Wells-Thorn House (1747)

by Dan//Colonial, Deerfield, Houses

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The Wells-Thorn House is one of the museum houses of Historic Deerfield. The oldest section of the house was built between 1717 and 1720 by Ebenezer Wells, a wealthy farmer. He lived in the house with his wife, Abigail Barnard wells, and two slaves, Lucy and Caesar. the building may have also have been used as a tavern from 1744-1749. This earlier section became an ell when a new section, now the main block of the house, was built in the Georgian style either between 1751 and 1757, or perhaps as early as 1747. Ebenezer Wells died in 1758 and the house passed through several different owners, eventually being purchased by Luanna Thorn in 1905. She and her husband, Dr. Edwin Thorn, were involved in the Deerfield Arts and Crafts Revival movement. Luanna ran her Deerfield Handicrafts Shop at the rear of the house. The home was acquired by Historic Deerfield in 1962. Inside, the house represents the decorative arts of different historical periods in each room. It also inspired the construction of a replica, the Benjamin Morrow House. Edit: Current research indicates that the entire house was built in 1755.

Sheldon-Hawks House (1754)

by Dan//Colonial, Deerfield, Houses

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The John Sheldon House, also known as the Sheldon-Hawks House, on the Street in Deerfield, was built perhaps as early as 1743, but more likely in the period from 1754-1757. Built by John Sheldon, the grandson of Ensign John Sheldon. it was occupied by three generations of the Sheldons, a farming family. In 1802, a single-story ell was added to the rear. The house was the birthplace of George Sheldon, an early preservationist, who wrote A History of Deerfield and founded the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Society. George Sheldon inherited the house in 1860 and in 1871, his daughter, Susan Arabella, moved in with her husband, Edward A. Hawks. After Edward’s death in 1925, it was inherited by their daughter, Susan Belle Hawks, who ran The Old Homestead Antiques Shop from her home. It was acquired in 1946 by Henry and Helen Flynt, the founders Historic Deerfield, and is open for self-guided tours.

New Old South Church (1875)

by Dan//Boston, Churches, Gothic

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Boston’s New Old South Church, on Boylston Street, is located off Copley Square, not far from Trinity Church, and was built in 1874-5. At that time, the congregation moved from its famous eighteenth century meetinghouse. Designed in a Venetian or Northern Italian Gothic style by Charles Cummings, based on the High Victorian Gothic ideas of John Ruskin, the church makes a strong architectural statement on its prominent corner location, contrasting with the neoclassical Boston Public Library across the street. John Evans, a sculptor from Scotland, carved the exterior sculpture of both New Old South and Trinity churches. The original tower began to lean and was removed in 1931, eventually being replaced by a newer and shorter tower in 1941.

Trinity Church, Boston (1877)

by Dan//Boston, Churches, Romanesque Revival

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Boston’s Trinity Parish (established in 1734) lost its church on Summer Street in an 1872 fire. They held a design competition for the building of a new church on Copley Square. The winner was H. H. Richardson, whose Romanesque design contrasted with his competitors’ preference for the Victorian Gothic. Richardson, who would produce in Trinity Church one of America’s great buildings, planned the building as a compact Greek Cross with a very prominent central tower. This centralized plan contrasted with the more typical narrow Latin Cross, in which clergy and congregation were separated. In the course of construction (1872-1877), the plan for the tower was eventually altered to a more complex design, inspired by the Cathedral of Salamanca and possibly influenced by Stanford White, who was apprenticing under Richardson at the time. Granite and Longmeadow sandstone were used in the construction. The interiors were realized by the artist, John La Farge, assisted by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Richardson wished to rebuilt the two front towers, lowering them. Alterations were eventually made after his death when the portico and new towers were added between 1894 and 1897 under the successor of his practice, Hugh Shapley (of Shapley, Rutan, and Coolidge). More recently, geothermal wells have been drilled for heating and cooling. The adjoining Parish House (1874) has features which link it stylistically to the church.

Memorial Church, Harvard (1931)

by Dan//Cambridge, Churches, Collegiate, Colonial Revival

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Built to face the massive Widener Library across Harvard Yard, Memorial Church was built in 1931-2 and dedicated on Armistice Day 1932 in honor of those who died in World War I. Memorials to Harvard students who died in later wars have since been added inside the church. Memorial Church was designed in the Georgian Revival style by the architectural firm of Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbot.

Charles Street Meeting House (1804)

by Dan//Boston, Churches, Federal

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Designed by Asher Benjamin in 1804, the Charles Street Meeting House in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood began as the Third Baptist Church of Boston (it was built on reclaimed land near the Charles River where baptisms could be performed). In the 1830s, abolitionist members, led by Timothy Gilbert, challenged the church’s segregationist seating arrangements and went on to found the integrated Tremont Temple Baptist Church. In the years before the Civil War, the church became a center of abolitionism, with many notable speakers addressing audiences there, including William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. From 1876 to 1939, the building was the African Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1920, the church was moved ten feet west to accommodate the widening of Charles Street. With the departure of the African-American community from the north slope of Beacon Hill, it served as an Albanian Orthodox Church and lastly a Unitarian Universalist Church to 1979. In the 1980s, the Charles Street Meeting House was converted to secular use as offices. The building is on the Black Heritage Trail.

Somerset Club (1819)

by Dan//Boston, Federal, Houses

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The home of David Sears, on Beacon Street in Boston, began as a 2-story bowfront house, built in 1816-1819 and designed by Alexander Parris. The left section of the house, featuring a second bowfront, was added by Sears in 1832, and in the 1830s, the house was the most expensive in Boston. The building has been home to the exclusive Somerset Club since 1872, when the third floor was added. Today, the house gives an impression of monumentality, with its large size and granite facade.