The Silver Lake District is a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

encompassing a summer resort area along the southern section of

Silver Lake Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

Harrisville, New Hampshire Harrisville is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. Besides the town center, it also includes the villages of Chesham and Eastview. The population of the town was 984 at the 2020 census. Harrisville is a unique, preserved 19th ...

. It includes a collection of summer cottages built along or near the shores of the lake between about 1880 and 1903, a period of prosperity in Harrisville and nearby Keene. It is unusual in that most of the owners and occupants of its properties were from nearby towns, and not from further afield, as the populations of the summer colonies of

Nelson Nelson may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Nelson'' (1918 film), a historical film directed by Maurice Elvey * ''Nelson'' (1926 film), a historical film directed by Walter Summers * ''Nelson'' (opera), an opera by Lennox Berkeley to a lib ...

and

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

were. The district covers from the town line between Harrisville and Nelson to the southern end of the lake, and includes 76 contributing buildings. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1986. The Silver Lake area was first settled in the mid-18th century, and was predominantly agricultural in use until the arrival of the railroad at

Chesham Chesham (, , or ) is a market town and civil parish in Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordsh ...

in 1880. Around 1886 Corban Farwell and Wellington Seaver, the major landowners around the southern end of the lake, began selling off lakefront lots, on which vacationers built modest cottages. Of the 37 cottages built before 1903, 35 are still standing. The architecture of most of them is best described as

vernacular A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...

and Stick style, with siding that is either vertical planking,

board-and-batten A batten is most commonly a strip of solid material, historically wood but can also be of plastic, metal, or fiberglass. Battens are variously used in construction, sailing, and other fields. In the lighting industry, battens refer to linea ...

, or

tongue-and-groove Tongue and groove is a method of fitting similar objects together, edge to edge, used mainly with wood, in flooring, parquetry, panelling, and similar constructions. Tongue and groove joints allow two flat pieces to be joined strongly together t ...

. Some houses have bands of decorative cut shingles, and most houses feature porches that wrap around at least two sides, and offer views of the lake or the mountains. Some houses have Gothic-style

vergeboard Bargeboard (probably from Medieval Latin ''bargus'', or ''barcus'', a scaffold, and not from the now obsolete synonym "vergeboard") or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to ...

decoration and trim elements. Most of the properties in the district are located on the lake side of East Side Road and West Side Road, dead-end roads which run near the shores of the lake from its southern end. Some houses, which were built on some the first lots to be sold off by Corban Farwell, are located on Old Nelson Road. The original lots for these properties originally ran to the lake, but were subdivided, separating them from the lake.

References

{{NRHP in Cheshire County, New Hampshire Gothic Revival architecture in New Hampshire Queen Anne architecture in New Hampshire Historic districts in Cheshire County, New Hampshire Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire National Register of Historic Places in Cheshire County, New Hampshire Harrisville, New Hampshire

See also

References