FORMA - AREA Assessor's She.ets j l 80-81, 9-92, 102, 11 USGS Quad Area Letter Form N umbers in Area I I vj1 LC (-1\l:/ttS,,'/ ':::,T /// 0"": Town / " lace (neighborhood or village)»: -: ~,;/ //' I / /~ i-' ------------------..'.:;:'-' Name of Area Clover Hill./ :... ~ /'..', 'J Present Use residential..: j some recreational. onstruction Dates or Period early ] 9th to early 20th C. erall COlldition---------- fair to good ajor Intrusions and Alterations ~()me vi~ihle uilding a~teratjon; many mid- to late-20th-c. Sketch Map Draw a map of the area indicating properties within it. Number each property for which individual inventory forms have been completed. Label streets including route numbers, ~fany. Attach a separate sheet if space is not sufficient here. Indicate North. Recorded by Rte 1-495 at western end ca 75 acres Anne Forbes. consultant Organization Historical Corum. Date (month/day/year) 5/15/95 SEE ATTACHED SHEET Streets included: Brigham Street (south to #591) Clover Hill Street Forest Street, (#s 27 and 43) Gleason Street Gleason Street Extension Williams Street Follow Survey Manual instructions for completing this form
AREA FORM ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION [X] see continuation sheet Describe architectural, structural and landscape features and evaluate in terms of other areas within the community. Although all the earliest farmhouses in the Clover Hill area are gone, and a considerable amount of modem house-construction has recently taken place here, this 75+-acre area still retains much of the flavor of a nineteenth-century farm district through its open vistas, period houses, and several intact farmsteads. The old "Stevens Comer" (the intersection of Williams, Forest, and Clover Hill Streets), with its three farm houses, outbuildings, and a rare surviving mid-nineteentb-century district schoolhouse, especially, appears much as it would have looked at the (urn of this century. On the northeast corner, 250 Williams Street is one of the area's earliest buildings, a unique example in of an unusual Greek Revival house-type--the little 11/2-story Greek Revival five-bay, sidegabled cottage with its facade recessed under a four-columned portico. The Williams School, at 27 Forest Street, has been converted to a dwelling, but it still has the typical form of a schoolhouse of the late 1850's--ll1Z-stories, with a symmetrical, three-bay gable-end facade, and a chimney at the rear end of the roof ridge that would have served the large stove that stood at the end of the schoolroom. Beside it is the small, altered gable-end Dadmun House at #43 Forest Street, which was built at about the same time. On the southwest comer of the intersection is an unusually intact farmstead for, which includes a large mid-nineteenth-century Z liz-story, side-gabled farmhouse (#291 Williams Street) and a cluster of barns and sheds that date to several periods. The house itself, which may date to the middle part of the century, was renovated in the 1890's with the pedimented corner bay window that was so popular in at that time, as wen as a pedimented verstibule over its double-leaf, glass-and-panel door. (Cont.)! \ ( r I ~ HISTORICAL NARRATIVE [X] see continuation sheet Explain historical development of the area. Discuss how this area relates to the historical development of the community. The widely-scattered nature of the historic buildings in the vicinity of one of 's lower hills, Clover HiJI, and its higher neighbor, Jericho Hill, reflects the early development of the land south of Lake Williams as a sparsely-settled district with only a few farmhouses on large acreages, some of them remaining from the lands distributed in 1660 to 's original proprietors. Several native Indians also made their homes on the south shore of the lake long after t.he town was settled. Among them was David Munnanaow, one of several who returned after interment at Boston harbor during King Philip's War. By the end of the eighteenth century, although the area's major roads-williams, Forest, Clover Hill and Brigham Streets-were all in existence, there were only seven houses here. Branches of the Barnes, Brigham, and Loring famillies owned most of them. The large farm of Nathan, and later Ephraim, Brigham dominated the eastern section south of Clover Hill Street, as did the farm of Revolutionary patriot Edward Barnes at the street's western end. This farm, which stretched south to Jericho Hill, was part of the original allotment of first-settler Richard Barnes. (Cont.) BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES ( ] see continuation sheet Maps, birdseye views, and atlases: 1803, 1835, 1856/7, 1875, 1889. Bigelow. Historic Reminiscences of. 1910. Hudson. directories and tax valuations. Historical Society: House files. [] Recommended as a National Register District. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property Clover Hill area ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION, cant. Behind the house is a long corrugated metal twentieth-century barn with a pair of stave silos, an earlytwentieth-century "drop-sided II shed, and two other one-story barns and sheds. Across Williams Street, possibly remaining from another farmstead, are three more outbuildings, including a long clapboard and concrete-block shed. Next south on Williams Street is another intact farmstead, with a 2 ll2-story house (#293 Williams) that also appears to have been constructed toward the middle of the nineteenth century during the Greek Revival period. The lines of its altered gable-end entry, which retains a high Greek Revival frieze and molded lintel, suggest that this was the main, side-hall-entry facade. The roof cornice, with wide frieze and echinus-molded, boxed eaves, is also a clear Greek Revival feature. Like its neighbor, this house was also updated in the 1890's, by the addition of the bracketed, turned-posted and balustered entry porch on the south side. Across a narrow farmyard to the south and southwest of the house, in a somewhat deteriorated condition, are a large two-story clapboarded henhouse with a roof of uneven pitch, and a narrow gambrel-roofed barn, both probably dating to the early part of this century. Two more well-preserved Greek Revival houses, both 2 1/2-story, clapboarded gable-ends, are located in the area. The Loring House at 187 Clover Hill Street has a pedimented facade, and complete Greek Revival detailing of fully-sidelighted side-hall entry, 6-over-6-sash windows (the one in the gable is pedimented), wide corner pilasters with molded capitals, and a roof cornice with wide frieze and boxed, echinus-molded eaves. A very long 1 1/2-story side ell with 3-over-6-sash windows under the eaves lends considerable character to this house. The Felton House, at 591 Brigham Street, also retains its 6-over-6-sash windows and much of its trim. Its former function as a farmhouse is illustrated by the small ca. 1890's gable-end barn beside it, complete with large rolling door and hay door above it. A few more gable-end houses of the second half of the nineteenth century in the area are somewhat altered. On upper Williams Street, however, the large 2 1I2-story pedimented, gable-end house of C.C. Hyde at 34, built in the 1890's, is a fairly intact example of a large, 3-bay Queen Anne residence, with 2-over-2-sash windows, a double-leaf glass-and-panel door, and wraparound porch on bracketed, turned posts. The house at 48 Gleason Street has an even larger porch of the same type, and another, the large T-plan farmhouse at 154 Williams Street, has a Tuscan-columned porch on three sides. (This house, which became an "extended" farmhouse by the addition of various rear ells over the years, is connected to an unusual "English" style barn, with its large wagon door in the long side, instead of the gable end.) Two other 1890's house-types are represented on Gleason Street--a tall, narrow, side-gabled two-story house at #30, and a large, 2 li2-story three-bay gable-end two-family house at #35. Only a few houses were built in the early twentieth century in the Clover Hill area, and all are altered. Three, at 46 Clover Hill, 86 Williams Street and 18 Gleason Street Extension, are long, simple 1 1/2- story gable-ends of a pre-bungalow type. Another 2 ll2-story duplex, at 26 Gleason Street Extension, has paired entries, and a small one-story, clapboarded bungalow/cottage, with 6-over-l- and 4-over-lsash windows, is located at the south end of Williams Street, at #615.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property Clover Hill area HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont From the southwest corner of Lake Williams, and extending west for over a mile, was land originally allotted to first-settler Peter Bent, whose home was burned during King Philip's War in 1676, and later rebuilt by his son, Peter Bent, II, and later still was the home of Peter Bent III, a member of the Provincial Congress at the time of the Revolution. Standing on the south shore of the lake at the end of the eighteenth century, in contrast to the open area there today, were three houses, the homes of then Jabez Bent, (son of Peter Bent III), Joseph Trowbridge (later Benjamin Johnson), and John Loring (Sr. and Jr.) All the early houses are gone, along with what was for two and a half centuries the major focal point of the area--the old Williams Tavern, which stood until the 1940's at the east end of Williams Street opposite the foot of Lakeside Avenue (formerly part of the Boston Post Road). This large tavern and inn was located at the sharpest turn of the Post Road in, at the point where it swung north around Lake Williams on its way west. Along with How's Tavern east of the town center, and the larger How's Tavern (now the Wayside Inn) in Sudbury, it was a major stop on the early route west from Boston. Its first building was burned down during King Philip's war in 1676, and its second was replaced early in the nineteenth century. For generations it was run by members of the Williams family, for whom Williams Street is named. After regular stagecoach travel was established in 1772, it became one of only three places on the main road between Boston and Worcester where horses could be changed, and for generations the property included a large livery stable. Among its eminent guests were the Duke de La Rochefaucauld, and in 1789, George Washington dined there on his way to Boston during his tour through New England after his first inauguration as President. A bronze tablet set into a boulder on the corner diagonally opposite the tavern site marks the presidential route through as the "George Washington Memorial Highway, 1732-1932". In the early part of the nineteenth century the surrounding area was sufficiently populated to support a schoolhouse, and the first District School #3 was built on the south side of Forest Street, just west of the Williams and Clover Hill Street comer. The large Bent farm had by then descended to Daniel Stevens, inspiring the name of "Stevens Comer" for the intersection of the three streets. Several of the houses standing today were built or acquired by his children or other relations. Daniel Stevens' daughter, Ann, who married Issachar Dickerman in 1820, settled on the now-abandoned farm at 293 Williams Street, and Isaac E. Stevens acquired the corner property at 291 Williams. By 1856, both men bad apparently established shoe shops beside their houses, two of many entrepreneurs in at that time to embark on shoe-manufacturing on a small scale. Daniel Stevens' son, Isaac Temple Stevens, married into another prolific Clover Hill family, the Feltons. His wife was Catherine Felton, daughter of William Felton (d. 1849), who owned the a farm at 591 Brigham Street. The Felton farm was apparently divided after William's death with his son Edward E. Felton (who may have built or enlarged the old house) living at #591, and another of his daughters, Susan, living across the street with her husband, William Giles. Members of the Loring family also built new homes in the area during the nineteenth century. One of them probably built around 1830, and by 1860 the home of John Loring, remains at 187 Clover Hill Street. (Cont.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property Clover Hill area HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont. In about 1860, a new district schoolhouse was built, this time on the north side of the road. Popularly known as the Williams School, it still stands at 27 Forest Street. Although other sections of underwent explosive growth in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, the Clover Hill district grew only slowly during those boom years. The area still had less than two dozen houses by 1875, having added a few on the north side of Clover Hill Street and the east end of Williams. Most of the new owners were of Irish descent, illustrating the growing ability by that time of some of 's Irish-American residents to establish small farms, and to own homes of their own outside the town center. Growth was so slow here, in fact, that only a few more houses were added on Williams Street in the 1890's and early twentieth century, and only one side street was cut through before the mid-twentieth century. This was Gleason Street, established in the late 1890's, and it, along with its later extension south of Clover Hill, had only acquired five houses by 1910. In the 1920's, following in the tradition of the Williams Tavern as a local and regional gathering place, upper Williams Street became the site for one of the most popular institutions of the twentieth century, the Lyonhurst Ballroom. This was a low, spreading Craftsman/Shingle Style building on a high rubble base, founded by Joseph Lyons and designed by architect Frederick Fahey. Opened in 1922, it was visited the next year by Rudolph Valentino, and from the Charleston through the big band eras it was the site of dances, balls, and weddings, and eventually became a roller skating rink. It burned down in 1963. The buildings discussed above and listed on the Area Data Sheet represent some of the most historically or architecturally significant resources in the area. There are several more historic properties located in the area, however. See Area Sketch Map for their locations.
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INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property Clover Hill AREA DATA SHEET NOTE: Although the inventory includes the entire area outlined on the Area Sketch Map, only resources which are mentioned in text of the Area Form have been given inventory numbers and are listed on the Area Data Sheet. As a rule, these represent the most historically or architecturally significant resources in the area. There are many more historic properties located within the area, however. (See Area Sketch Map for their locations.) MHC# Parcel # Street Address Historic Name Date Style/type 1189 91-39 591 Brigham Street William Felton House mid-19th C. Greek Revival 1187 92-12A 46 Clover Hill Street ca. 1915 gable-end cottage 1188 91-30 187 Clover Hill Street Loring House ca. 1830 Greek Revival 1199 90-7 27 Forest Street Williams School late 1850's gable-end schoolhouse 1200 90-4A 43 Forest Street R. Dadmun House mid-19th e. gable-end cottage 1194 80-99 30 Gleason Street 1890's side-gabled house 1193 80-106 35 Gleason Street 1890's gable-end duplex 1192 81-32 48 Gleason Street 1890's Queen Anne 1191 92-13 18 Gleason Street Extension early 20th C. gable-end cottage 1190 92-14 26 Gleason Street Extension early 20th C. gable-end duplex 927 Williams Street 1932 bronze and stone marker 1195 80-102 34 Williams Street e.c. Hyde House 1890's Queen Anne 1196 91-13 86 Williams Street early 20th C. gable-end cottage 1197 91-7 154 Williams Street 1890's Queen Anne 1198 91-6 250 Williams Street Taylor/Stevens House ca. 1830 side-gabled, Greek Revival cottage (continued)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property Clover Hill AREA DATA SHEET, cont. MHC# Parcel # Street Address Historic Name Date Style/type 1201 91-5A 291 Williams Street Whitcomb/Stevens Farm ca. 1830 Greek Revival/ Queen Anne 1202 102-1 293 Williams Street Issachar Dickerman Farm ca. 1830 Greek Revival! Queen Anne 1203 113-6 615 Williams Street ca. 1920 Bungalow \ --'
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