FORM A - AREA MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Assessor s Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area Town Northborough Shrewsbury Photograph Allen Court mill houses, with 2-4 Allen Court in foreground, camera facing north. Place (neighborhood or village) Woodside Name of Area ALLEN COURT MILL HOUSES Present Use Residential Construction Dates or Period ca. 1866 Overall Condition Fair Major Intrusions and Alterations Siding, modern windows, dormers, enclosure of porches. Acreage 1.1 acres Recorded by Organization Date (month/year) May 2009 Topographic or Assessor's Map Bruce Clouette, PAST, Inc., Storrs, CT Northborough Historical Commission Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
AREA FORM ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION see continuation sheet Describe architectural, structural and landscape features and evaluate in terms of other areas within the community Allen Court is a short street running along a terrace on the east side of the Assabet River, opposite the former David F. Wood woolen mill; the terrace is formed by a fieldstone rubble retaining wall. Four once-identical two-family houses and one different one-family house make up a row of closely spaced former mill tenements. The four similar houses are 1 ½ stories in height and measure 22 feet by 33 feet in plan. The broad sides of the houses face the street, with the ridges of the gable roofs running in a north-south direction. Each house has a five-bay façade with a double entrance in the center, sheltered by a shed-roofed porch, 5 feet by 11 feet in plan. The houses appear to be framed with 12-foot uprights, creating extra headroom for the upper story. On the side elevations, there are two windows for each level. The houses rest on brick foundations, and each has a pair of small brick chimneys, apparently intended for stoves, not fireplaces. With few exceptions, the windows and doors are all modern. Exteriors are covered with aluminum or vinyl siding, in most cases resulting in the removal of the partial cornice return across the gable ends. Variations from the type are as follows: 2-4 Allen Court. The house has a 13-by-20 ell extending north from the house s northeast corner. The ell appears on both the 1887 view and the 1898 Richard map and so it is early if not original. A remnant of two-over-two sash remains, but most windows are modern. One of the entry doors is a panel-and-glass door from ca. 1900. (continued) HISTORICAL NARRATIVE see continuation sheet Explain historical development of the area. Discuss how this relates to the historical development of the community. These houses were associated with the woolen mill across the river and provided housing for some of the mill s employees. Along with the mill itself, they recall the important role of textile production in Northborough s economic history. It is difficult to date them because the area is not shown in great detail in the graphic sources, but Allen Court does appear on the 1887 view and the 1898 Richards map, as well as the early 20 th -century Sanborn maps. In 1866, David F. Wood purchased the mill privilege and erected a large woolen mill on the foundation of a cotton mill that had burned in 1860; it is likely that the Allen Court row of houses was constructed as part of Wood s 1866 improvement of the property. The 1910 Sanborn map shows the southernmost house, 2-4 Allen Court, as a single-family dwelling with a small grocery store in the ell. The two houses at the south end of Allen Court were sold into private ownership in 1927 when much of the mill property was auctioned off, but the other three remained company-owned until at least 1936. At the time of the 1920 census, Allen Street (which included Allen Court, since the latter was not separately listed) was still inhabited almost exclusively by woolen-mill workers, most of whom were of French-Canadian or Irish heritage. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES see continuation sheet Sanborn Map and Publishing Company. Insurance maps of Northborough, 1910, 1921, 1928. Kent, Josiah C. Northborough History. Newton, MA: Garden City Press, 1921. Pp. 156-167. Plan of the Real Estate of the Northdale Woolen Co., Inc., Northborough, Mass. Sept. 1927. Worcester District Registry of Deeds, Worcester, MA. Plan Book 52, Plan 55. Richards, L. J. New Topographical Atlas of Worcester County, Massachusetts. Philadelphia, PA: L. J. Richards & Co., 1898. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census of Population, 1920. Manuscript schedules, microfilm, Mass. State Library, Boston, MA. View of Northborough, Massachusetts, 1887. Original in Library of Congress. Property of Woodside Mills, Northboro, Mass., August 10, 1936. Worcester District Registry of Deeds, Worcester, MA. Plan Book 92, Plan 1. Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION (continued): 6-8 Allen Court. The porch has been replaced by a hip-roofed porch with pressure-treated posts and railing. There are two small gabled dormers on the front slope of the gable roof. On the rear elevation, at each end, is a small (4-by-7) shed-roofed addition. The cornice return remains. 10-12 Allen Court. The porch has been enclosed, and the windows have not only been replaced with modern sash but the openings themselves have been reduced somewhat in size. 14-16 Allen Court. The porch has been enclosed and the windows have been reduced in size. The northernmost house, 18 Allen Court, departs somewhat from the type. It is also 1 ½ stories high and has about the same footprint as the other houses, 22 feet by 32 feet. However, the ridge of its gable roof runs east-west, and the entrance is on the right end of the three-bay south elevation. The north slope of the gable roof is continued at a shallower pitch over the north half of the house, which was added in the 1920s. Because of the slope at the end of the terrace, the basement story is partially exposed on the west elevation and fully exposed on the north elevation. There is a single brick chimney; the foundation has been stuccoed. The house has a small 12-by-12 addition on the east side. Originally all the houses had a small outbuilding, probably a privy, at the back; none of them remains. Although every house has been altered in several ways, enough remains that the group retains its character as a row of millrelated houses, one of only two remaining in Northborough. Continuation Sheet 1
DATA SHEET Inventory Number Street Address Description Date NBO.224 2-4 Allen Court Mill tenement, 1 ½ stories ca. 1866 NBO.225 6-8 Allen Court Mill tenement, 1 ½ stories ca. 1866 NBO.226 10-12 Allen Court Mill tenement, 1 ½ stories ca. 1866 NBO.227 14-16 Allen Court Mill tenement, 1 ½ stories ca. 1866 NBO. 18 Allen Court Mill tenement, 1 ½ stories ca. 1866 Continuation Sheet 2
Allen Court mill houses, with 2-4 Allen Court in foreground, camera facing north. Continuation Sheet 3
House at 2-4 Allen Court, camera facing northeast. Continuation Sheet 4
House at 6-8 Allen Court, camera facing northeast. Continuation Sheet 5
House at 10-12 Allen Court, camera facing northeast. Continuation Sheet 6
House at 14-16 Allen Court, camera facing northeast. Continuation Sheet 7
House at 18 Allen Court, camera facing northeast. Continuation Sheet 8
A portion of the fieldstone retaining wall forming the terrace for Allen Court, camera facing southeast. Continuation Sheet 9
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Community Property NBO.N Address MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING Northborough Allen Court Mill Houses 220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125 Area(s) Form No. National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form Check all that apply: Individually eligible Eligible only in a historic district Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district Criteria: A B C D Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G Statement of Significance by Bruce Clouette The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here. The Allen Court mill houses may be eligible as a component of a potential Woodside Mills historic district, which would include the mill (NBO.266), mill dam, this row of former mill-owned houses, and two other small clusters of mill houses (NBO.O and NBO.P). The Woodside Mills and associated former mill housing have local historical significance because of the buildings associations with a major theme in the town s economic development, textile manufacturing (Criterion A). In a town in which most industrial enterprises were of the small-shop type, the textile mills stood out for employing as many as 100 workers and, in two cases, for leading to the creation of villages surrounding the mills. The Woodside Mills, dating from 1888 and enlarged during the prosperous years of the World War I period, is the town s pre-eminent heritage resource illustrating this theme. The Chapinville mill exists only as an archaeological site, and the Farwell Comb Factory, which operated for a time as a shoddy mill, is both later in origin (1900) and in a more highly-altered condition. The individual houses in the three areas of mill housing are all to some extent altered from their original appearance, as is the case with virtually every grouping of mill houses in New England. Despite the modernizations, the essential similarity of the mill houses remains and, along with the proximity to the mill itself, adds to the area s sense of time and place. Continuation Sheet 10