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INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
Bolton 118 South Bolton Road
Massachusetts Historical Commission
Massachusetts Archives Building
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 02125 Area(s)
P Form No.
137
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION BY ANNE FORBES, CONSULTANT TO BOLTON HISTORICAL COMMISSION, APRIL 1998:
ASSESSOR'S PARCEL: 3C-26.2; also ACREAGE: 27.5 acres FILM ROLL/NEGATIVE: X-5 3C-26 and -26.1
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION, cont. 118 South Bolton Road no longer has the proportions of a true low-studded Cape Cod house of the eighteenth century, due to a long series of alterations. There is now no trace of either the pebble-dash texture with the date of 1841 in it mentioned by Mrs. Whitcomb, nor of the old bake-oven remembered by Ruth Dow, George Dow's daughter. The main section of the house is a five- by one-bay, 1 1/2-story side-gabled building, with 6-over-6-sash windows. Alterations include the twentieth-century pair of wall dormers on the facade, a three-bay east side ell with casement windows and a steel door, and a modern door at the basement story of the west end. A modern vertical-board barn/garage stands northwest of the house. The house is clapboarded, with an asphalt-shingle roof.
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, cont.
This house originally stood several rods to the east, and after the New England Power Company took the land in 1968, Paul Slade moved it onto his family's farm at 96 South Bolton Road. (See Form #136).
The first owner, Philip Coolidge (Cooledge), was apparently the brother of Silas Coolidge, who married Joseph and David Holder's older sister, Phebe, in 1799. Philip Coolidge's first wife, Lydia, had actually received the full ownership of the house from her father, John Foskett, when he died in 1779. It appears that Philip and Lydia had built this house on her father's land in about 1760, and when Philip remarried in 1788 after Lydia's death, he and his second wife, Mary (Bennett), continued to live here. By the time Philip died in 1799, his son, William, had already sold his share in the property to his unmarried sister, Sarah. (One wonders, however, whether Sarah lived alone here, as in 1782 she may have been the Sarah Coolidge who had an illegitimate son, Aaron, whose birth is noted in the Bolton birth records as simply, "Aaron
M., son of Sarah Coolidge".) In 1807 she sold the property, with 10.25 acres, to her neighbor to the rear, John McBride, but retained the right to live in the house until she died. Upon her death in 1826 at the age of 71, John McBride sold the little farm to Aaron Wheeler, who sold it two years later, with over twice as much land, to David Holder.
In 1813, Joseph and David Holder, who had come to Bolton from Mendon, had bought the house next door at 96 South Bolton Road (see Form #136). David was a shoemaker like his brother, and either made shoes here or continued in the shoeshop that stood west of #96. The son to whom Mrs. Whitcomb refers, Francis Thomas Holder, was born in 1833, during a period in which the family relocated to Clinton (then Clintonville, still part of Lancaster), before moving back to this house in either 1835 or 1850. He was the youngest child of David and his wife Ruth (Babcock). When he came of age he worked first as a shoemaker, then for many years in the Bigelow carpet mills in Clinton, and, having gained an understanding of carpet-making engineering, invented various machines and methods for weaving carpets. He later moved to New York state to become a
partner in the Mohawk Carpet Company. By the end of his life he had become wealthy, and was a seasoned world traveler. Among his philanthropic gifts was Holder Hall, a dining hall/horse barn which he built for the Quaker Meeting in Fryville (see Form #135, 18 Fry Road).
Maps indicate that in the 1850's the farm was owned by either Francis's cousin-in-law Greeley Dow (husband of Joseph Holder's daughter, Lydia), or S.V. Spear (map of 1857). Neither of these references may be correct, as according to Mrs. Whitcomb's research, Stephen Pope, an earlier owner of 96 South Bolton, bought this property in 1852. She states that in 1864 Stephen Pope sold the property to Elijah Jones, who immediately transferred it to his son, Anthony Jones. In 1869, however, Anthony Jones sold it, with 31 acres, to Enoch C. Pierce.
Mr. Pierce and his family lived here until 1878, when they moved across the road to another house. The next owners were Joseph and Betsey Warner, who lived here from 1878 to 1882. The property was then purchased by Edward R. Burrill, a carpenter. (The map of 1898 shows the owner as Mrs. Burrill; this would have been Mr. Burrill's mother, who kept house for him). Edward R. Burrill, however, is listed as owning nine acres in 1903.
In 1899, the property was purchased by George Dow, son of Greeley and Lydia (Holder) Dow of 96 South Bolton. It was in 1904 that George Dow sold back the house, with 3.5 acres, to Francis Holder (then living in California), who wanted to own the home of his childhood. Two years later, however, Mr. Holder sold it back to Mr. Dow, who owned it until his death in 1917. He rented it out, however, during that time, to William Nash, a market gardener, who grew vegetables, berries, and fruits for the local market.
Owners of the property after George Dow's death up to the middle of this century were Eleanor Trevitt (1917), her son, Harry Trevitt (who died in 1929), Roscoe and Martha Tansey (1930), and Harry and Ethel Clemmer (1942).
BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Maps and atlases: 1831 (D. Holder); 1857 (G. Dow or SV Spear); 1870 (EC Pierce); 1898 (Mrs. Burrill).
Whitcomb, E. About Bolton, 1988.
. "The McCarthy House". N.D.
Bolton street directories (in The Hudson Directory).
Bolton vital records.
[ ] Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
If checked, you must attach completed National Register Criteria Statement form is attached.
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