Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Marlborough
Chestnut Hill/Greenwood
Area
residential
ca. 70 acres
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission SWW!Y Manual instructions for completing this form
AREA FORM
The ca. 70-acre area east of Maple Street south of Essex forms a residential link between densely-
developed Marlborough center and the more open, rural and industrial section in the south part of
town known as Marlborough Junction. Like the earlier Church Street neighborhood to its north (
(Area K), this area, rising in its southeast section to Chestnut Hill, is bisected north to south by
Church Street, with a long block of major cross streets on either side of Church. At the area's (
southern end, short north-south side roads named after some of the streets in Boston's Back Bay
(Arlington, Berkeley, Dartmouth, and Exeter,) lead from Edinborough Street to the partially-
completed, diagonal Plymouth Street.
Most of the neighborhood was built up with single-family wood-frame houses between 1890 and
1930. Hence there are many gable-end vernacular, and a few high-style, Queen Anne houses,
especially in the north and west sections, with a variety of early-twentieth-century types and styles
on the later blocks and interspersed among the early buildings. Of the latter, the Craftsman and
Colonial Revival bungalow is well represented, and there are several other Colonial Revival types,
including a few simple two-story, side-gabled examples, as well as the American Four-Square, the
Dutch Colonial Revival, and, among the latest to be built here, the Cape Cod cottage. Some of the
houses built during the 1910's through early 1930's may be "factory-built" residences. (Cont.)
)
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 Chestnut Hill/Greenwood Area is the last of several major residential areas to be developed
south of Main Street in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Like the others, the major
entrepreneur behind this one was one of the handful of Marlborough's major shoe-manufacturers,
Samuel Boyd. After his colleague Thomas Corey and competitor John O'Connell had developed
shoeworker neighborhoods north of Essex and east of Maple Street, Samuel Boyd was acquiring
land near his father's former farm at 85 Maple Street, on and around one of the town's many scenic
hills, Chestnut Hill. Fresh from his success in developing the streets in the vicinity of Florence and
Neil Streets for shoe-workers' housing, as well as a fashionable neighborhood to their west on
Fairmount Hill (see Area F), he envisioned another residential area of Victorian houses southeast
of Maple Street. In the late 1880's he formed the Chestnut Hill Land Association, which laid out
nearly 200 houselots from the new Edinborough Street south to Plymouth, with the block at the top
of Chestnut hill east of Church Street reserved for a park. The venture was to capitalize on the
need for housing workers at his own factories, as well as at the new Commonwealth Shoe and )
Leather Company on the west side of Maple Street opposite today's Greenwood Street
(demolished). Such a neighborhood would also be convenient to the Rice & Hutchins and
O'Connell factories, as well as to Marlborough Junction to the south. To ensure that the residents
would have ready access to the center of town, and to "make it possible for them to take their meals
at home", Mr. Boyd also led the effort to extend a branch of the new electric street railway down
Maple Street to the south part of the proposed neighborhood. (Cont.)
Prior to the Civil War this part of town was an agricultural district, with a few scattered farmhouses.
Remaining from that era today are only the large hip-roofed Federal period Temple farmhouse at
200 Maple Street (Form 2), the little 1112-story J. O'Connell House at 177 Church Street, probably
built about 1860, and two gable-end Greek Revival cottages of the middle of the nineteenth century
at #s 104 and 164 Maple Street. The latter two have been greatly altered, but reveal their
construction dates in their proportions and the survival of a few details--the lines of full-length
sidelights at the entry of 104, for instance, and an echinus-molded roof cornice at 164.
By 1870 the first group of houselots on Greenwood Street and the adjacent sections of Maple Street
and Greendale Avenue began to fill with modest Italianate vernacular gable-end houses and
cottages, with a few more standing by 1875. Of these, the best preserved are the 2 112-story, three-
bay house at 3 Greendale Avenue, and the Greenwood House (which may have housed the early
cider mill at the rear) at 142 Maple Street. The latter is a typical early 1870's Italianate vernacular
gable-end, with 2-over-2-sash windows, heavy, bracketed entry hoods, and a glass-and-panel door
with a pair of round-headed lights.
By 1889, Church Street had been extended south through the Chestnut Hill subdivision to Plymouth,
and most of the streets in that area had been laid out. Among the first houses built on the
Chestnut Hill Land Association lots were two tall, nearly identical Queen Anne gable-ends, at 64
Berkeley Street and 28 Exeter Street, and another Queen Anne variant that is best illustrated at 71
Plymouth. The first two have the entry in a side bay sheltered by a "cat-slide" comer porch; #71
Plymouth has the same proportions and comer entry porch, (with S-curved imitation half-timbering
in the gable and keyhole motif in the frieze), that is found on several houses in the center of
Marlborough. (Cf. e.g. 18 and 26 Franklin Street in French Hill). Six two-story, two-bay gable-
ends, (now altered), each with a west side bay, were built on the north side of the east end of
Edinborough Street, as well.
Only a few scattered houses were standing on the west side of Church Street prior to 1889. The
best-preserved is the little Queen Anne cross-gabled cottageof Mrs. L. Sherman at #205 Church,
which has jerkin-head, verge-boarded gable ends, a typical second story facade bay overhanging a
polygonal bay at the first story, and an elaborate shed-roofed corner porch with a variety of sawcut
decoration supported on turned posts.
During the 1890's, the Church Street corridor was rapidly built up with large Queen Anne houses,
many with comer turrets, spacious wraparound porches, colored glass in some of the windows, and
elaborate patterned shingle on some of the walls. Although almost none have retained their original
clapboards or shingles, and many have undergone window changes, otherwise well-preserved
examples remain at 185 Church Street, where a turned-posted wraparound porch with sunburst
brackets shelters a typical double-leaf, glass-and-panel door; 201, which has a similar door and porch
with turned balusters, and a tall, round turret with fishscale shingles and a conical roof; and 210,
which has a square comer turret and a wraparound porch on turned posts with wide sawcut arches
embellished with "drops". (Cont.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
Coinciding with the slowdown in the local shoe industry that took place at the tum of the century,
development in the area diminished through the 1910's. It increased again during the 1920's-early
1930's, when many houses, some of them possibly factory-built, filled the spaces on the undeveloped
sections of streets. Finally, by 1929 the Chestnut Hill Park had been divided up into building lots.
Early twentieth-century houses here followed the trends of the times. Many two-family houses were
built throughout Marlborough in the early twentieth century, and Area T has some of the best
examples from the 1910's in the group of three hip-roofed duplexes at 20, 22, and 24 Shawmut
Avenue. They all retain their shingled second stories, and # 20 still has its clapboarded first story,
paired oval-light doors, 2-over-1-sash windows, and wide, Tuscan-columned entry porch with
balcony.
The Craftsman Bungalow was popular from about 1905 to 1925, and was often melded with the late
vernacular Queen Anne or the modest Colonial Revival. Except for two gable-end bungalows at
73 and 77 Greenwood Street and a pair of little clipped-gable examples at 149 and 153 Edinborough
Street, most bungalows in the area were of the two-room-deep, hip-roofed or side-gabled type,
rather than oriented with the facade in the gable end. Of the larger hip-roofed or side-gabled type,
such as a group of four from 126 through 138 Shawmut Avenue, and several on Greenwood Street,
most were built with integral front porches which supported a large dormer. Although ornament
is minimal on these houses, common features include rubble foundations, exposed rafter- and purlin
ends, wide square piers or columns and solid balustrades on the porches, and a variety of double-
hung windows, including one type with three or four vertical panes in the upper sash. (Cont.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
Several types of Colonial Revival houses were built here from about 1915 thiough the early 1930's.
A few two-story, side-gabled houses, including a well-preserved double-house at 9 Midland Street,
a stylish, hip-roofed residence with a projecting second-story facade bay at 122 Shawmut Avenue and
John A. Curtis's large, 7-bay, Colonial/Classical Revival house with two-story pedimented portico
at 172 Shawmut are the most prominent examples. The American Four-Square has a few small
representatives here, the most intact of which is 54 Exeter Street. Among the smallest of the later
buildings are a few one-story Colonial Revival side-gabled cottages. More intact than some of the
larger houses in the area are #145 Greenwood Street, and 161 Edinborough Street. Both have the
popular open side porch, and 161 Edinborough has a pedimented, Tuscan-columned entry, and
tripartite 6/6 and 4/4 sash windows with paneled shutters with pierced designs.
By 1927 the Dutch Colonial Revival house had appeared, and this area has several well-preserved
examples of the type, including four on Greendale Avenue. The most intact are located at 79
Plymouth Street, which has wide clapboards, a rubble foundation, 6-over-l-sash windows, and a
pedimented entry hood on Tuscan columns, sheltering a large-light wood and glass door, and 158
Shawmut, which has a sidelighted entry with open pediment, 6-over-6-sash windows, and an open
side porch.
Samuel Boyd and his associates were not the only landowners to layout house lots in the area,
however. Well before the Chestnut Hill Land Association was formed, Charles B. Greenwood
(1837-1909), who owned at least twenty-five acres east of his family's cider and vinegar factory on
the east side of Maple Street, laid out the first of two subdivisions. One consisted of 104 lots along
today's Greenwood, Harvard, Wellington, and Midland Streets, (with Commonwealth cut through
after 1890), and the other began with thirty-nine lots along the east section of Shawmut Avenue.
The final part of the area to be laid out with streets was the northwest section, where for many
years Amos Cotting had owned about ten acres adjacent to his house at the comer or Essex and
Maple Streets. This section, apparently developed about 1900, includes Greendale Avenue and part
of the west block of Shawmut. (Cont.)
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
The Greenwood cider mill, (later the Marlborough Vinegar Company), has been replaced by an
early-twentieth-century garage, but the brick storehouse that was built in the early 1890's to house
two large tanks, one for cider, the other for vinegar, still stands back from the street at 6 Harvard
Street. Across from it is the mid-century house and attached blacksmith shop of the Wright family
at 164 Maple Street. Other buildings that remain from the pre-Civil War era include the houses
of John Murphy at 130 Maple Street, and the H.C. Wilder house at 3 Greendale Street.
In addition to the shoeworkers that Samuel Boyd anticipated would occupy many of the houses in
the area, it was also home to the families of a mix of professionals, including clerks, electricians,
plumbers, and several carpenters. Several of the houses were occupied by employees on the street
railway and the nearby railroad. In 1897, for instance, neighborhood residents Orin Bailey, Thomas
McNally, Edward Wright and Fred Lewis worked as conductors on the "electrics", James Young was
an engineer, and Edwin Whitney was a motorman. As in Area K to the north, the larger lots of the
area, especially those along Church Street, or higher up the hill, were developed well into the
twentieth century with fashionable houses built or occupied by Marlborough's more prominent
citizens, such as publisher Frederick W. Pratt, mayor Winfield Temple at 201 Church Street and
Curtis Shoe Co. president John A. Curtis at 172 Shawmut Avenue.
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.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
Marlborough Chestnut Hill Area
Massachusetts Historical Commission
80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 T a., (35"c3 -l/l1
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INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
NOTE: Although the inventory includes the entire area outlined on the Area Sketch Map, only
resources which have individual forms, or 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.) Starred
properties (*) have individual inventory forms).
653 70-472 177 Church Street J. O'Connell House ca. 1860 astylistic
656 70-489 205 Church Street Mrs. L. Sherman House ca. 1889 Queen Anne
659 70-505 228 Church/78 Greenwood St. Greenwood Hse. 1890's Queen Anne
660 82-268 252 Church Street James Warner House 1890's Queen Anne
(continued)
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Approximate
MHC# Parcel # Street Address Historic Name Date Style/type
678 70-494-A 3 Greendale Avenue H.C. Wilder House ca. 1870 Italianate
vernacular
689 71-495 104 Maple Street Whitcomb/Greenwood Hse. mid-19th C. Grk. Revival
690 82-242 130 Maple Street John Murphy House ca. 1860 Grek. Rev.
vernacular
691 82-222 142 Maple Street H. & C. Greenwood Hse. mid-19th C. Italianate
692 82-201 164 Maple Street Wright/Page House mid-19th C. Grk. Revival
693 82-199 176 Maple Street grocery store ca. 1900 astylistic
*2 82-168 200 Maple Street David Temple House ca. 1800 Federal
(continued)
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688 71-145 172 Shawmut Avenue John A. Curtis Hse. 1920's Col. Revival
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