Edmund Fowle House | |
Location | 26–28 Marshall St., Watertown, Massachusetts |
---|---|
Coordinates | 42°22′6″N71°10′51″W / 42.36833°N 71.18083°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1772 |
Architectural style | Georgian |
NRHP reference No. | 77000189 [1] |
Added to NRHP | November 11, 1977 |
The Edmund Fowle House is a historic house and local history museum at 28 Marshall Street in Watertown, Massachusetts, USA. Built in 1772, it is the second-oldest surviving house in Watertown (after the Browne House, built c. 1698), and served as the meeting place for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in the first year of the American Revolutionary War. Now owned by the local historic society, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. [1]
The Edmund Fowle House is located northeast of Watertown Square, on the south side of Marshall Street between Spring and Mount Auburn Streets. It is a two-story wood-frame structure, with a hip roof, central chimney, and clapboarded exterior. It has a five-bay front facade, with a center entrance sheltered by a projecting enclosed flat-roofed vestibule. The vestibule entry is flanked by sidelight windows and framed by fluted moulding. [2]
The house was built by Edmund Fowle (1747–1821) in 1772, and was originally located on Mount Auburn St., then called Mill St. Watertown was the seat of Massachusetts Provincial Congress, its de facto government, during the British occupation of Boston during the American Revolution. The committees of the 2nd and 3rd Provincial Congress met in this house from April 22 to July 19, 1775, and the Executive Committee met here from July 19, 1775, to September 18, 1776. In 1776, the Treaty of Watertown, the first treaty signed between the newly formed United States of America and a foreign power, the St. John's and Mi'kmaq First Nations of Nova Scotia, was signed in this house.
Sturgis and Brigham Architects (Charles Brigham and John Hubbard Sturgis) purchased the house in 1871, moved it to its present Marshall St. address and converted it into a two family residence. The Historical Society of Watertown purchased the house in 1922.
The Historical Society was awarded $500,000 in 2004 and another $200,000 in 2006 by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the restoration of the Edmund Fowle House. [3] The grand re-opening of the house took place in May 2008.
Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, part of Greater Boston. The population was 35,329 in the 2020 census. Its neighborhoods include Bemis, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square, and the West End.
Samuel Osgood was an American merchant and statesman born in Andover, Massachusetts, currently a part of North Andover, Massachusetts. His family home still stands at 440 Osgood Street in North Andover and his home in New York City, the Samuel Osgood House, served as the country's first Presidential mansion. He served in the Massachusetts and New York State legislatures, represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and was the fourth Postmaster General of the United States, serving during George Washington's first term.
The Old South Meeting House is a historic Congregational church building located at the corner of Milk and Washington Streets in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1729. It gained fame as the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Five thousand or more colonists gathered at the Meeting House, the largest building in Boston at the time.
The Suffolk Resolves was a declaration made on September 9, 1774, by the leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The declaration rejected the Massachusetts Government Act and resulted in a boycott of imported goods from Britain unless the Intolerable Acts were repealed. The Resolves were recognized by statesman Edmund Burke as a major development in colonial animosity leading to adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1776, and he urged British conciliation with the American colonies, to little effect. The First Continental Congress endorsed the Resolves on September 17, 1774, and passed the similarly themed Continental Association on October 20, 1774.
Peleg Wadsworth was an American Patriot officer during the American Revolutionary War and a Congressman from Massachusetts representing the District of Maine. He was also grandfather of noted American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Walter Livingston was an American merchant, lawyer and politician.
The Hancock–Clarke House is a historic house in Lexington, Massachusetts, which is now a National Historic Landmark. Built in 1738, the house is notable as the only surviving house associated with statesman and Founding Father John Hancock, who lived here for several years as a child. It played a prominent role in the Battle of Lexington and Concord as both Hancock and Samuel Adams, leaders of the colonials, were staying in the house before the battle. The House is operated as a museum by the Lexington Historical Society. It is open weekends starting in mid-April and daily from May 30–October 31. An admission fee is charged.
The Treaty of Watertown, the first foreign treaty concluded by the United States of America after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, was signed on July 19, 1776, in the Edmund Fowle House in the town of Watertown, Massachusetts Bay. The treaty established a military alliance between the United States and the St. John's and some of the Mi'kmaw bands against Great Britain for the early years of the American Revolutionary War. Seven Mi'kmaw bands chose to decline the American treaty.
Richard Clipston Sturgis, generally known as R. Clipston Sturgis, was an American architect based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Carpenters' Hall is the official birthplace of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and a key meeting place in the early history of the United States. Carpenters' Hall is located in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Samuel Hurd Walley was a Massachusetts businessman and politician who served as Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and as a member of the U.S. representative from Massachusetts.
Old Watertown High School is a historic school building at 341 Mount Auburn Street in Watertown, Massachusetts, United States. The 3+1⁄2 story brick building was built in 1913 by local architect Charles Brigham. Now an assisted living facility named Brigham House, the English Revival structure is one of Watertown's most imposing public buildings, standing about one mile east of Watertown center. When built it first served as the city's high school, but was converted to a junior high school in 1925, a role it served until the late 1980s. It then stood vacant until its conversion to housing in the 2000s.
Charles Brigham was an American architect based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Thomas Carpenter III was born October 24, 1733, in Rehoboth, Province of Massachusetts and died April 26, 1807, in Rehoboth. He was an American Revolutionary War officer who served as a colonel in the Massachusetts Militia and commanded the First Bristol Regiment from 1776 to 1780. Carpenter was elected as a delegate in 1774 to represent Rehoboth for the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and was elected Deputy to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1775.
Brattle Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called the "King's Highway" or "Tory Row" before the American Revolutionary War, is the site of many buildings of historical interest, including the modernist glass-and-concrete building that housed the Design Research store, and a Georgian mansion where George Washington and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow both lived, as well as John Vassall and his seven slaves including Darby Vassall. Samuel Atkins Eliot, writing in 1913 about the seven Colonial mansions of Brattle Street's "Tory Row," called the area "not only one of the most beautiful but also one of the most historic streets in America." "As a fashionable address it is doubtful if any other residential street in this country has enjoyed such long and uninterrupted prestige."
Tryon County was a county in the colonial Province of New York in the British American colonies. It was created from Albany County on March 24, 1772, and was named for William Tryon, the last provincial governor of New York. The county's boundaries extended much further than any current county. Its eastern boundary with the also-new Charlotte County ran "from the Mohawk River to the Canada line, at a point near the old village of St. Regis and passing south to the Mohawk between Schenectady and Albany." It extended north to the St. Lawrence River; its western boundary was the Treaty of Fort Stanwix's Line of Property, following the Unadilla River, Oneida Lake, Onondaga River and Oswego River to Lake Ontario, as the Iroquois Confederacy still controlled locations further west in the Indian Reserve. Tryon County's seat was Johnstown, which is today the county seat of Fulton County. The Tryon County Courthouse, built in 1772–1773, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The Tryon County Jail, also built in 1772–1773, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1981.
Thomas Hunt (1754—1808) was an American military officer who served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and later served in the United States Army where he rose to the rank of colonel and served until his death.
The Samuel Dexter House is a historic house at 699 High Street, Dedham, Massachusetts. It was built, beginning in July 1761, by Samuel Dexter, a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
The Old Burying Ground is the oldest documented cemetery in Watertown, Massachusetts, United States. Located at the junction of Arlington and Mount Auburn Streets in eastern Watertown, its oldest documented grave site dates to 1665, and it remained in active use into the 20th century. It was the town's first formal cemetery, and remained its only one until 1754, when the Common Street Cemetery was established. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.