FORM B  BUILDING Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number

30-0-58 Lowell DRA.45, 74 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Dracut BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): Collinsville

Photograph Address: 2087 Lakeview Avenue

Historic Name: Collinsville Union Church and Parsonage

Uses: Present: church and parsonage

Original: church and parsonage

Date of Construction: 1897 and 1956

Source: parish histories

Style/Form: Colonial Revival

Architect/Builder: unknown

Exterior Material: Foundation: concrete block

Wall/Trim: vinyl Locus Map (north is up) Roof: asphalt

Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: small modern shed at the rear.

Major Alterations (with dates): Additions to church in 1936 and 1953; vinyl siding recent decades.

Condition: Fair

Moved: no yes Date:

Acreage: 67,518 sq. ft.

Setting: A mix of rural agricultural with more recent residential subdivision.

Recorded by: Claire W. Dempsey Organization: Dracut Historical Commission Date (month / year): May 2017

12/12 Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET DRACUT 2087 Lakeview Avenue

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 DRA.45, 74

Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.

See the earlier version of this form for an eligibility opinion recommending this property as part of a Beaver Brook Mills NR historic district; this area is also known as Collinsville.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The Collinsville Union Church was built in 1897 and expanded in 1936 and 1953, and the Parsonage next door was built in 1956. The buildings sit next to one another facing south onto Lakeview Avenue, on the south east part lot they share. The lot is irregularly shaped, extending about 400 feet on Lakeview and about 300 feet deep. Most of the lot is lawn, with wooded areas away from the street. The lawn in front of the Church is contained within a stone retaining wall, with steps up to the front tower door. Another path leads from the parking lot of the adjacent Collinsville School (2063 Lakeview Avenue) to the side door of the Church. An asphalt drive and parking area is located between the Church and the Parsonage. A small shed is located behind these buildings.

The Church today is a large L-shaped structure, composed of the core early building at the corner, with two low wings, one extending to the left or west on Lakeview and one extending north behind the Church into its lot. The core volume is an end-gabled block facing south onto the street, with a square entry and bell tower at its east front corner set on a granite block foundation; its roofs are asphalt covered. The tower encloses the front entry under a projecting hood, and rises in two equal stages to the pyramidal roof, with windows in its first stage closed by shutters and open pointed-arch openings at the belfry. The front elevation of the main block is lit by two widely spaced windows, with a single window at the apex, while the side elevation has a center entry flanked by the tower and another window, under a large gabled hood. Now covered in aluminum, most of the period details have been covered and the window shapes have been changed to rectangles, though the shape and brackets of the front hood is discernable. The gable-roofed west wing includes five regularly spaced windows on the long walls and two on the narrower end; it measures about 50 feet across and 40 feet deep and sits on a concrete foundation. The flat-roofed north wing includes a hooded entry closest to the original Church and four regularly spaced windows along the east wall; the west section of the wing may be an addition/expansion and its north and west elevations are irregularly fenestrated. Modern vinyl sash and shutters are found throughout the building, with a modern metal double leaf front door, a Colonial Revival double-leafed side door, and a single-leaf grazed rear door. Pipe railings lead to the front door and more modern metal railings lead to the side and rear doors.

The Parsonage is a classic example of one of the most common Colonial Revival house forms, popularly known as the center-entry colonial. The two-story main block measures about 30 feet across and 27 feet deep, with a low screened-in porch located on the east side wall. The house is set on a concrete foundation with vinyl clapboard walls and an asphalt covered roof, with a chimney rising up the east wall. The façade is divided into three bays and the plan is two rooms deep, with the living room likely on the east side and the dining room and kitchen on the west side of the plan. There are today four bedrooms and 1½ baths. The center entry is reached by brick steps and screened by a porch with Tuscan posts supporting pediment with eave returns and an elliptically arched soffit. The frontispiece may have a fan over the door and is flanked by sidelights. The simple screened porch is a narrow and deep gabled wing (about 10 by 21 feet) includes a front door reached from brick and concrete stairs. The window sash is vinyl 1/1, most flanked by synthetic shutters.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE

The Collinsville Union Church was organized in 1896 to serve the Protestant population of Collinsville. It was constructed at the apex of activity at the nearby woolen mill owned by Michael Collins and later, after 1895, by American Woolen Co. Collins constructed a large manufacturing complex at a mill privilege at 1934 Lakeview Avenue and 101 Mill Street

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MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 DRA.45, 74

starting in 1879 as well as approximately 20 duplexes on surrounding blocks. At the height of the mill’s active period it employed 260 operatives. This industrial activity drove the development of the area that included schools (Collinsville School, DRA.33), other churches (St. Mary of the Assumption, DRA.51), housing and commercial activity (see also Michael Collins Woolen Mill, DRA.6). Similar attempts to establish a protestant parish had apparently been made in the past, and initially the group offered Sunday school classes and met in a two-room stone on Mammoth Road owned by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Edwards. But this time, support was sufficient to build a Church the next year on land was donated by George D. Brown. An early historic view of the Church illustrates its original and more Gothic appearance (see figure 2). The main volume remains the same, although there is no entry into the side elevation. Its three ground-floor façade windows were topped by pointed arches like the belfry and its main entry was topped by an elaborate scroll-sawn hood. The walls appear to be clapboarded with simple corner boards and molded trim at the eaves, with skirting between the first and second levels of the tower and molding between the second and the third levels. Functional louvered shutters flank the windows.

Known initially as the Collinsville Union Mission, the group did not have its own minister, but was visited by those from neighboring churches, particularly the Methodist churches in Lowell, who offered services in the evenings and later the afternoons. A church was formally organized in 1928 and the first permanent minister came in 1937. The congregation supported missionaries and between 1943 and 1963 was aligned with the National Association of Evangelicals, withdrawing due to their “compromising stand” on the ecumenical movement (History, p. 4). Between 1963 and 1982, the congregation became the Collinsville Bible Church

The building was remodeled and expanded in 1919 but the character if this work was not reported. A fire in 1936 burned an addition to the church, and a new addition to the Church was made to replace it, believed by Paquet to be the long west wing and designed to provide a larger worship space seating 300. Miss Mary A. Brown made gifts of a memorial window in 1931 and additional land in 1934. A bell was added in 1946 and colored glass windows in 1960. Plans for a Parsonage were begun in 1951 and the building was dedicated in 1956. Except for the excavating and plastering, the building was constructed with volunteer labor; a garage and utility room addition were planned but seem not to have been executed. In 1953 plans were made for another addition to the Church, to house the Sunday school in seven rooms including classrooms, a library, and a nursery; Paquet, author of the earlier version of this form, believes this to be the north wing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES

Coburn, Silas Roger. History of Dracut, Massachusetts (Lowell, MA: Press of the Courier-Citizen Co., 1922). Dracut Historical Society Collections, vertical files, churches. “History of the Collinsville Union Church,” 22 November 1964, Dracut Historical Society. Paquet, Donat H. The Photographic History of Dracut Massachusetts. Dracut: Dracut Historical Society, 1982. “Parsonage Dedication in Dracut,” Sept. 15 1956, newspaper clipping, Dracut Historical Society.

Continuation sheet 2 INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET DRACUT 2087 Lakeview Avenue

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 DRA.45, 74

PHOTOGRAPHS

The Parsonage to the left and the west wing of the Church on the right. View from SW.

FIGURES

Figure 1. Residual land fronting Lakeview Avenue depicted in an adjacent assessor’s map

Continuation sheet 3 INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET DRACUT 2087 Lakeview Avenue

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 DRA.45, 74

Figure 2. Undated early image of the church building. View from SE. Courtesy of the Dracut Historical Society.

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