FORM B BUILDING Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number 22 – 33 – 4 Lowell, DRA.108 MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MA DRA.109 MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD Town/City: Dracut BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Place: (neighborhood or village): East Dracut Photograph Address: 540 Wheeler Road Historic Name: Oliver Whittier House and Barn Uses: Present: Single-family Residential Original: Single-family Residential Date of Construction: c. 1820 Source: Visual Style/Form: Federal/Greek Revival / Center Hall Double House Architect/Builder: Unknown Exterior Material: Foundation: Cut granite Wall/Trim: Wood clapboards/wood Locus Map (North is Up) Roof: Asphalt shingle Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: Connected farm buildings, see below; low stone wall and vinyl privacy fence Major Alterations (with dates): Windows, door and surround replaced recently, porch enclosed, date unknown. Condition: Good Moved: no yes Date: Acreage: 40,000 sq. ft. / 0.92 acres Setting: Once a farm with significant acreage, the land has been subdivided and the house is now surrounded by subdivisions of late twentieth century houses on approximately one-acre lots. Recorded by: Jennifer B. Doherty Organization: Dracut Historical Commission Date (month / year): March, 2017 12/12 Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET DRACUT 540 WHEELER ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 DRA.108 DRA.109 Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form. ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: The Oliver Whittier House and Barn is a group of connected farm buildings, anchored by a c. 1820 house. The main house is a two-story, double-pile, gable-block house with a five-bay main façade featuring a center entry. A chimney exiting the ridgeline on the right side of the house indicates that it has a center-hall plan, with chimneys between the front and back rooms on either side of the house. The house sits on a cut granite foundation, is covered in wood clapboards, and has an asphalt shingle roof. The windows on the house are late twentieth century one-over-one sash, framed by inoperable shutters on the main façade. The roofline of the house, with deep eaves and a wide fascia typical of the Greek Revival style, appears original, while the main entry door, its surround, and window casings are late twentieth century replacement features. Extending from the right rear pile of the house is a side-gable two-story wing, one pile deep. The first floor of the main façade is covered by an enclosed porch. A second, identical wing extends from this first, without the enclosed porch on the main façade and stepped back slightly from the first. This wing connects to a large barn. This configuration of connected wings, ells and sheds between the main house and barn has been identified by Hubka as the Connected New England Farm Building type. This type of building organization developed during the second half of the 19th century throughout southern New England including southwest Maine and New Hampshire and northeast Massachusetts, but spread in lesser concentrations throughout the region. According to Hubka Two influences were critical to the popularization of the New England connected farm: first, a manor house tradition of Georgian and Federal style estates that employed extended outbuilding wings in a classical villa style, and second, a folk or vernacular building tradition of English origin in which domestic and agrarian structures were attached or closely clustered.1 The barn sits with its ridge parallel to the street, with a main drive door in the gable end facing the main house. The barn sits on a stone foundation that has been parged, and is exposed on the on the street-facing eave elevation in the manner of a bank barn. Although covered in asbestos siding, the barn retains historic six-over-six and six-over-nine wood sash. A cupola with boarded-up windows is set off-center on the roof of the barn, located closer to the west end closest to the house. These attributes suggest use as a dairy and that the barn was possibly enlarged. The location of the main door in the narrower gabled elevation of the barn identifies it as an example of the New England barn type, as opposed to the earlier English barn type, in which the main entrance and carriage drive is located in the broader eave elevation. The New England barn emerged during the early nineteenth century and was adopted to increase the efficiency of barn circulation and use of space.2 The Whittier House and Barn is sited on the north side of Wheeler Road, facing south across and close to the street. A low stone wall fronts the property to the left of the house, and two mature deciduous trees are planted symmetrically in the front yard. The area in front of the barn and the ell connected to it is paved for a driveway. A modern vinyl privacy fences connects to the left rear corner of the house and runs along the property line to the rear of the property. HISTORICAL NARRATIVE The Oliver Whittier House was likely built by Oliver Whittier c. 1820. Oliver Whittier, a native of Methuen (Apr. 25, 1775 – Dec. 17, 1853) married Hannah Lovejoy Mansur (Jan. 3, 1777 – Apr. 4, 1858) on February 2, 1800.3 The couple had six children: John (Mar. 28, 1801 – Feb. 19, 1887), Oliver (Jul. 1, 1803 – Jan. 1, 1862), Asa (Aug. 27, 1805 – Aug. 27, 1872), Hannah (Mar. 24, 1811 – Jan. 13, 1889), Mary (Aug. 22, 1812 – May 3, 1844), and Jeremiah (Apr. 4, 1814 – Oct. 26, 1871). All 1 Thomas C. Hubka, Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn, The Connected Farm Buildings of New England (UPNE, 1984) p. 16. 2 Hubka, pp. 52-56; see also Thomas Durant Visser, Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings (UPNE, 1997) pp. 74-75 and John Michael Vlach, Barns (W.W. Norton, 2003) pp. 33-45. 3 See DRA.___for information on the Mansur family. Ancestry.com: Dracut, Lowell, Methuen vital records; US Federal Census of Population for 1850, 1860 1880, 1900; Find-A-Grave. The Lowell Sun: “Deaths – Whittier,” 28 Sep 1916. Continuation sheet 1 INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET DRACUT 540 WHEELER ROAD MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No. 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 DRA.108 DRA.109 of their children were born in Methuen, except Jeremiah, indicating a move to the Whittier House and Barn, or at least Dracut, by 1814. The 1850 census records Oliver and Hannah Lovejoy Whittier living with their son, Oliver Whittier, and his growing family. The younger Oliver Whittier married Louisa Jane Pickering (d. Jan. 6, 1883) of Lowell on November 5, 1840. By the 1850 census, the couple had four children: Oliver A. (1842 – Sep. 27, 1916), David E. (Apr. 8, 1844 – Apr. 15, 1919), Mary J. (b. 1846), and Bradley (Aug. 4, 1848 – Aug. 13, 1910, Texas). By 1860, following the deaths of Oliver Whittier’s parents, he, his wife, and their four children were recorded at this location in the census. Oliver Whittier and his sons Oliver A. and David E. were all listed as farmers. After Oliver Whittier’s death in 1862, his property was left to his four children. In 1872, Bradley and Mary J. (by then married to Charles E. Richardson) conveyed their share to their brothers Oliver A. and David E.4 Bradley’s 1910 death certificate, recorded in Methuen, indicated that he was living in Texas, suggesting he was not actively at the farm. It is unclear if their mother, Louisa Jane Pickering Whittier, inherited any of her husband’s land. The brothers are marked as the owners of the property on the 1875 and 1889 maps of Dracut. The 1880 census recorded Louisa Jane Pickering Whittier and her sons Oliver A. (listed as Augustus) and David E. living at the Whittier House and Barn along with house servant Hattie Bennett (b. c. 1863, New Brunswick), female boarder Loueren Haren (b. c. 1795, New Hampshire), and boarder William E. Brown (b. c. 1855, Maine). Twenty years later, the brothers were still living in the house. The 1900 census recorded them with house servant Anne L. Murch (b. 1846, Canada) and farm laborer Rolin Sprague (b. 1871, Maine). Both brothers were listed as farmers. Oliver A. Whittier’s 1916 obituary notes that neither brother married and that they “lived in the old home together for nearly 70 years.”5 It also described the brothers as “very rugged men, extremely hard workers and very well liked townsmen.” Oliver A.’s obituary notes that he had been ill for three months and had moved to his sister’s house in Methuen. Following the death of her brother Henry in 1919, Mary J. Whittier Richardson inherited the Whittier House and Barn. In 1920, she sold the property out of the Whittier family, to Philip (sometimes Phillibbos) Gulezian.6 The deed included several restrictions, such as a prohibition against cutting wood on the property, and mentions a cider mill stored in a pig house that was not to be conveyed with the deed. The deed does not give the size of the parcel, but the metes and bounds indicate that the land was located on both sides of Wheeler Road. Philip Gulezian married Heran (Karakashian) Basmajian on February 23, 1901, in Dracut; it was the second marriage for both. The 1920 census recorded the Gulezian family at a farm on Wheeler Road.7 Philip Gulezian (born c.