FORM B BUILDING Assessor s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Town Northborough Shrewsbury Place (neighborhood or village) Address Historic Name SOLOMON GODDARD HOUSE Uses: Present Original Residential Residential Date of Construction ca. 1750 Source Historical Society files, 1830 map Style/Form Colonial/Greek Revival Photograph Topographic or Assessor's Map East elevation, camera facing southwest. Architect/Builder Not known. Exterior Material: Foundation Stone, uncut Wall/Trim Roof Wood, clapboard Wood shingle Outbuildings/Secondary Structures Major Alterations (with dates) Greek Revival doorway; Victorian door, chimneys, cornice, and sash; ca. 1910 porch; attached barn recently completely remodeled or replaced. Condition Good Moved X no yes Date Acreage 1 acre Setting The house is in a residential area of mostly modern houses. Recorded by Bruce Clouette, PAST, Inc., Storrs, CT Organization: Northborough Historical Commission Date (month / year) March 2009 Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
BUILDING FORM ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION see continuation sheet Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community. The house has its 5-bay broad-side façade facing Whitney Street, with the entrance in the center. The entrance has a Greek Revival-style (ca. 1840-1850) surround consisting of plain pilasters supporting a lintel. The door itself is a panel-and-glass door dating from ca. 1880-1910. Windows have plain board frames, molded caps, and 2-over-1 sash. The shed-roofed open porch across the front, ca. 1900-1910, is supported on Tuscan columns and has a cobblestone foundation. Two small, widely spaced brick chimneys appear along the ridge. The cornice forms a pronounced overhang at the eaves. The house measures 32 feet by 26 feet in plan, with a 1-story 15-feet-by-14-feet ell connecting it to a large garage to the north. This garage either replaced or greatly enlarged a former small barn that was situated with its ridge in a line with that of the ell. The 1898 map shows a barn across the street. (continued) HISTORICAL NARRATIVE see continuation sheet Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community. According to research in the Northborough Historical Society files, this house was built about 1752 for Solomon Goddard (1734-1809). Later owners include Jonas Babcock (1780-1830), the name shown on the 1830 map; Jonas Babcock, Jr.; Dana Stone, indicated as D. Stone on the 1855 map, and Lyman T. Stone, shown as L. T. Stone on the 1870 map. Solomon Goddard married Thankful Bowker of Shrewsbury in 1758. The Goddards had at least six children, of whom only one, Lydia, seems to have lived to adulthood. Solomon Goddard served in the French and Indian Wars in 1757 in a company headed by Abraham Williams. Northborough was part of Marlborough at the time. Dana Stone, the owner on the 1855 map, was listed as a farmer, age 44, in the 1850 census, with his real estate worth $3,000. He and his wife Lois had at least eight children. His son, Lyman T. Stone, born about 1843, was also a farmer. On the Richards map of 1898, the farm is shown as the property of O[liver] Chapdelaine. Oliver Chapdelaine, born in Quebec in 1846, came to Northborough around 1886 and bought this property, which he called Maplewood Farm, in 1891. He lived here with his wife, Julia, their eight children, their son-in-law Nelson Grenier, and their granddaughter Roseanna Grenier. Oliver Chapdelaine milked a dozen cows and sold the milk in the Boston market, and he also grew hay, corn, and potatoes on his 98-acre farm. The business directory of the 1898 atlas described him as one of the most thrifty farmers in Northborough. The Chapdelaine family continued on this farm at least through the 1930s. Their ownership of an old colonial farmstead symbolizes the changing ethnic make-up of Northborough, in which families of French-Canadian, Irish, and Armenian heritage, many of whom had come to Northborough as factory workers, gave a new lease on life to the town s farmland in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES see continuation sheet Beers, F. W. Atlas of Worcester County, Massachusetts. New York, NY: F. W. Beers & Co., 1870. Hopkins, G. M., Jr. Map of the Town of Northboro, Worcester County, Mass. Philadelphia, PA: Richard Clark, 1855. Hudson, Charles. History of the Town of Marlborough. Boston: T. R. Marvin & Son, 1862. P. 137. Northborough Historical Society. Historic Buildings Files,. Richards, L. J. New Topographical Atlas of Worcester County, Massachusetts. Philadelphia, PA: L. J. Richards & Co., 1898. U.S. Census Bureau. Census of Population, 1850, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1930. Manuscript schedules, microfilm, Massachusetts State Library, Boston. Valentine, Gill. Map of Northborough, 1830. Northborough, MA: Northborough Historical Society, 1968. Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. 1
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION (continued): The house retains some evidence of its colonial origins the stone foundation, broad-side-to-the-street orientation, and clapboarded exterior but its chief architectural interest is as an example of how colonial homesteads were updated in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. The Greek Revival doorway seems to be an improvement installed sometime around the middle of the 19 th -century, when that style was in its vogue; it probably made its owners feel that the house was less antiquated. Similarly, the two-light sash and the building-out of the cornice at the eaves point to updating in the Victorian period. The panel-and-glass door may be from that period or it may be from the time of the porch columns, which are more typical of the early 20 th century. An examination of the interior of the house, not part of the scope of this survey, could shed light on whether the house dates back to the first home lot in 1752. 1
South and east elevations, camera facing northwest. 2
Detail of porch and doorway, camera facing west. 3