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NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 39le OMB No. 1024-0018 RECEM ocT 25 2000 NATIONAL REGISTER, HISTORY 1. Name of Property historic name other names/site number 2. Location street & number _ Main and Brigham Streets city or town Hubbardston state Massachusetts 3. State/Federal Agency Certification Hubbardston Town Common Historic District First Parish Church of Hubbardston, Unitarian; Old Burial Ground _ code MA _ county Worcester N/A not for publication N/A vicinity code_ 027 _ zip code 01452 Signature of certifying official/Title Uea n. Fity greaed 16.18.00 Date State or Federal agency and bureau In my opinion, the property meets -does not meet the National Register criteria.
( See continuation sheet for additional Comments.) Signature of certifying official/Title Date State or Federal agency and bureau 4. National Park Service Certification I, hereby certify that this property is: V entered in the National Reaister - See continuation sheet. - determined eligible for the National Register - See continuation sheet. - determined not eligible for the National Register - removed from the National Register - other (explain): Beall/2/00 Hubbardston Town Common HD Name of Property 5. Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply) _ private x public-loca _ public-State _ public-Federal Category of Property (Check only one box) _building(s) x district _ site structure - object lame of related multiple property listin Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing N/A .
Function or Us listoric Function (Enter categories from instructions) RELIGION: religious facility SOCIAL: meeting hall RECREATION AND CULTURE: monuments LANDSCAPE: town common FUNERARY: cemetery Worcester County, MA County and State Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the count.) Contributing Noncontributing 1 3 2 8 buildings sites 0 7 structures objects Total Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register 0 Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions) RELIGION: religious facility EDUCATION: school (day-care center) RECREATION AND CULTURE: monuments LANDSCAPE: town common FUNERARY: cemetery 7.
Description Architectural Classification (Enter categories from instructions) MID-19th CENTURY: Greek Revival Materials (Enter categories from instructions) foundation BRICK walls BRICK WOOD: weatherboard roof other ASPHALT STONE: marble, granite BRONZE; WOOD Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current condition of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) NPS Form 1 10-900-8 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. 7.
Description General Description The L-shaped 1.19 acre parcel of land that remains from the common land set out for the meetinghouse site at the center of the town of Hubbardston in 1773 is still the location of the community's original church, its oldest burial ground, and a long grassed space that is dotted with monuments and commemorative objects. Located on a small rise near the east end of the property at the head of the common, the First Parish Church (MHC #26, photo #1) forms a visual anchor for the south part of Hubbardston town center at the intersection of Main Street (MA Route 68), Worcester Road, and Brigham and Elm Streets.
Opposite the common and church on the west side of Main Street is a small civic/commercial/residential cluster of buildings, of which the major visual features are the 1874 brick Second Empire/Italianate Public Library (NRIND 1998), with a modern brick school and town offices behind it, and a vacant. Somewhat deteriorated hip-roofed Federal house and its accompanying Greek Revival store. Hillside farms are visible to the southwest on Worcester Road and Elm Street, and, mounting the low rise of Brigham Street opposite the south side of the common and church, as a well-preserved line of stylish Greek Revival houses. North of the common, Main Street extends for 1/3 of a mile to end at Hubbardston's second church, the Evangelical Congregational Church of 1827, which like the First Church, was updated in the 1840s and 1860s.
Main Street is lined with minimally altered Federal and Greek Revival houses, a few Queen Anne residences and a handful of small 20* century buildings. On the northeast part of the common is the c. 1773 town cemetery (photo #8), the Old Burial Ground (MHC #800). An open knoll beyond it to the east is the location originally designated for the meetinghouse, part of a seven-acre parcel that was exchanged in 1773 for the 3.5-acre portion of the minister's lot which provided the land for the church. First Parish Church (MHC #26) Although it is believed to contain portions of the original 1773 frame of the Hubbardston meetinghouse, the appearance of the First Church of Hubbardston today is largely a result of an 1842 rebuilding in the Greek Revival style, embellished by an 1868-69 update which include a new brick foundation and some late Victorian renovations.
The church is a simply-detailed clapboarded, gable-front building with a four-stage steeple (photo #2) - the epitome of the white New England church overlooking a small town common. Exterior The church is a simple, rectangular one-by-four bay block consisting of a clapboarded (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number Page 2 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. sanctuary and full-width vestibule or narthex set upon a high brick basement story which encloses a large vestry, front stair hall/lobby, and a small modern kitchen.
The church's Greek Revival exterior is accentuated by the wide flushboarded pediment of its main (west) façade; and by the entablature of boxed cornice with bed molding, crown molding and broad frieze with architrave. The four wide recessed-paneled pilasters of the façade, with molded capitals and devoid of bases, are another emphatic, through simply interpreted Greek Revival motif typical of the early 1840s. The outer two façade pilasters trim the front corners; matching pilasters appear at the rear corners of the building. Long recessed panels are repeated at the window casing of the main story, where they are punctuated by flat blocks at the upper corners. The tall windows of the sanctuary and narthex are composed of three 15-pane sashes, a window-type typical of the Greek Revival period.
The windows of the lower brick (vestry) story, which took on its present appearance as part of the renovations of 1868-1869, are 10/15 sash, with 4-inch wide flat, unadorned wooden casings (photo #3). The rear (east) gable end wall of the building is windowless except for the single ground-story 10/15 window in its south portion. In the wall north of the window, a double- leaf door with four recessed panels is set into a flat-board casing. The upper, clapboarded part of the rear wall is unpedimented, and has a modern louvered rectangular vent in the gable peak. A wide water table rings the building at the juncture between the upper and lower walls. In the lower brick wall below each pilaster is a shallow pier, one brick deep, which helps to visually unify the upper and lower parts of the building.
The main center entry of the west façade, which acquired its massive granite doorstone and was altered somewhat during the 1860s remodeling, is recessed into the brick wall. It has a pair of double-leaf doors, each with six recessed panels trimmed with large-scale applied moldings. The entry surround is a handsome classically-derived example with recessed-panel pilasters and frieze that echo those in the main wall above. The opening is surmounted by a triangular pediment, its field embellished with carved foliate decoration on a black background, inscribed in gold with "Erec.d June 1773." The gabled asphalt shingle roof has lost its two interior rear-wall stove chimneys. When a furnace replaced the heating stoves in 1963, a narrow brick exterior furnace chimney was added against the front part of the north wall.
A graceful four-stage steeple, rebuilt after the Hurricane of 1938 as a copy of its Greek Revival predecessor, crowns the front gable end of the roof. Its square, flushboarded base, which has paneled pilasters at the corners, houses the three-sided Roman-numeraled 1898 town clock, designed by Abel Stowell. Both the clock and the 1833 bronze bell that hangs in the second stage of the steeple were formerly mounted on the west end of the original meetinghouse. The belfry, which is embellished with flat corner pilasters and (continued) NPS Form 110-900-8 (8-86) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number Page 3 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass.
recessed-panel and cornerblock surrounds at each of its four tall rectangular openings, is now fitted with six-pane glass panels on each side. The third stage of the steeple is a decorative block adorned with a series of paneled pilasters, the corner ones angled to create an octagon. The octagonal shape is continued above it in a series of moldings which form the base of the slender, octagonal, flushboard spire. Atop the spire is a gilded openwork weathervane mounted on a slender post fitted with three ball finials. The exterior appearance of the church today, complete with the weathervane and the inscription on the entry pediment, remains nearly identical to what is shown in all known historic photographs of the building, the earliest of which dates to 1881. Missing, however, are the two rear stove chimneys and the louvered blinds of the windows.
Some of the latter are stored in the Interior features. .The interior of the First Church, while echoing the simplicity of the exterior, displays somewhat more evidence of the 1860s remodeling, as well as a few later features. The main sanctuary is an approximately 45 x 52' foot space with a curve-front rear balcony (photo #6). The handsome mahogany pulpit, which stands in front of a tall curtained wall recess at the east end, is of the wide platform typical, typical of the 1840s. Four banks of open slip pews fill most of the floor space (photo #5). In typical 19t century fashion, they are divided by two side aisles, and by a long wooden panel that extends down the center of the church. At the wall the outer pews abut a horizontal-board wainscoting. At the aisle, each pew terminates in a recessed panel, topped with a graceful scrolled, varnished armrest.
A varnished wood rail finishes the top of the back rests and the wainscoting as well. The backs and ends of the pews are painted white. The church as rebuilt in 1842 continued the precedent set in the earlier meetinghouse of placing pews for the deacon, the traditional "deacon's seats," at the front of the church beside the pulpit. Five rows of these are located in the northeastern corner of the sanctuary, facing south toward the pulpit, and fronted by a mahogany-paneled parapet (photo #4). In the southeast front corner is a small, slightly raised choir loft, enclosed on three sides by a four-foot high early-modern partition wall, paneled on the outside, and with a beaded-board surface on the choir side. Instead of pews, the choir enclosure is furnished with a set of a dozen spindle-backed wooded chairs with woven- reed seats.
The chairs are of an increasingly rare type used at the turn of the century in schools and churches - their backs fitted with doweled hymnbook holders, and horizontal racks for more books positioned under the seats. A small mid-20t century electric organ is located at the rear of the choir loft. At the rear (west) end of the sanctuary, the curve-fronted balcony projects partway into the main (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 4 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. space. Its front parapet rests on a recessed-panel wall pilaster at either end; its face is filled with five long horizontal recessed panels.
The two banks of balcony pews are curved, and are trimmed in similar manner to those on the main floor. The varnished wood seat of the front balcony pew is built is a long continuous curve from the south to north wall (photo #6). A partition wall across the rear of the balcony has a wainscoting of horizontal boards, and encloses a two-part closet that is sheathed on the interior with horizontal pine boards. Its two doors (the center one is double- leaf), have four recessed panels with slightly raised fields. The single door to the closet is fitted with a Norfolk latch, as are two more doors at the north end of the wall which open onto the stairways to the main floor and to the attic/belfry. The attic and south closet doors retain iron box locks - perhaps two the locks listed in church records as having been purchased during the 1860s renovations.
Both parts of the sanctuary retain their painted pine floorboards. The ceiling and the walls above the wainscoting are plastered. While the paneled and cornerblock surrounds of the windows echo those on the exterior, the two main doorways leading into the sanctuary have the added embellishment of a large keystone-like block in the center. The 1860s interior changes are likely to include the two sanctuary doors, which have recessed panels with applied moldings, as well as the large compound crown molding at the top of the wall, and the architrave or "picture" molding about a foot below it. The huge medallion in the center of the ceiling, about 8 feet in diameter, which now holds a multi-bulb electric light fixture, may date to the same period. A turn-of-the- century octagonal wooden wall clock is mounted on the face of the balcony parapet.
Two pieces of furniture at the front of the church date to the Greek Revival period - a pedestal mahogany table in front of the pulpit, and an upholstered mahogany minister's sofa set into the central wall recess. A later object of note at the southeast front of the church is the octagonal oak baptismal font, which was donated and dedicated to Theodora Estelle Hubbard in 1950. Like most mid-19t* century New England churches, the First Church has a broad vestibule across the narrow front (west) end of the building. It is not known, however, which parts of that front space date to the 1842 reconstruction, and which to the 1860s renovations. Because records indicate that the building was raised as much as four feet in 1868, it is likely that at least the broad, handsome three-run stair at the south end of the vestibule was rebuilt or reworked at that time.
The banister, built of dark natural wood, with a square-dowel balustrade, a large turned newel post at the base and cylindrical newel posts topped with ball finials at the landings, is still is the Greek Revival vein. The stairs themselves were modified in 1923, and the entire hardwood stair and vestibule flooring probably dates to that time. The walls of the upper level of the (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page_5 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. vestibule have the same type of wainscoting as the church. Its northwest section is occupied by a closet that abuts the curving corner stair to the balcony. The ground story of the building is the most altered part of the interior.
The lower level of the vestibule now has a modern kitchen fitted into its north end, as well as a pair of modern lavatories against the front wall between the entry and stair. The vestry, which fills the space under the sanctuary, retains its six-panel, double-leaf front entry doors and a low stage across the north end. It has otherwise been made over into a modern day care center, with enclosed support posts, dropped ceiling and new wall board. Attic. The only part of the building where the frame of the building is visible is the open, unfinished attic. The structure over the sanctuary includes a series of four massive king-post trusses, each incorporating double principal rafters. Hefty diagonal braces rise from the lower part of the king posts to each lower rafter, and from lower to upper rafters, where they are pinned into two sets of a c.
10 x 10" purlins which carry the common rafters. There is no ridge beam; the common rafters meet at the ridge with what appear to be bridle joints. Most of the timbers, including the dovetailed and half-dovetailed 6 x 6" ceiling joists for the sanctuary, appear to be vertical-sawn. The roof boards are horizontal. The rear (east) gable-end wall of the building visible in the attic has, instead of a king post, a two-posted, horizontal-top-chord truss. Supporting the supposition that the church was elongated by 16+ feet at the front (west) end is the fact that the first inner west truss is of similar construction to the outer east end wall truss - complete with stud mortises in the upper and lower chords,and nail holes on the outer faces of the posts.
In the bay between the west inner truss and the front wall, where the roof timbers are of smaller dimensions, there is much evidence of rebuilding that took place after the hurricane of 1938, and again in 1948, when lightning damaged the front section of the roof. Hubbardston Common (MHC #910, photograph #7) Behind and just northeast of the church building, portions of the fieldstone foundations of three connected 19" century church horse sheds that backed up to the cemetery's south wall are still visible in the ground (map #4). There is no aboveground trace left of the town's hearse house, however, which was built on the high ground just east of the church in about 1880. A small modern playground for the day care center, ringed with a chain-link fence (map #19) now occupies that area.
(continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page_ 6 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. The long rectangular portion of the common in front of the church is dotted with scattered deciduous trees. Two lines of young oaks and maples parallel the south edge of the property along Brigham Street and the north edge along an unpaved drivèway that extends from Main Street at the northwest corner of the property to the north side of the church. Two mature blue spruce trees in the southwest portion form a counterpoint to the deciduous trees.
With the exception of one large sugar maple at the edge of Brigham Street, all the trees appear to date to this century, possibly planted to replace the dying elms which were placed on the common in beautification efforts in the second half of the 19" century. One leg of Brigham Street (formerly the Westminster Road) once branched diagonally northwest across the common in front of the church to Main Street. Today its line is marked by a concrete and asphalt-paved footpath (map #7). Another walkway of concrete slabs crosses north to south directly in front of the church, with a short branch extending westto connect with the footpath. Roughly aligned along the west from of the common, about where a small store was standing in 1870, is a cluster of objects of varying date and significance.
The centerpiece of the group is the Soldier's Monument, which was erected and dedicated in 1885 (MHC #902, map #8, photo #7). This square-sectioned, columnar monument of gray and white marble stands about 10' tall on a two-part square base, surrounded by a small raised area created by the addition of gravel fill. The names of Hubbardston's Civil War soldiers are carved on three sides, above the locations of some of the battles in which they took place - Cold Harbor, Port Hudson and New Bern. Above the inscription on the west face of the monument is written "In memory of our fallen heroes." The corners of the main shaft of the monument are carved with cannon barrels. Above a cove cornice at the monument's top is a four-sided, dark-gray pyramid of carved cannonballs, topped by a statue of an eagle.
The monument is flanked by a pair of small bronze cannon (MHC #904, map #9), placed there in 1905. Each barrel is set into a low rusticated square granite base. To either side of this central cluster, and slightly closer to the street, are two 3-foot high 20* century vertical-slab granite war monuments (map #14 [MHC #903] and 15), each fitted with a rectangular bronze plaque. The northernmost, c. 1920, is dedicated to those who served from Hubbardston in the Spanish- American and First World Wars; the southernmost honors those who served in Word War II. Close to the northeast corner of Main and Brigham Street is an unusual survival of a 19t century wooden guideboard (map #10).
Though undoubtedly repaired at numerous times, this guideboard, which consists of two signs mounted at right angles to each other on a tall square post topped with a carved urn, appears in several historic photographs dating to the 1890s. The (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 7 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. raised letters of the signs give mileage to neighboring towns. A tall flagpole (map #11) which stands directly behind the Soldiers Monument is apparently the one put up in 1917 and partially replaced in 1949.
The final contributing commemorative element on the common is a granite millstone (map #12), originally from Prentiss Mill in East Hubbardston, which is set vertically into a concrete base just above Brigham Street, to the south of the church. In addition to two later war memorials, non-contributing elements to the site include a wooden utility pole (map #18) a short distance east of the Monument; a short iron pipe in a concrete slab on the south edge of the common (apparently remaining from the former town pump - map #13); and two low freestanding signs near the edge of Main Street - a plain wooden one used by the town (map #17), the other a wood-frame box sign belonging to the church, covered with a transparent panel (map #16).
Old Burial Ground (MHC #800, photo #8) The northeast arm of the L-shaped Town Common property is occupied by the Old Burial Ground; a roughly square plot ringed with low fieldstone walls (map #6) and opened c. 1773. large, modern, wooden sign, painted with the burial ground's alternate name, the Parish Cemetery, stands just to inside the entrance. In the east portion of the south wall is the massive granite-block face of the community receiving tomb, the town tomb of 1872 (MHC #906, map #5). Typical of its time, this is an earthen-topped burial chamber, with a simply detailed cast-iron door. The burial ground includes about 500 stone markers, many of them arranged in long, roughly aligned rows, facing west. Several open areas suggest that many graves may be unmarked.
While there is no formal landscaping, three tall trees - two pine and a horse-chestnut - stand in a north-south line at the east end of the cemetery, suggesting that at some time early in this century there may have been a tree-planting campaign here. The remains of several large tree stumps, especially at the west end, also hint at what may have once been considerable tree cover. There are no enclosed family plots, although the tops of several granite curbstones in the west portion indicate that some groups of markers may once have been curbed or fenced Typical of a rural New England cemetery that was open from the 1770s through the third quarter of the 19" century, the earlier grave markers are slate, and those erected after c. 1830 are marble.
There are two simple marble obelisks dating to the mid 19" century, and one square-sectioned granite monument, approximately five feet tall that was put in place in 1906. While the majority (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 8 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. of the markers are in good condition, some of the slates display some spalling, and many of the marbles are somewhat effaced. Several broken stones were mended at an early date with iron bars, several others lie in pieces. While many markers have become somewhat sunken or misaligned with time, several fallen stones that are now lying flat hint at a more serious problem.
Some of these are nearly covered with earth; more may be completely covered and no longer visible. Together the funerary markers in the burial ground form a collection of folk art which spans the period from the Revolution through the Civil War era. The earliest gravestones are a pair of memorials to two sisters, Molley and Sally Grimes, who died two days apart in September 1777 at the ages of two and four. These are small shouldered slates, nearly buried in the ground, decorated with a combination of highly carved schematic designs such as whorls and spirals, as well as winged heads in the upper section. Several markers from the end of the 18t century display winged spirit heads, and a few larger more expensive stones are carved with portrait heads. The large four-foot high slate memorial to the town's first minister, Rev. Nehemiah Parker (d.
1801), is the most well developed of the portrait stones. This is an architectural slate, decorated with incised columns and archway, and a portrait bust with a clerical collar under a willow tree. Markers dating from 1800 - c. 1840 are typically shouldered slates with shallow, incised decoration, Neoclassical architectural motifs, and the urn and willow images that were nearly ubiquitous in New England at that time. There are a few tree of life designs, and several markers depicting vases with incised flowers. A handful of slates from the 1830s and 40s are signed by members of the Hartwell family of Ashby and Fitchburg. These are all of the architectural type, with textured backgrounds, and the urn and willow in the upper portion. A few display the urn and willow within a circular field.
Some Hartwell stones are characterized by a mixture of lettering styles, including block-like letters, cursive writing and an elaborate gothic script. They also display a variety of floral and foliate motifs, including sunflowers and oak leaves. The later markers in the burial ground tend to be marble, very simply carved, often only with inscriptions and no decoration. Many of these are rectangular, although some are shouldered, with rounded tops; a few have tapered sides and slightly peaked tops. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 9 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 Hubbardston Town Common HD Hubbardston (Worcester), Mass. Archaeological Description No prehistoric sites are recorded on the church property or in the general area (within one mile).
In general, environmental characteristics of the upland parcel on which the church is located are not well suited for most types of prehistoric sites. The property is located well over 1000 feet from the nearest wetlands, an important locational factor that detracts from the overall prehistoric sensitivity of this location. Given the above information, church construction and known prehistoric settlement for northern Worcester County, a low potential exists for locating prehistoric sites on the church property. There is a high potential for locating historic archaeological resources on the First Parish Church property. Construction features, artifacts and structural remains may survive from the original construction of the church in ca. 1773 and renovations during the 1840's and 1860's.
Occupational related features (trash pits, privies, wells) might also survive related to the church and its functions. Structural evidence including portions of fieldstone foundations from three interconnected horse sheds is still visible along the cemetery's south wall. Other archaeological evidence related to these outbuildings may also exist. Structural evidence might also survive from the town hearse house, located on high ground east of the church in the 1880's. Unmarked graves may be present in the area along the fieldstone wall separating the nominated property from the cemetery. (end) Hubbardston Town Common HD Name of Property 8. Statement of Significance