FORM B - BUILDING Assessor's number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
Massachusetts Historical Commission 2C-31, 30-1
3C-39, -38 Hudson E 143, 144; 241-244;
931-933
Massachusetts Archives Building
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125
Photograph
(3" x 3" or 3-1/2" x 5", black and white only) Label photo on back with town and property address. Record film roll and negative numbers here on the form. Staple photo to left side of form over this space. Attach additional photos to continuation sheets.
Roll Negative (s)
I 12-33
Recorded by Anne Forbes, consultant
Organization Bolton Historical Commission
Date (month/year) March, 1998
Town Bolton
Place
(neighborhood or village)
Historic Name Century Mill Area
Uses: Present residential; boarding stable and pasture
Date of Construction early 18th-late 19th century
Overall Condition fair to good
Major Intrusions and Alterations demolition of former mills; construction of new houses on Parcels 2C-30-1 and 31
Acarage approximately 60 acres
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.
BUILDING FORM
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.
The area that throughout the twentieth century has been called "Century Mills" is a picturesque 60-acre area just east of the intersection of South Bolton and Century Mill Roads. On the north side of Century Mill Road the terrain rises through woods, pastures, and horse paddocks up the southeast slope of Pine Hill. Aligned along the road at the base of the hill are the large south-facing Federal center-chimney house, 197 Century Mill Road, built by mill-owner Amory Pollard in 1810-1811 (#143), and several of its ancillary wood-frame buildings. Here along what is now a curving front driveway, but which was probably the former line of Century Mill Road, are two outbuildings built into the hillside--a tall workshop/garage and a small windowless icehouse--and to their east, a large three-part gable-roofed barn (#s 244, 243, and
242). The two western sections of the barn, with their overhead sliding doors and fieldstone foundations, appear to date to the late-nineteenth century. The barn's eastern section is a very large vertical-board indoor riding ring, built in 1998. East of the riding ring is an altered gable-end cottage, the 1872 Clifford Walcott House, later the Tenant House for the mill property (#144: 165 Century Mill Road).
Although the sawmill, gristmill, and cider mill that stood until the early part of this century on the south side of road are gone, the mill pond, with two stone and concrete dams, and much of the fieldstone and cut-granite mill foundations, wheel pits and races, remain on Wataquadoc Brook as it flows west to east through the area (#s 931 and 932).
Some of the objects and structures in the area appear to date to the early twentieth century. Among them are the long fieldstone wall with horizontal capstones that lines the side of the South Bolton/Century Mill Road intersection, and the double-arched fieldstone bridge/culvert which carries South Bolton Road over the brook (#933).
In the small triangle formed by the intersection of the two roads are two very tall weeping spruces and the stumps of at least two more, indicating that they may remain from some landscaping of the early part of this century.
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.
This area grew up around the site of what were apparently the earliest mills in Bolton. Deeds indicate that a member of the Sawyer family was operating a mill nearby on Wataquadoc Brook, probably a short distance downstream, as early as 1700. In 1699 blacksmith Thomas Sawyer acquired 151 acres here from Stephen Waters. The 1739 will of Joseph Sawyer (possibly Thomas's son) refers to "ye saw mill and ye corn mill", to the 25 3/4-acre tract on the easterly side of Pine Hill near where "Thomas Sawyer hath built a mill", and cites a 20-acre parcel "near where ye old saw mill stood on Wataquadoc Brook."
The second Thomas Sawyer who "hath built a mill" was Joseph's son, to whom he bequeathed "29 acres where said Thomas liveth with house and sawmill near Pine Hill." (The cellar hole of Thomas Sawyer's house has been identified in the yard of 197 Century Mill Road.--Form #143) Nine years later, in 1748, this Thomas Sawyer (1711-1797) had a surveyor lay out six acres of land in a spruce swamp "a little to the south of the Sawyer Corn Mill", and just southeast of his land "where the old sawmill was". These documents suggest that the Sawyer family was running both a sawmill and gristmill (cornmill) here on the brook around the time of the founding of Bolton.
The later Thomas Sawyer's successor, Capt. Amory Pollard, built the present house at 197 Century Mill Road (#143) close to the location of the former Sawyer house in 1810-11, and operated the mills until his death in 1844. His son, Amory Pollard, Jr. (b. 1800), ran the mills with his father for many years, and took full possession of them after Capt. Pollard died. It is not known when a cider mill joined the saw- and gristmills, but the map of 1857 does not yet show one at this location.
In 1865, Amory Pollard, Jr. sold the mills to Freeman Walcott of Milford. Under the management of Mr. Walcott and his son, Clifford, the cider mill being operated along with the other two, and became an increasingly important part of the mill operations. There was no Century Mill Road until 1872, when, as the result of a petition brought by Freeman Walcott and some neighboring farmers, the county ordered the town to build an east-west road that would serve the mills and the surrounding area. For many years it was called Walcott Road, after what were by then referred to as Walcott's Mills.
In 1881 the mills, which stood over the brook east of the long dam that still holds back the millpond, were struck by lightning, and the wooden sawmill, at least, burned to the ground. The Walcotts rebuilt immediately, but in 1889 Clifford Walcott sold the mills, the houses at 197 and 165 Century Mill Road, and all the surrounding farm on both sides of the road, to Henry Otterson. Mr. Otterson apparently ran the business largely as a cider-making operation. His successor, however, to whom he sold the property in 1897, Col. Benjamin F. Drake, lists the business here as only a sawmill. By 1900 the property had been sold again, to Charles Giddings, who ran the operation as "Century Mills."
The next owner, Dr. George Bacon, who bought the property in 1916, used it as a rural retirement home, operating the farm and building extensive gardens, but running the sawmill and grist mill only on an experimental basis, and for a very short time. After Dr. Bacon and his wife died, their grown children, Annie, Charles, and Paul Bacon retained ownership for many years. In 1943, Harold Potter bought the main part of the property from the Bacon heirs. In 1954 the cider mill, which apparently had not been used for over fifty years, was badly damaged by a hurricane, and was torn down. The next year Mr. Potter sold the main house, farm, and mill property to Edward Williams. Mr. Williams tore down the big mill chimney, and the mill buildings gradually deteriorated to a ruin. In 1959, Mr. Williams' widow sold the remaining property, which
they had called "Lilac Farm", with 150 acres, to Mr. and Mrs. Eric Kolm of Somerville.
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES [ ]
Maps and atlases: 1794; 1831 (A. Pollard); 1857; 1870 (F. Walcott); 1898 (B.F. Drake).
Whitcomb, E. About Bolton, 1988.
Bolton Historical Society files: photographs, manuscripts, newspaper articles, ephemera.
Walcott, Ruth. "Walcott's Mills", 1970.
[ ] Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
If checked, you must attach completed National Register Criteria Statement form is attached.
AREA DATA SHEET
A resource marked with an asterisk (*) is covered on an individual form.
MHC# Parcel #M Street Address Historic Name Date Style/type
*143 3C-39; 3C-39.1 197 Century Mill Rd. Capt. Amory Pollard Hse. 1810-11 Federal
244 3C-39.1 197 Century Mill Rd. barn/workshop mid-19th C. utilitarian
243 3C-39.1 197 Century Mill Rd. icehouse late-19th C. utilitarian
242 3C-39.1 197 Century Mill Rd. barn late-19th C. utilitarian
*144 3C-38 165 Century Mill Rd. Clifford Walcott House 1872 gable-end cottage
241 3C-38 165 Century Mill Rd. barn/poultry house ca. 1930-45 utilitarian
*931 2C-31 corner S. Bolton/Century Mill Road Century Mill Pond ca. 1700 pond
932 2C-31
2C-30.1 S. Bolton/Century Mill Road remnants of mills and mill privilege: 2 dams, stone foundations, walls, races, wheel pits 18th-20th C.s engineering structures
933 South Bolton Road two-arch stone bridge/ culvert 19th-early 20th C. bridge/culvert
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