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1790 House (Woburn, Massachusetts)
Encyclopedia
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Historic house
A historic house can be a stately home, the birthplace of a famous person, or a house with an interesting history or architecture.- Background :...
located at 827 Main Street, Woburn, Massachusetts
Woburn, Massachusetts
Woburn is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 38,120 at the 2010 census. Woburn is located north of Boston, Massachusetts, and just south of the intersection of I-93 and I-95.- History :...
, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. It is close to the Baldwin House
Baldwin House
The Baldwin House, also known as the Loammi Baldwin Mansion, is a fine Colonial American mansion located at 2 Alfred Street in Woburn, Massachusetts. On October 7, 1971, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places....
, with the Middlesex Canal
Middlesex Canal
The Middlesex Canal was a 27-mile barge canal connecting the Merrimack River with the port of Boston. When operational it was 30 feet wide, and 3 feet deep, with 20 locks, each 80 feet long and between 10 and 11 feet wide...
running between them.
The 1790 House, originally on Main Street, has been moved closer to the canal to make room for a hotel. It now faces more south than its original facing of southwest.
History
The Federal style house was originally built in 1790 on the banks of the Middlesex CanalMiddlesex Canal
The Middlesex Canal was a 27-mile barge canal connecting the Merrimack River with the port of Boston. When operational it was 30 feet wide, and 3 feet deep, with 20 locks, each 80 feet long and between 10 and 11 feet wide...
, for Woburn lawyer Joseph Bartlett. Shortly before completion it was purchased by Col. Loammi Baldwin
Loammi Baldwin
Colonel Loammi Baldwin was a noted American engineer, politician, and a soldier in the American Revolutionary War....
, noted engineer, who hoped to convince expatriate scientist and inventor Benjamin Thompson
Benjamin Thompson
Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford , FRS was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th century revolution in thermodynamics. He also served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Loyalist forces in America during the American...
, Count Rumford, to return to his home town. Although this idea never came to fruition, author Frances Parkinson Keyes
Frances Parkinson Keyes
Frances Parkinson Keyes was an American author, and a convert to Roman Catholicism, whose works frequently featured Catholic themes and beliefs. Her last name rhymes with "skies," not "keys."-Life and career:...
, who later spent childhood summers in the home, refers to it repeatedly in her memoirs as the "Count Rumford House". The house also features in her autobiography, Roses in December.
In 1815 Hall Jackson Kelley conducted a private school for boys in the house, and there he first read the newly published Journals of Lewis and Clark. Kelley conceived a passion for the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...
and became the prime advocate of the United States settlement of Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
. He then migrated west to become a legendary "mountain man" and explorer.
The house was purchased by the Woburn Daily Times Inc in 1981 and is currently used as office space. Before that it was owned by the North Congregational Church of Woburn, and used as a Sunday School.
Structure
The structure stands two stories tall beneath a hip roofRoof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
, seven bays wide and four bays deep. It is of frame construction covered with clapboard, except at the front where it is imitation ashlar
Ashlar
Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...
; wood quoin
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
s ornament its corners. A two tier Doric porch projects from the front facade, with single-story Tuscan pillars supporting the porch, and two-story Doric pillars at the corners. The upper level has a balustrade with Chinese railings. The two sides and rear also contain entrances, and the rear facade was once graced with a large Palladian window. (As of 2005, the rear facade seems to have been obliterated in a large-scale extension to the building.) There are two interior end chimneys.
At one time there was a large barn filled with old books behind the building; this was torn down in the late 1960s.