M H C 50 0 DRA.34 ASSACHUSETTS ISTORICAL OMMISSION ...

Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form. 12/12

FORM B BUILDING

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION

MASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING

220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

Photograph

Locus Map (North is Up)

Recorded by: Jennifer B. Doherty

Organization: Dracut Historical Commission

Date (month / year): April, 2017

Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number

50 – 0 – 221 Lowell,

MA

DRA.34

Town/City: Dracut

Place: (neighborhood or village): Dracut Center

Address: 1367 Bridge Street

Historic Name: Dracut Grange Hall #216

Uses: Present: Grange

Original: Grange

Date of Construction: 1903

Source: Building plans, date on building

Style/Form: Colonial Revival

Architect/Builder: Charles H. Burtt

Exterior Material:

Foundation: Cut stone

Wall/Trim: Vinyl / vinyl

Roof: Slate

Outbuildings/Secondary Structures: None

Major Alterations (with dates): Vinyl siding, windows

replaced, porch and south side entrance hood replaced, date unknown Condition: Fair

Moved: no yes Date:

Acreage: 12,000 sq. ft. / 0.28 acres

Setting: Just north of a busy intersection with a mix of commercial, residential, and institutional buildings in the area.

INVENTORY FORM B CONTINUATION SHEET DRACUT 1367 BRIDGE STREET

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area(s) Form No.

220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

Continuation sheet 1

DRA.34

Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.

Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION: Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.

The Dracut Grange Hall #216 is a large Classical Revival style building constructed in 1903. The two-story building is composed of two sections: a hip-roofed rectangular main body with a deeply projecting gabled pavilion. It sits on a high cut stone foundation, is covered in vinyl siding, and has an asphalt shingle roof. The windows on the building are vinyl one-over-one sash with false muntins in the upper sash giving the appearance of a six-over-one light pattern. However three original wood six-over-six sash survive in the gable end of the main façade. The fenestration pattern is regular and symmetrical between both floors, with a three-bay façade and three-bay side elevations. Typical of utilitarian meeting halls, the building has little trim or ornament aside from a full cornice return across the gable on the façade of the pavilion that forms an enclosed pediment, and pilasters at the corners of the building that have been covered in vinyl. The double doors of the centered main entry are sheltered by a flat roofed open porch with round metal posts supporting the roof and metal railings lining the concrete stairs. A similar treatment is found on the right elevation, where a set of double doors are centered on the building, except here the roof is gabled. However the paired front entry doors appear to be original. The wood doors have glazing in their upper third divided into smaller panes by a web of muntins. The same pattern is repeated on sidelights and a transom above the door. At the rear of the building, a garage bay door provides wider access to the basement level. A historic image from shortly after the building’s construction shows how the Dracut Grange Hall #216 once looked. The building had two-over-two sash windows topped by Classical style entablatures. The main entry porch was more in keeping with the Classical Revival style, with smooth Tuscan columns supporting the roof, balustrades on the side, and a balustrade above on the roof. The side entry was ornamented with a gabled hood and solid brackets. It appears the letters reading “GRANGE HALL” and the “1903” date further up have been retained on the extant building. The Dracut Grange Hall #216 sits on the east side of Bridge Street, facing west across the street. The building is largely surrounded by pavement, although there is a large evergreen at the right rear corner of the building.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the

owners/occupants played within the community. Agriculture has historically been the focus of Dracut’s economy, and a grange was formed for the resident farmers in 1897. The group constructed this meeting hall in 1903, and it has been actively used through the twentieth century. Coburn’s History identifies an early Master of the Grange as local farmer Arthur W. Colburn, who was politically active locally during the early 20th century. The grange is a national organization founded in 1867 by employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture led by Oliver Hudson Kelley and is officially known as The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. The goal of the organization was to promote efficient and economically effective methods of farming in the wake of the Civil War. It was closely modelled on the hierarchical structures found in Free Masonry that were adopted in order to appeal to farmers throughout the north and south where Free Masonry was a popular social organization.





DRA.34

Grange ritual inspired as it was by Greek and Roman mythology and by biblical lessons included seven degrees: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fidelity, Pomona, Flora and Ceres. Each degree had its own distinct ceremony of installation, and responsibilities within the order increased with each elevation on the grange ritual ladder.1

Grange halls designed around the spatial placement of this hierarchy were constructed throughout the country during the rest of the 19th and 20th centuries. The grange remains an active organization.

Plans at the State Archives list Charles H. Burt (1843-1906) as the architect, a carpenter and general contractor active in the city of Lowell throughout his career. Like many contractors he likely engaged in some design work, although he is not known as an architect and there is no reference to him as such. He is known to have completed interior renovations of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Lowell in 1897 (LOW.1794). His son, Arthur Morton Burtt (1871-1941), was an M.I.T.-trained practicing architect in Lowell and may have worked with his father on select construction projects such as Grange Hall #216. A.M. Burtt is attributed with the design of Centre School in Dracut (DRA.35).

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES 1856 Henry F. Walling, Map of Middlesex County, Massachusetts 1875 F. W. Beers, County Atlas of Middlesex, Massachusetts. 1889 Geo. H. Walker & Co., Atlas of Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Ancestry.com: see footnotes Coburn, Silas R. History of Dracut, Massachusetts. Lowell, MA: The Courier-Citizen Co., 1922. Cutter, William Richard, A. M. Historic Homes and Places and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of

Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume IV. New York, NY: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1908. Marxer, Bonnie Parsons. “DRA.34 – Grange Hall,” Massachusetts Historical Commission Building Inventory Form. October,

1987. Middlesex County North Registry of Deeds (MCNRD): see footnotes Paquet, Donat H. “DRA.34 – Grange Hall,” Massachusetts Historical Commission Building Inventory Form for the Dracut

Historical Commission, April 5, 1990. Pendergast, John. Images of America: Dracut. Portsmouth, NH: Arcadia Publishing, 1997. Public Safety Files, Massachusetts State Archives

1 D. Sven Nordin, Rich Harvest, A History of the Grange, 1867-1900 (University Press of Mississippi, 1974) p. 8. Another seminal source on the history and development of the organization is: Solon J. Buck, The Grange Movement: A Study of Agricultural Organization and its Political, Economic, and Social Manifestations, 1870-1880 (Cambridge, 1913).





DRA.34

An image from a postcard of the Dracut Grange Hall #216 from shortly after its construction. From Pendergast, pg. 34.





DRA.34

Plan of the first floor of the Dracut Grange Hall #216, from the Massachusetts Public Safety Files.





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Plan of the second floor of the Dracut Grange Hall #216, from the Massachusetts Public Safety Files.





DRA.34

Plan of the main façade of the Dracut Grange Hall #216, from the Massachusetts Public Safety Files.





DRA.34

Plan of the north elevation of the Dracut Grange Hall #216, from the Massachusetts Public Safety Files.





DRA.34

The main façade and south elevation of the Dracut Grange Hall #216

A detail of the main entry doors of the Dracut Grange Hall #216





DRA.34

[If appropriate, cut and paste the text below into an inventory form’s last continuation sheet.]

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________John D. Clemson__________________ The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here.

Dracut Grange Hall #216, constructed in 1903, is locally and regionally significant for its

association with the history of agriculture in Dracut during the 20th century. Despite some

loss of integrity, it would contribute to a potential Dracut Center National Register District

that would include several important institutional and residential buildings, including

Greenmont Avenue School (ca. 1928, DRA.44); the Yellow Meeting House (1794, 1897,

1956, 1988, DRA.43); the Centre School (1898, DRA.35); Moses Greeley Parker Library

(1922, DRA.46); and the Archibald Golar House (ca. 1900, DRA.107). Dracut Center retains

integrity of workmanship, design, materials, association, location, setting, and feeling. As the

historic institutional center of Dracut, it is eligible for National Register listing under both

criteria A and C.

M H C 50 0 DRA.34 ASSACHUSETTS ISTORICAL OMMISSION ...

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