whitney of Westville, originally from Granville, donated $5,000, a sum which was added to by donations solicited by the women of the Granville Literary Club.

David Ames, Jr. House (1826)

by Dan//Federal, Houses, Springfield

David Ames, Jr., a Springfield paper manufacturer, was the son of Col. David Ames, first superintendent of the Springfield Armory. The David Ames Jr. House, at 241 Maple Street, on Ames Hill in Springfield, was built in 1826-7 and was the work of Chauncey Shepard, a prominent local architect and builder. In 1867, Solomon J. Gordon, a New York City lawyer, purchased the property and Shepard was hired to remodel the house he had built forty-one years earlier. Gordon lived in the house until his death in 1891. Today the house is known as Young House and is part of the campus of the MacDuffie School.

The Tudor, Boston (1887)

by Dan//Apartment Buildings, Boston, Hotels, Queen Anne

The Tudor Apartments, designed by S.J.F. Thayer and built in 1885-1887, are at 34½ Beacon Street at Joy Street in Boston. Construction of the nine-story building so close to the Massachusetts capitol led to a height restriction law for the area. The Queen Anne-style building combines a variety of architectural styles. The design makes particular advantage of natural light on the Joy Street side of the building. Built as an apartment hotel, for much of the twentieth century the Tudor housed both apartments and offices. In 1999, it was renovated and converted into seventeen exclusive luxury condominiums.