Houses

Barnard Tavern, Deerfield, Massachusetts

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The Barnard Tavern and adjacent Frary House in Deerfield, around 1920. Image from An Architectural Monograph on Old Deerfield (1920).

The scene in 2023:


This building stands on the east side of Old Main Street in Deerfield, just south of the common in the historic town center. It consists of two separate but adjacent structures, with the Frary House in the distance on the left and the Barnard Tavern here in the foreground. The Frary House is the older of the two sections, dating to around the 1750s, and the tavern was constructed around 1795.

As was the case with late 18th and early 19th century taverns across New England, the Barnard Tavern was not only a place for travelers to stop and have a meal or spend the night; it was also an important community hub for locals, and it was frequently used as a gathering place. The building had the bar room and kitchen on the first floor, while the upper floor housed a large assembly room that was used for a variety of meetings and other public events.

By the late 19th century, both buildings were in poor condition. However, in 1890 the property was purchased by teacher, historian, and author C. Alice Baker (1833-1909). Originally from Springfield, Baker had attended Deerfield Academy. During the 1850s she taught at a school in Illinois, and then at Deerfield Academy, and then started her own school in Chicago. She subsequently returned east, and became active in studying local history, particularly the history of Deerfield. She never married, but she lived with another woman, Susan Lane, who was described in contemporary sources as her “lifelong companion.” After purchasing this building in Deerfield, Baker worked to restore it, and she made the Frary House side into her home.

The restored Frary House/Barnard Tavern became an important landmark in Deerfield, and it was often photographed in publications about the town, as was the case with the top photo around 1920. The building was at one point owned by the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, but it is now owned by Historic Deerfield. It is one of the many properties that the organization has preserved, and both halves of the building are open to the public for guided tours on a regular basis.

Allen House, Deerfield, Massachusetts

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The Allen House at 104 Old Main Street in Deerfield, on July 24, 1930. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leon Abdalian Collection.

The house in 2023:

These two photographs show the Allen House, a saltbox-style home that was built sometime around 1734 based on tree ring analysis. It was originally the home of Thomas Bardwell. It has been heavily altered over the years, and was originally smaller, prior to the addition of the “saltbox” lean-to on the back of the house in the late 18th or early 19th centuries. According to the MACRIS inventory form for the house, it underwent a major remodel in 1832, which included the removal of the central chimney and a reconstruction of the interior to convert it into a two-family home.

The top photo was taken nearly a century later in 1930, and it shows the house in its altered appearance. By this point it was the home of sisters Frances and Mary Allen, who had lived here since the 19th century. Born in the 1850s, they grew up in Deerfield and became teachers, but they both had to leave the profession in their 30s because progressive deafness. Unable to teach, they instead took up photography, and they became two of the most prominent female photographers in the country during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The town of Deerfield was a frequent subject of their work, which often depicted scenes of old houses and pastoral landscapes, along with images of their family and neighbors.

Frances and Mary Allen never married, and they lived here until 1941, when they died just four days apart from each other at the ages of 86 and 82, respectively. The house was subsequently purchased by Henry and Helen Flynt, the founders of Historic Deerfield. They brought the design of the house back to a colonial-era appearance in 1945, although this restoration was largely conjectural due to the substantial alterations in 1832. Some of the design elements appear to have been based more on personal preference, including the ornate front doorway that replaced the 1830s-style door and sidelights from the top photo. The new doorway reflected the style that was used on many homes in the Connecticut River Valley during the mid-18th century, but there is no indication that this particular house ever had such a doorway.

Today, the house still stands here on Old Main Street, as shown in the bottom photo. Aside from the new doorway, the most noticeable exterior change from this angle is the central chimney, which was reconstructed as part of the 1945 restoration. The house is now one of the many historic homes on Old Main Street that is owned by Historic Deerfield, and it is periodically open to the public for tours.

Joseph Barnard House, Deerfield, Massachusetts

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The Joseph Barnard House, also known as the Willard House or the Old Manse, on Old Main Street in Deerfield, around 1920. Image from An Architectural Monograph on Old Deerfield (1920).

The house in 2023:

Old Main Street in Deerfield is one of the best-preserved colonial-era town centers in New England, and it features many excellent examples of 18th and early 19th century architecture. However, this house stands out as perhaps the finest of these, representing sophisticated Georgian architecture here in what was, at the time, a very rural part of colonial Massachusetts.

The house was constructed starting in 1769, and it was completed in 1772. It was designed and built by Jonas Locke, and the original owner of the house was Joseph Barnard, a wealthy local merchant. Whether he actually lived here seems unclear, though, and he may have built it for his son Samuel. In any case, the house was owned by the Barnard family until 1794, when it was sold to Ebenezer Williams. He eventually sold it in 1811 to the Rev. Samuel Willard, for $3,333.

Rev. Willard was the nephew of Harvard president Joseph Willard, and he had become the pastor of the church in Deerfield in 1807. It was during his pastorate that, in 1824, the church constructed its brick meetinghouse that still stands across the street from his house. However, Willard retired from his position at the church in 1829 due to progressive blindness. He briefly moved to Hingham, but then returned to Deerfield and lived here in this house until his death in 1859.

The top photo shows the house in the early 20th century. By that point, the house had apparently undergone some alterations, including the installation of exterior shutters and 6-over-6 windows, along with 2-over-2 dormer windows, none of were likely to have been original to the house. However, the exterior has since been restored, and today the house has 12-over-12 windows, in keeping with colonial-era architecture. The house is now owned by Deerfield Academy, and it serves as the residence for the head of school.

Ralph Waldo Emerson House, Concord, Massachusetts

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The house at 28 Cambridge Turnpike, near the corner of Lexington Road in Concord, around 1900-1906. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The house in 2023:

This house was built in 1828 by John T. Coolidge for his son, Charles Coolidge. However, it is most famous for having been the longtime home of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who purchased the house from the Coolidge family in 1835. He was in his early 30s at the time, and he lived here for the rest of his life, until his death in 1882.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803, but he had Concord roots. His grandfather, William Emerson, had been the pastor of the church in Concord, and lived in the Old Manse until his death in 1776 while serving in the Continental Army. William’s eldest son, William, also became a pastor, serving at the First Church in Boston, and William Emerson Jr.’s son, Ralph Waldo Emerson, likewise continued the family legacy and entered the ministry. He was ordained as pastor of the Second Church in Boston, but he began to struggle with doubts about his faith, especially after his wife Ellen’s death in 1831. He resigned his position at the church a year later, and then spent the next year overseas in Europe.

In 1834, Emerson moved to Concord, where he lived with his grandmother’s second husband Ezra Ripley at the Old Manse. It was there that he wrote some of his early works, including his philosophical essay “Nature,” which laid out many of the tenets of Transcendentalism. Then, in 1835 he married his second wife Lidian and purchased this property as their home. The house had previously been known as “Coolidge Castle” but Emerson renamed it “Bush.”

Over the next few decades, Emerson rose in prominence as one of the leading American philosophers. He was known for his lectures and essays, the most famous of which included “The American Scholar” and “Self-Reliance.” He influenced many other figures in the Transcendentalist movement, including most notably fellow Concord resident Henry David Thoreau. Lidian was also involved in Transcendentalism, particularly on the more practical political and social side of the movement. Among other causes, she was active in reform movements such as abolitionism, women’s rights, and the humane treatment of animals.

From 1841 to 1843, Henry David Thoreau lived here with the Emersons. He was in his mid-20s, about 15 years younger than the Emersons, but he formed a close friendship with both Ralph Waldo and Lidian. This relationship, particularly between Thoreau and Lidian, has led to recent speculation about whether this was a strictly platonic friendship, or whether Thoreau—a lifelong bachelor with no known romantic partners—harbored romantic feelings for Lidian. Either way, the Emersons had a significant influence on Thoreau’s beliefs and writings. A few years after he moved out of the house, he began his famous two-year-long stay in a cabin at Walden Pond, which he built on land that was owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau stayed at the cabin until September 1847, and he then returned to the Emerson house, where he lived until 1848.

The Emersons lived here for the rest of their lives, and they had four children here, three of whom lived to adulthood. Probably the most significant change to the house during their ownership came in July 1872, when a fire started in the attic. It burned the roof, along with much of the second floor, but the rest of the house was saved and it was soon rebuilt. Ralph Waldo Emerson died in 1882 at the age of 78, and Lidian died 10 years later at the age of 90.

The top photo was taken around the turn of the 20th century, when their oldest surviving child Ellen was still living here. She died in 1909, and her siblings subsequently inherited the house. Today, the house is still owned by descendants of the Emerson family, with few changes since the top photo was taken more than a century ago. It is preserved as a museum, and it is seasonally open to the public for tours.

Pellet-Barrett House, Concord, Massachusetts

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The house at 5 Lexington Road in Concord, around 1895-1905. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The house in 2023:

The house in these two photos stands on the north side of Lexington Road, just to the east of Monument Square in the center of Concord. The main portion of the house was built around 1728-1729, but according to its MACRIS inventory form, the rear wing of the house is even older, possibly dating to the 1670s. Assuming that date is accurate, the earliest owner of the house appears to have been Mary Dane Pellet, who lived here with her husband Thomas Pellet. The property remained in the Pellet family until 1706, when their son Daniel Pellet sold it to Josiah Blood. By 1728 the house was owned by Edward Flint, and then by the 1730s by Benjamin Barrett.

The main portion of the house, with the gambrel roof, appears to have been built by either Flint or Barrett. Subsequent 18th century owners included Ezekiel Brown Jr., a merchant who fell into debt in the years leading up to the American Revolution. His creditors had him imprisoned in Boston, during which time he studied medicine and later served as a surgeon in the Continental Army during the Revolution. However, after the war his creditors again pursued him, and he landed in jail in the late 1780s and ultimately lost his house.

The next owner was Abel Barrett, who purchased it from Brown’s creditor in 1792. The Barrett family owned it until 1818, and then sold it to Elisha Tolman, a shoemaker and church deacon who lived here until his death in 1858. According to the MACRIS inventory, Tolman likely made shoes in the wing on the west side of the house, in the distance on the left side of this scene. His son Benjamin subsequently acquired the property, and he and his wife Anne continued to own it throughout the rest of the 19th century, although it appears to have been used as a rental property for some of that time.

By the time the top photo was taken at the turn of the 20th century, the house was still owned by the Tolman family. However, the Tolmans sold it in 1908, and then a year later it was purchased by the Old Concord Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Under the leadership of Harriet Lothrop, a noted children’s book author and historic preservationist, the DAR restored the house and used it as its headquarters for many years. During this time, the DAR added a wing on the back of the house in 1929. The organization ultimately sold the house in 1951.

Today, more than a century after the top photo was taken, there have not been very many changes to this scene. Both this house and the neighboring house to the left are still standing, as is the Colonial Inn in the distance on the far left side. The house is now apartments, with four units according to the town assessor’s property card. It stands as one of the many surviving 18th century homes that line Lexington Road, and it is a contributing property in the the Concord Monument Square–Lexington Road Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Lexington Road, Concord, Massachusetts

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The view looking east on Lexington Road in Concord, around 1895-1905. Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.

The scene in 2023:

These two photos show the row of historic homes that line the north side of Lexington Road, just to the east of the town center of Concord. Most of these homes have been featured in more detail in previous posts, including, starting in the foreground on the left side, the c.1752-1753 John Ball House. The next house, which does not yet have its own individual post on this site, is located at 47 Lexington Road, and it is said to have been built around 1650 as the home of Thomas Dale, although it was later enlarged in the 18th century. Beyond it is the c.1817 Captain John Adams House, and farther in the distance is the c.1720 Reuben Brown Saddler’s Shop and the c.1720 Reuben Brown House.

More than a century later, all of the houses from the top photo are still standing. A few of the trees also appear to be the same, including the elm in the foreground and the large sycamore in the distant center of the scene. Because of its level of preservation, and because of the road’s association with the Battle of Concord at the start of the American Revolution, this section of Lexington Road is part of the Concord Monument Square–Lexington Road Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.