FORM a - AREA Assessor’S Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area
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FORM A - AREA Assessor’s Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area 21, 29, 30 Marblehead I See Data MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION North Sheet MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Town/City: Wenham Photograph Place (neighborhood or village): Wenham Neck Name of Area: Wenham Neck Area Present Use: Single-family Residence Construction Dates or Period: ca. 1730-ca. 1910 Overall Condition: Fair to Excellent Major Intrusions and Alterations: alterations to 10 Dodges Row Photo 1. 201 Larch Row. Façade (south) and east elevations. (WNH.223) Acreage: 12.03 Recorded by: Stacy Spies and Wendy Frontiero Organization: Wenham Historical Commission Date: June 2017 Locus Map see continuation sheet 4 /11 Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET WENHAM WENHAM NECK MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 See Data Sheet Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION Describe architectural, structural and landscape features and evaluate in terms of other areas within the community. The crossroads village of Wenham Neck is characterized by six 18th-century and 19th-century farmhouses, and a 19th- century Gothic Revival church at the intersection of the roads leading to Manchester, Wenham center, Hamilton, and North Beverly. The fields that once surrounded the area are now returned to woodland as is much of the surrounding land southwest of the area, which was purchased by the Salem Water Commission in the early 20th century for the Longham Reservoir. Fieldstone walls separate the properties’ grassy lawns from the roadway. The Andrew Dodge House, 201 Larch Row (ca. 1750) (WNH.223) (Photo 1) is a substantial 2½ story, side-gable house that visually dominates the “Four Corners” intersection in the survey area. The seven bay façade takes the form of a traditional five-bay, center entrance design with an additional two bays extending to the west. Two bays deep, the building features a granite block foundation, recessed Greek Revival-style main entrance, 6/6 windows, a slate roof, and three large chimneys rising from the ridgeline. Two large 1½ story, wood-shingled outbuildings (WNH.224, WNH.225) are positioned in an L in the center of the lot, to the northwest of the house. (Photo 2) Stone walls and mature trees line the perimeter of the site. Occupying the southeast corner of the “Four Corners” intersection, the Adeline P. Cole House, 204 Larch Row (ca. 1820; additions late 19th/E 20th c) (WNH.226) (Photo 3) is an eclectic assemblage of architectural forms and styles. The locally unusual, Federal period core of the building is a square, 2-story brick house with a five bay façade, classically-framed center entrance, and a hip roof with a clerestory monitor. Two-story, hip-roofed wood-frame additions in the Colonial Revival style extend from the west and east sides of the original block. The east ell is distinguished by a three-bay front veranda with decoratively bracketed posts. The more ornate west ell features a variety of boldly executed fenestration, including bay windows, a Palladian window, oval windows with keystone trim, and prominent cornice moldings. The John Curtis House, 211 Larch Row (ca. 1850) (WNH.227) (Photo 4) is a large 2½ story, side-gabled house located at the northeast corner of the “Four Corners” intersection. The five-bay, center entrance design is three bays deep and rests on a granite block foundation. The recessed main entrance is flanked by rectangular sidelights and transom. Louvered wood shutters flank the 6/6 wood sash windows. Two brick chimneys rise from the ridgeline. The building is covered with clapboards with pilastered corner boards beneath gable-end cornice returns. A 2-story T-plan ell is located at the north (rear) elevation. Stone walls and mature trees line the perimeter of the site. The Wenham Neck Baptist Church, 6 Dodges Row (ca. 1870) (WNH.111) (Photo 5) stands not at the “Four Corners” intersection, but more deferentially just to the south. The rectangular wood-frame building rises 1½ stories to a front- gable roof with prominent center tower on the façade. Well preserved, it represents a fine example of Gothic Revival institutional design in Wenham. (It is now used as a residence.) Its flushboarded façade has a four-story center tower with a polygonal spire; the five bay side elevations feature clapboard siding and long shed-roofed dormers towards the back. The building is animated by gabled pinnacles at the wall corners, lancet window and door openings with hood moldings, stained glass in the sanctuary windows, and chunky fretwork trim along the fascia at the tower and shed dormers. Standing to the south of and facing the church, the Parish House (1873) (WNH.228) (Photo 6) is a three bay by two bay structure, 1½ stories high with a side gable roof and clapboard siding. The offset entrance on its façade (north) elevation has a decoratively bracketed door hood. A 2-story addition on the street (east) elevation has a hip roof and two garage bays in its lower level. Continuation Sheet 1 INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET WENHAM WENHAM NECK MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 See Data Sheet 14 Dodges Row (before 1856) (WNH.230), (Photo 7) has also been noted as owned by Abraham Dodge, is located at the northern lot boundary and faces east toward Dodges Row. The main block is 5 bays wide with an off-center entrance, perhaps indicating that it was constructed in more than one phase. The building rests on a fieldstone foundation. A full- width dormer runs the length of the façade (east) elevation. The house was remodeled and a large 2-story addition added to the rear of the house in 2013. These changes have altered the proportions of the building. Windows throughout the building are 6/6 sash. A hipped-roof screen house (early 20th c.) (WNH.231) is located south of the house near the road, atop a small rise. (Photo 9) HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Explain historical development of the area. Discuss how this relates to the historical development of the community. The Wenham Neck area, also known as Four Corners, has been the center of community at the eastern “neck” of the town since the 18th century. The village grew at the crossroads of the road to Manchester (Larch Row and Grapevine Road) and the roads to Beverly and Hamilton (Dodges Row and Walnut Road). The agricultural village had a saw mill on the Miles River at Dodges Row by 1795. Cranberry bogs were plentiful in the Longham meadows west of Dodges Row and south of Larch Row until the end of the 19th century. The agricultural community was very active through the 19th century. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, the large farms became attractive to wealthy businessmen and their families as summer or retirement properties, as did many inland and coastline properties on the “Gold Coast” north shore of Boston. 201 Larch Row is the oldest house in the village1 and was the residence of Andrew Dodge (1791-1876) and his wife, Anna, whom he married in 1817. Census data indicates that Dodge was living at this address as early as 1855. Andrew Dodge worked as a farmer, according to census data, and as a justice of the peace, according the 1870 city directory. Susan Dodge, a daughter of Andrew and Anna Dodge, married farmer Charles Wilkins (1829-1910). Charles and Susan Dodge Wilkins and their children lived with her parents at 211 Larch Row during the 1860s and 1870s, according to census data. The 1900 census includes 71-year-old Charles Wilkins living in the Neck with his daughter Adaline, three boarders, and a hired hand. The 1910 map indicates that this property, as well as 201 Larch Row, were both the property of the “Heirs of S. Wilkins.” The Adeline P. Cole House at 204 Larch Row was known later as the Cole family’s Brooksby Farm. The house appears on the 1856 map as the residence of farmer Nicholas Dodge. Nicholas Dodge had extensive landholdings; the 1850 census agricultural schedule reported that Dodge had 145 acres of improved land and 10 acres of unimproved land. In 1872, the house was identified as that of farmer Francis (Frank) Macomber Dodge. Adeline Cole (1865-1959) was the daughter of Frank Dodge and Sarah Philbrick Dodge and was born and raised at this property. Adeline married Edward B. Cole in 1887 and moved to Brookline. The couple returned permanently to the farm in 1896, and Adeline became a fixture in the Wenham community throughout the first half of the 20th century. In addition to being an active local historian and author of Notes on Wenham History in 1943, Ms. Cole was active in the Village Improvement Society, served on the school committee from 1907 to 1922, and founded the Visiting Nurse Association of Hamilton-Wenham. Ms. Cole also directed vital community preparedness projects during both World Wars, including hosting a canning factory at her home farm to preserve vegetables.2 1 A plaque on the house states that the house was constructed ca. 1732 for Nathaniel Waldron and expanded ca. 1840 by Andrew Dodge. Research is required to corroborate these statements. 2 Wenham in Pictures and Prose: 94-95. Continuation Sheet 2 INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET WENHAM WENHAM NECK MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.