The 1790 House, also called the Joseph Bartlett House or the Bartlett–Wheeler House, is a

historic house A historic house generally meets several criteria before being listed by an official body as "historic." Generally the building is at least a certain age, depending on the rules for the individual list. A second factor is that the building be in ...

located at 827 Main Street,

Woburn, Massachusetts Woburn ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,876 at the 2020 census. Woburn is located north of Boston. Woburn uses Massachusetts' mayor-council form of government, in which an elected mayor is ...

, and 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 ...

. It is close to the Baldwin House, with the

Middlesex Canal The Middlesex Canal was a 27-mile (44-kilometer) barge canal connecting the Merrimack River with the port of Boston. When operational it was 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, and 3 feet (0.9 m) deep, with 20 locks, each 80 feet (24 m) long and between 10 and ...

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

, for Woburn lawyer Joseph Bartlett. Shortly before completion it was purchased by Col.

Loammi Baldwin Colonel Loammi Baldwin (January 10, 1744 – October 20, 1807) was a noted American engineer, politician, and a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. Baldwin is known as the Father of American Civil Engineering. His five sons, Cyrus ...

, noted engineer, who hoped to convince expatriate scientist and inventor

Benjamin Thompson Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, FRS (german: Reichsgraf von Rumford; March 26, 1753August 21, 1814) was an American-born British physicist and inventor whose challenges to established physical theory were part of the 19th-century revolut ...

, Count Rumford, to return to his home town. Although this idea never came to fruition, author

Frances Parkinson Keyes Frances Parkinson Keyes (July 21, 1885 – July 3, 1970) was an American author who wrote about her life as the wife of a U.S. Senator and novels set in New England, Louisiana, and Europe. A convert to Roman Catholicism, her later works freq ...

, 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 and became the prime advocate of the United States settlement of Oregon. He then migrated west to become a legendary "mountain man" and explorer. The house was purchased by the BNMC MA Realty LLC in March 2014. Previously, the house was owned by Woburn Daily Times Inc since 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 roof, seven bays wide and four bays deep. It is of frame construction covered with clapboard, except at the front where it is imitation ashlar; wood Quoin (architecture), quoins 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.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Houses completed in 1790 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Woburn, Massachusetts Federal architecture in Massachusetts Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts

History

Structure

See also

References