My Home (12 Harvard Road)

This is where I live. It is an interesting rambling sort of structure. In my drawing it looks a little more irregular than it really is, and I didn't capture the dimensions and topography of the yard very well, but I did do a nice job of capturing some nifty clouds that came over while I was doing this. I didn't realize there was a chimney over my place (or perhaps my neighbor's) until I did this. There's no corresponding fireplace. Too bad. I have some wood in the closet I wouldn't mind burning.

The entrance to my apartment is the right door at the top of the stairs on the right. It is an old farm house which was converted to apartments after World War I some time. Emma Ambrose, who I met when I first moved in, did the conversion. She owned and operated it for many years until the Gorhams bought it shortly before I moved in.

Gretchen Schuler did a survey of Shirley's architecture awhile back. She wrote up a sheet on my home in March, 1986. In the section on ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE she writes:

The gable-end, five-bay house on a brick foundation has several irregular details and although it appears on early maps which agree with Assessor's Records of an 1853 construction date, the house may well have been replaced or rebuilt in the late l9th century. The Greek Revival characteristics include the 6 over 6 sash and the panelled door with 1/2 side-lights, the Italianate detail is the projecting doorhood with heavily carved and pierced brackets with drop pendants The scalloped verge board is Gothic in tone. The 20th century additions are the incorporated side porch on a rubble stone foundation and the dormers as well as the most recent addition of the fire escape across the main or west facade.

Little is known about the history of this dwelling except that a house existed in this location by 1857 at which time it was lived in by J.L.Parker who may have been related to the well known Shirley Parkers who faithfully kept diaries recording Shirley history. According to the Assessor's records, the house was built in 1853. In 1875 N. A. Boynton lived here (had lived on Clark Rd.) and in 1889 the house belonged to a Mrs. Ladd. Old photograghs indicate that it belonged to John E.L. Hazen at the beginning of the 20th century. Hazen was a bookkeeper for Samson Cordage Works.