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Area K Church Street
Area K Church Street
Town Marlborough
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form
AREA FORM
The large, ca. 50-acre area east of East Main and Maple Streets, and stretching south from East
Main to Essex Streets, contains some of the most varied residential architecture of any of the
nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century neighborhoods at Marlborough center. 215 houses, one
church, and one 1931 school building fill its streets. Although with a scattering of 27 modern
houses, this area has more intrusions than some of the other center-city neighborhoods, in general
the architecture here is better preserved than in some of the others.
This was a rural area until well into the 1850's, and one large hip-roofed, five-bay Federal style
farmhouse stands at 153 Hildreth Street (see Form #205) near the eastern edge of the area, next
to a cluster of modern houses built on its former farmland. One of the largest groups of vernacular
Greek Revival houses ill Marlborough, however, is situated near the altered Greek
Revival/ltalianate/Colonial Revival First Methodist Church (see Form #97) at 52 Church Street.
Seven houses here on Church and Front Street, built between 1853 and 1857, display characteristics
of the Greek Revival style, including pedimented side- or facade-gables, paneled corner pilasters,
and full-length divided sidelights at the entries. (Cont.)
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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 residential area centered on today's Church Street, between East Main Street at the north to
northwest, and Essex Street to the south, developed over the course of the second half of the
nineteenth century and the first thirty years of the twentieth into one of the largest and most varied
residential neighborhods ill Marlborough. Although the line of Hildreth Street through the middle
of the area was in existence by 1800 as an eastward extension of Main Street, no buildings save for
the large late-Federal Robinson family farmhouse at 153 Hildreth stood in that central section until
after 1857.
Building began first at the northern and southern edges of the area. In 1853, after a fire had
destroyed the Methodist Church in Feltonville, a segment of the congregation organized to build
a new one here in Marlborough on land belonging to the church's major benefactor, Solomon
Weeks. The church (see Form #97) was dedicated here that October on the first section of Church
Street, which ran from East Main to Hildreth. At about the same time, Front Street was laid out
opposite the church. The Methodist Parsonage was built next to the church at 50 Church Street
(MHC #567) shortly afterward , and by 1857 a cluster of eight more houses, the beginnings of a
new residential neighborhood, stood nearby on the two new streets. For a time, until more
surrounding houses were built by non-Methodist owners, the area around the Church/Front Street
intersection was referred to as "Methodist Village." (Cont.)
The very large three-bay, center-entry gable-end residence of the Rev. Sylvester Bucklin at 27
Hildreth Street (see Form #83), which was built before 1853, probably had Greek Revival details
originally, but was updated with large Italianate round-headed windows, cornice brackets, and an
entry hood on chamfered, square posts in about 1870. (See Form #83.) Several other houses,
especially in the north part of the area, display vernacular Italianate details such as bracketed door
canopies. A few of the "upright-and-wing" type, built ca. 1870, including Sylvester Bucklin, 2nd's
two rental houses at 6 and 14 Church Street (MHC #s563 and 564), and the A.P. Sanborn House
at 90 Church (MHC #582), have the tall, narrow proportions and shallow-pitched, overhanging
roofs that clearly show the Italian origins of the house form. 6 and 14 Church have brackets at the
cornice lines, and the Sanborn House has a circular window (now filled in) in the peak of each
gable.
Four Second Empire houses also were built in the north part of the area in the 1860's-early 1870's.
One, the altered L-plan house at 22 Hildreth Street (MHC #586), is two stories; the others, at 40
Hildreth, and the Luther Tarbell House at 34 Church, and the Thomas Jackson House at 7 Walnut
Street, are all mansard cottages. (MHC #s 585, 566, and 202). 40 Hildreth and 34 Church are of
the large, three-bay, symmetrical-facaded form; 7 Walnut is a small L-plan house.
While the north part of the Church Street area was filling with stylish Greek Revival, Second
Empire, and Italianate houses, Essex Street at the south edge of the area was being built up with
more modest, nearly astylistic, houses on smaller lots. A few major building-types prevail in this
section. The earliest is the little three-bay, "story-and-a-half' cottage. Several were built on the
south side of Essex west of Church Street between 1853 and 1857. All have been altered, but four,
at 77, 81, 87, and 99 Essex, (MHC #s 619, 620, 621, and 623) are still recognizable in spite of
having been enlarged over the years. The 2 liZ-story side-gabled house is also found at several
locations throughout the area. Most, such as the ca. 1855 Hunter/Rice House at 28 Front Street,
and a ca. 1870 pair at 22 and 26 Vine Street, are three bays wide, and nearly devoid of decorative
detail. (MHC #s 571, 568 and 569). A few, including the three-bay 78 Essex Street and the five-
bay Coolidge House at 21 Front Street, which have Italianate bracketed door hoods and a pair of
rectangular bay windows on the facade, are more indicative of the fashion of their times. (MHC
#s 620 and 573). (Cont.)
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Larger three-bay 2- and 2 1/2-story gable-end houses are scattered throughout the area. Lines of
them stand in some parts, however, including on outer Hildreth Street at 101-123 (south side--MHC
#s 588-592), and at 128, and 134 on the north side. (MHC #s 593-594.) A late group was built
at 75, 79, and 83 Warren Avenue in the 1890's. (MHC #s 606-608).
Many of the gable-ends have considerable vernacular decoration. This was certainly the most
common house form built in the 1880's and '90's and embellished with Queen Anne details, such
as incised verge boards, gable screens and trusses, and facade and wraparound porches with lathe-
turned posts. Among the most well-preserved examples of these are 180 Hildreth Street (MHC
#598) and 75 Warren Avenue. Larger and more complex Queen Anne houses, with many projecting
bays, wings, dormers, and turrets, were also built in the Church Street area, especially in the south
section of Church and the eastern end of Warren Street in the late 1880's and 1890's. Among them
are the Arthur Curtis House at 56 Warren Street (see Form #207), and the Miller House diagonally
across from it at 146 Church Street (MHC #609). A few large Queen Anne duplexes were also
either built or enlarged from earlier houses at that time. 95 Church Street (MHC #583) has three
elaborate Queen Anne facade porches on turned, bracketed posts, with stick-work balustrades. 133
Essex Street, built in the 1890's, also has three porches, plus a gable screen and decorative verge-
boards. (See Form #206.) 11 Vine Street (MHC #567) appears to have been enlarged and
updated in the 1890's with gable screens, turned-posted porches, a pedimented picture window, and
even a sunburst panel at one comer.
A few rare Marlborough examples of the Shingle Style are also located in the Church Street area.
One, at 4 Corey Road, has a skirted facade pediment, Colonial Revival porch detail, and a tripartite
lattice-sash gable window. (See Form #204.) Around the corner on Warren Avenue are two
others-va long, altered gambrel-roofed house with a fanlighted door at 24 Warren Avenue, and, next
door, at 14/16, a large double-house with twin wall gables on the facade, and end facade entries
sheltered by extensions of the steeply-pitched, overhanging roof supported on stocky, fluted Doric
columns. (MHC #s 610 and 611.)
The Church Street area, which underwent a longer evolution than some of the others closer to the
heart of Marlborough's downtown, has many early-twentieth-century houses, most of them
incorporating some version of the Colonial Revival style. Nearly ubiquitous details for this period
include Tuscan-columned facade- or entry porches, and double-hung windows of 4/1, 6/1, or 8/1
configuration. (Cont.)
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Two large two-story hip-roofed Colonial Revival houses stand at either end of Essex Street, at 62
and 191 (MHC #s 618 and 630). 62 Essex has a wide gabled center pavilion. Maddox Road has
three stylish two-story Colonial Revival houses, at 14, 19, and 22. (MHC #s 612-614.) 14 Maddox
is shingled, with a narrow fanlighted entry, 19 has an enclosed, pedimented vestibule and paneled
shutters with cutout designs at its paired and tripled windows, and 22 Maddox has a sidelighted,
balconied entry. In the mid-1920's several Dutch Colonial Revival houses were built here, as they
were in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood to the south. Good examples are to be found at 99
Church, 27 Maddox, 89 Essex, 10 Grove, a line of three at 93, 97, and 105 Warren Avenue, and a
pair at 40 and 42 Essex Street. (MHC #s 584, 615, 623, 599, 604, 603, 602, 616, and 617.)
The latest groups of historically significant houses, both apparently built in the 1930's, are two
clusters of Cape Cod cottages, most standing on rubble foundations. One group of five is located
at the eastern end of Warren Avenue; another stands on Church and Hildreth Streets on the site
of the 1882 Hildreth School, which was demolished ca. 1931 when the brick, Colonial Revival new
Hildreth School, designed by Mol. Dyer, replaced it. (See Form #89.)
By 1870 there was sufficient population in the area for a new district school to be built, on or near
the site of 102 Essex Street. Also by that time Grove Street had been laid out between Essex and
the western section of Hildreth where a line of 10 houses, all belonging to Irish-Americans, was
standing by 1870. The anchor properties there were apparently, again, the old Robinson farmhouse,
now occupied by the large Donovan family, and the Fitzgerald farm at 128 Hildreth Street. John
Fitzgerald had acquired many acres of the old Sawin property, and had a farm on the north side of
the street that included much of the land owned by the city of Marlborough today.
Shortly before his death in 1874, Thomas Corey was still subdividing his land. His last major project
consisted oflaying out the eastern section of Warren Avenue with twenty-two houselots. (No houses
were built there, however, until after 1889.)
In the northern part of the area, Vine and Walnut Street were laid out during the 1860's, and by
1871 a dozen houses were standing there. New houses progressed both south and north along
Church Street from the original "Methodist Village" core, at least three of them belonging to
Sylvester Bucklin, 2nd, who lived at 9/11 Church Street. By 1878 Sawin Street was at least
unofficially laid out through the old Sawin property, and at least four houses were standing there
by 1878. A flurry of speculation swept through the area in the late 1870's, when a third railroad
line, a branch of the Massachusetts Central, was briefly proposed. It would have taken a course
southeast across the Sawin property to a terminus on the north side of Main Street, west of Bolton.
Building in the area progressed slowly through the 1880's. It was a decade when several more
sections of streets were laid out, however, some probably in anticipation of a future building boom
heralded by the confidence of Samuel Boyd and others, who were subdividing the large Chestnut
Hill section south of Essex Street into hundreds of houselots. The '80's saw the extension of Church
Street south from Hildreth all the way through the new Chestnut Hill area, and, in Area K, the
laying out of McIntyre Court, the north end of Maddox (as Wood Place), and the west end of
Warren Avenue from Church to Maple Street. McIntyre Court was developed by builder and grain-
dealer William McIntyre, who put up the three houses on its east side between 1880 and 1889. By
1889 seven houses were also standing on lower Warren Street, which, with lower Church Street, was
to become a stylish enclave of residences of shoe-manufacturers and other professionals during the
1890's. In 1882 a large new school, the Hildreth School (demolished), was built at the corner of
Hildreth and Church Streets. (Cont.)
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Development in the area slowed somewhat in the early years of the twentieth century, then
increased again during the 1920's-early 1930's, when many houses, some of them possibly factory-
built, filled the open spaces, especially on Warren Avenue and Essex, and Hildreth Streets. In 1931
the 1882 Hildreth School was replaced by the present building, which was built on a property that
was large enough for ball fields, a wading pool, and other recreational facilities. The old building
at the comer of Church and Hildreth Streets was tom down, and replaced by a cluster of small
Cape Cod houses.
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.
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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 (*) are discussed on individual or small group inventory forms).
561 57-167 6 Church Street Bucklin rental house ca. 1870 Italianate
562 57-172 9/11 Church Street Sylvester Bucklin, 2nd Hse. ca. 1860 Greek Revival
563 57-165 14 Church Street Bucklin rental house ca. 1870 Italianate
565 57-164 18 Church Street Nourse House ca. 1860 Greek Revival
566 57-161 34 Church Street L.L. Tarbell House ca. 1865 mansard cottage
567 57-141 50 Church Street Methodist Parsonage ca. 1853 Greek Rev./
Queen Anne
*97 57-140 52 Church Street First Methodist Church 1853 Grk. Rev/Italianate/
Col. Revival
582 70-355 90 Church Street A.P. Sanborn House ca. 1870 Italianate
609 70-427 146 Church Street Miller House 1880's Queen Anne
*203 57-135 15 Front Street Weeks?/Witt House ca. 1855 Greek Revival
571 57-179A 28 Front Street Hunter/Rice House ca. 1855 2-1 /2-S. side-gabled
*83 70-390 27 Hildreth Street Sylvester Bucklin Hse. ca. 1840's Italianate
593 71-2 128 Hildreth Street Fitzgerald Farmhouse ca. 1870 vemac. gable-end
*205 71-93 153 Hildreth Street Robinson/Hildreth? House early 19th C. Federal
*202 57-155F 7 Walnut Street Thomas Jackson House ca. 1871 mansard cottage
*207 70-394 56 Warren Avenue Arthur P. Curtis House 1890 Queen Anne
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Marlborough Church Street Area
Massachusetts Historical Commission
80 Boylston Street Area(s) Form Nos.
Boston, Massachusetts 02116 K S; 83, 89, 97, 202-207
561-630
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