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NPS Form 10-900 (Rev. 10-90) OMB No. 1024-0018 United States Department of the Interior National Park Service NNP RECEIVED 2280 National Register of Historic Places Registration Form APR - 9 2002 INAT. REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES This form is for use in nominating or requesting determinations for individual properties and districts. Seeinstructionsiin Pfow KoComplete the National Register of Historic Places Registration Form (National Register Bulletin 16A). Complete each item by marking "x" in the appropriate box or by entering the information requested. If any item does not apply to the property being documented, enter "N/A" for "not applicable." For functions, architectural classification, materials, and areas of significance, enter only categories and subcategories from the instructions. Place additional entries and narrative items on continuation sheets (NPS Form 10-900a).
Use a typewriter, word processor, or computer, to complete all items. 1. Name of Property historic name Goodnow Library other names/site number N/A 2. Location street & number 21 Concord Road N/A not for publication city or town Sudbury state Massachusetts _ code_MA county_Middlesex N/A vicinity code_017_ zip code_01776 3. State/Federal Agency Certification As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this M nomination - nationally - statewide -locally. (- See continuation sheet for additional comments.) Brona Sinon DSHPO Signature of certifying official/Title Brona Simon, Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer Massachusetts Historical Commission State or Federal agency and bureau March 12,2002 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 orFederal agency and bureau 4. National Park Service Certification 1, hereby certify that this property is Dentered in the National Register - See continuation sheet. - determined eligible for the National Register - See continuation sheet. - determined not eligible for the National Register D removed from the National Register - other (explain): Heegonl Balt Date ofAction 5/22/02 Goodnow Library Name of Property 5.
Classification Ownership of Property (Check as many boxes as apply) - private x public-local _ public-State _ public-Federal category of Property Check only one box X building(s) _ district _ site - _ structure - object Middlesex, MA County and State Number of Resources within Property (Do not include previously listed resources in the count.) Contributing Non-contributing 1 0 1 1 buildings sites structures objects 1 Number of contriburing resources previously listedt in the National Register Name of related multiple property listing (Enter "N/A" if property is not part of a multiple property listing.) N/A 6. Function or Use Historic Functions (Enter categories from instructions) EDUCATION: library Current Functions (Enter categories from instructions) EDUCATION: library 7.
Description Architectural Classification (Enter categories from instructions) ROMANESQUE: Richardsonian Romanesque OCTAGON mode Materials (Enter categories from instructions) foundation_STONE walls BRICK roof other Narrative Description (Describe the historic and current condition of the property on one or more continuation sheets.) (See Continuation Sheets) STONE: slate STONE: sandstone; TERRA COTTA CONCRETE (addn. fndation;) ASPHALT (addn. roof) OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 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_ Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA Description Setting Viewed from Concord Road, the Goodnow Library, Sudbury, like numerous other late 19' century New England libraries, is a red-brick building composed of a hip-roofed Richardsonian Romanesque front section (the form it had taken by 1895) combined with a massive rear brick wing. The wing, completed in 1999, is over three times the size of the original building. Due to the alignment of the wing directly behind the old building, however, the main view west from the street still conveys the intact appearance of the library as it appeared after its first major enlargement in 1894.
The building occupies the east part of a long, narrow three-acre parcel of land on the west side of Concord Road a mile and a half south of Sudbury center in the village of South Sudbury. To the north and across the road to the east are mid- to late-19"h century houses on ample lots, as well as the 1889 Memorial Congregational Church. To the south and southeast, small-scale 19" and 20"-century commercial buildings, along with one large complex built in 2000, are clustered around the intersection of Concord and the old east- west Boston Post Road (US Route 20). Hop Brook meanders southward behind the properties on the west side of the road, and forms the rear boundary of the library property. A small, irregularly-shaped pond (Map #5, photo #8) diverted from the brook, is located on the west end of the library lot at the base of a steep hillside.
On the higher ground just east of the pond, screened on north, west, and south by tall sugar maples remaining from early landscaping for the library, there is now a grassed area. In its center is a late-1990s rectangular infiltration basin (Map #4), six feet deep, with angled, grassed, and stone rip- rap banks. A concrete culvert with angled abutments and faced with a large metal trash screen is located in the rear bank at the southwest corner of the pond. The basin and culvert provide flood-control protection for the long paved parking lot which fills most of the property behind the library building. Between the front of the library and the street, a circular driveway follows the line of the original library drive of the 1860s. Within the curve of the drive, next to the street, is a grassed green shaded by three tall oak trees.
At its center is Sudbury's recently cleaned and restored 1897 Civil War Memorial (Map #2, photo #7) - a full-size bronze statue of a Union soldier leaning on his rifle. The statue is mounted on a high rectangular base of polished and unpolished gray granite, with a molded and corbelled cornice at the top. On the lower front section of the base, above the dates 1861-1865, raised letters read "Tribute to the loyal (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 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_2 Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA sons of Sudbury." A small bonze plaque above the inscription reads "Gift of Samuel B.
Rogers, May 30, 1897." The sides of the base are embellished with well-preserved carvings of rucksacks; the one on the south is accompanied by a bugle, the one on the north by a canteen. On the rear face of the base is the list of the eleven men who "died in service of their country" during the war. Just in front of the memorial monument is a long, low carved, pained wooden sigh (Map #3) on decorative wood posts, reading "Goodnow Library." (Photo #1) Most of the many young shrubs, ornamental trees, and flowers on the green, on the perimeter of the property, and in small beds adjacent to the building are the products of recent landscaping work associated with the construction of the 1999 wing or with ongoing volunteer efforts. Much of the planting was done by Sudbury's Thursday Garden Club.
Like the rear trees, however, a line of tall maple trees along the east boundary is believed to remain from a series of late-19 century plantings; some of them may date to the 1860s. While the original wood and granite library fence was removed in 1892, modern fences currently line the length of the north and south edges of the property - a high stockade fence to the north, and a combination of stockade and chain link on the south. Exterior. The Goodnow Library is a hip-roofed building, two stories high, comprised of the L-plan, pre-1900 building, abutted to the rear by the 195-foot-long section completed in 1999, and to the northwest by a small two-story section remaining from an expansion in 1971. The front sections are roofed with slate, while the rear sections have asphalt shingle roofs.
The large rear addition now functions as the main library, with the entrance in the new south side. The original east entry at the Concord Road end is no longer used. (Photo #6) The older, early building, which is the focus of this nomination, has been renamed the itkinson Wing. Originally constructed in 1862063 as a small brick octagon topped with a large wood-frame lantern (belvedere), it was expanded twice before the end of the 19" century, in about 1885 and in 1894. Both expansions were apparently designed by the original architect Joseph R. Richards of Boston, in conjunction with his son, William, with whom he formed the firm of Richards & Richards in 1880. The original octagon was largely Italianate in its detailing.
It had a narrow gable-roofed porch at the centered front entry, and, from what can be inferred from an 1889 engraving, a single round-headed 2/2 sash window in each of the other walls, fitted with louvered (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 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 3 Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA wooden blinds and a louvered fan above the rectangular sash. The windows of the lantern were also round-headed, but with 6/6 sash. Although the walls of the octagon are still largely intact, and best viewed from the interior, there is no evidence of the 1862 structure visible from the exterior. A small thirteen-foot- wide, two-story annex abutting the rear west wall of the building was added in about 1885.
The exterior as seen today is primarily the result of an enlargement and remodeling that took place in 1894, which entailed three major changes. At that time a full-height 40 x 28' hip-roofed brick addition, two stories high, was built extending south from the rear annex and the southwest wall of the octagon. The lack of any windows at the first-story level on the long east wall of this wing may be indicative of the great need for shelf space on the interior. As part of the 1894 expansion, a new brick wall with a wide, double-leafed entry in a vestibule recessed under a broad brick-and-terra cotta arch was built across the front of the octagon, entailing the squaring off of the front corners for two small, irregularly- shaped enclosed spaces at each story.
(Photo #2) The shallow-pitched main roof of the octagon and the lantern windows were removed, and the walls were raised several feet under a new hipped roof. All of the 1894 walls are constructed of a deep red brick, laid up in common bond, and rest on a wide water table of rock-faced granite. Due to the slope of the ground, an expanse of the mortared rubble foundation, rising from about two to five feet, is exposed at the south end of the wing. The main façade the resulted from the 1894 building campaign is a symmetrical, three-part composition, with the arched entry forming the focus of a broad center pavilion demarcated at the edges by a pair of full-height, half-round engaged piers composed of narrow, smooth, terra cotta bricks.
The upper ends of the piers above the roof line are ornamented by a band of rock-faced brownstone, and topped by high, smooth, unadorned sandstone bollard- like caps. Between the upper posts the pavilion rises to a gable, its upper edge trimmed with brownstone capstones. Filling the gable wall at the level of the eaves is a trio of 1/1- sash windows, punched into the wall in round-arched openings echoed above three rows of headers. A single line of slightly projecting headers crowns each brick arch. Below the triple gable window, above the entry archway, is a rectangular granite wall sign reading, in raised letters, "Goodnow Library, erected A.D. 1862." The sign is apparently relocated from the original east wall of the octagon. The archway, like some of the piers of the pavilion, is faced with shallow terra cotta bricks.
(Both the piers and the arch display some recent areas of terra cotta replacement.) The arch bricks are smooth and long, and end at an outer arch of terra cotta molding. Terra cotta is also used in a panel above the arch, (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-2 (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 Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA where each of the spandrels is filled with a composition of raised oak leaves and a sheaf of arnhrget di phe sog thepatied, aeduisiar i tre north. Thotote is in tro parts: A flight of three wide granite steps leads to the entry, which is paved with 20"h-century flagstone under the archway.
The present varnished oak double-leaf door, with single beveled-glass lights over three raised-field panels, dates to the 1894 renovations, as do the broad, decorative-leaded sidelights, the polished pink marble wainscoting, the oak upper side walls with 18 small square panels, and the coffered archway ceiling. (Some of the glass was replaced in the 1899 restorations, but the entry is largely intact.) Each outer section of the facade wall has a 1/1 sash window centered at each story. The first-story windows have brownstone sills and very high splayed brick lintels of three-to- four rows of stretcher bricks, topped with a horizontal double row of projecting bricks. The upper windows span the wall space between a narrow brownstone string course and broad brownstone frieze. A cornice of corbelled bricks forms the transition to the roof eaves and an integral gutter.
The brownstone frieze and string courses continue into the pavilion, where brownstone is also used is a wide band course under the triple-arched window, and in quoining to either side of the library sign. Both the north and side sides of the 1862 building also retain their 1894 fenestration, consisting of a single 1/1 window aligned at each story in the side wall of the new front corner rooms, and to their west, a paired, three-level window composition that represents an alteration to the original north and south octagon walls. The latter includes a pair of 1/1 sash at the first story, and, above them, lighting the gallery inside, two pairs of square, single-pane hopper windows, one above the other. The brownstone string course continues along the sides of the building, as does the frieze and corbelled brick cornice.
The string course, frieze, and cornice continue around the upper part of the south wing, as well. Between them on the wing façade is a band of three paired 1/1-sash windows, plus a single 1/1 toward the south corner. The south end elevation of the wing has a single 1/1 high in each corner. The center of the end wall is filled with a large three-part window composition of a trio of 1/1s at the first story, and above them two rows of three single, square panes. (Photo #4) (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-2 (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 Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA Interior 1862 Octagon.
Given the radical 1890s transformation of the building exterior, the presence of the 1862 octagonal reading room and its gallery on the interior is a remarkable survival. The original building is 30 feet in diameter. Ringing the periphery of the room is a four-foot-wide mezzanine-level gallery supported on eight slender walnut columns. Low, nearly flat plastered arches span between the columns; above them the floor of the gallery is edged with a balustrade composed of varnished round dowels and heavy turned walnut posts, one aligned above each column. (Photos #10, 11) While the balustrade may be original, its handrail appears to be of later construction. The former location of a lower balustrade is revealed in the floorboards of the first story by a ring of circular wooden pegs which appear to mark the holes for another set of round-dowel balusters.
(Whether either balustrade was part of the original 1862 building is a matter of speculation; however, as a surviving architect's drawing from June 1862 shows only a lattice-work gallery balustrade connecting to a rear spiral staircase. It is not known if the balustrade or staircase, which would probably been executed in metal, was ever built to the design shown in the drawing.) All the original windows in the 1862 section of the building are gone. The 1894 window sash occupy the north and south walls. Five-panel doors are located at both stories leading into the front 1894 corner rooms, and another is located in the northwest wall of the mezzanine. A two-part glass-and-panel double-leaf door of two unequally-sized leaves now opens into the 1894 south addition. A flat-arched passageway in the rear west first-story wall leads to the ca.
1885 annex, and another in the east wall opens into a front vestibule. While the end walls of the three-foot-deep vestibule are plastered, the front wall space under the sidelights is paneled with narrow oak vertical beaded board. Heavy compound moldings around the front door, sidelights, and the arched vestibule ceiling are a combination of varnished oak and some grained elements of another type of wood. Similar moldings surround the windows and the interior doors of the octagon. A restoration completed in 1999 uncovered the inner walls of the lantern, which had been hidden above a mid-20* century plastered ceiling. With the removal of the ceiling, the dome-like lantern space was restored, and its wall-plane transitions ringed with period- appropriate varnished moldings.
(Photo #12) The late-Victorian four-part brass and copper chandelier, which had been stored on the premises, was restored and hung from the lantern ceiling. Historically accurate glass globes were reinstalled as part of a refurbishing of the chandelier. The record of a chandelier purchased in 1885 to substitute for "the (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 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 Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA unsightly lamps that have for so long disfigured the interior" (Report of the Trustees of the Goodnow Library, 1892) probably refers to this fixture.
Today, most available wall space at both stories of the octagon is lined with 6-foot-high oak bookcases, installed in 1999 as a replacement for pine shelving of the 1950s and 1960s. The first-story walls from northwest to northeast, and from southwest to southeast, however, still display a 38" high band of period embossed lincrusta wallpaper, which has recently been cleaned and restored. All the other wall surfaces are painted plaster. Annex. Nearly all details of the ca. 1885 rear annex (now the passage to the main library) have bee obliterated by later alterations, and the stair to the basement shown against its south wall in an 1894 drawing is long gone. An extraordinary discovered during the late 1990s work, however, the is paired 1/1 sash window high in the annex's south wall, which had been bricked up and plastered sometime in the 20t century. 1894 Wing.
The long 40 x 28' reading room of 1894, now the Local History and Genealogy Room, also revealed some secrets during the recent construction and restoration work. A late 20" century dropped ceiling was removed, exposing both the paired 1/1 window high in the north wall, and a line of clerestory windows along the west wall which mirror the fenestration of the east elevation. The windows along the east and west walls are trimmed with broad, molded, mitered varnished wood casings. The north end window, however, had a sandstone lintel and sill. A portion of the brick wall of the annex is visible around the window, and the corbelled brick exterior cornice is still in place above it. At the north end of the room is a low brick fireplace, its broad-arched opening fronted by a pair of modern metal-and-glass fireplace doors installed in 1971.
(Photo #13) Above the opening, the splayed brick stretchers and a row of projecting bricks which form a shallow mantel shelf echo the simplicity of the brick detailing on the exterior of the building. The 70"-wide hearth is composed of glazed Chelsea tiles in yellow, brown, and bright blue, the borders adorned with a sunflower design. Two plain-brick chimney flues rise up the wall surface to either side of the fireplace, presenting an awkward, but practical way to vent the firebox without invading the annex space to the north. To either side of the fireplace and chimneys, the wall is paneled to a height of seven feet with vertical beaded board, topped by a band of two horizontal recessed panels and a molding. Continuous oak bookcases and glass-front display cabinets were installed along most of the east, west, and south walls of the room in 1999, replacing mid-20th century pine shelving.
(continued) 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 Goodnow Library Sudbury (Middlesex), MA Due partly to serious structural issues, all but the northeast end of the 1971 addition was pink-brown cast stone reminiscent of the sandstone and brownstone detailing used by Richards & Richards. In homage to the 1862 building, the new library incorporates a two- level octagonal reading room at the west end. Archaeological Description While no ancient Native American sites have been recorded on the library property, sites may be present. Eight sites have been recorded in the general area (within one mile).
Environmental characteristies of the property represent locational criteria (slope, soil draining, distance to wetlands) that are favorable indicators for many types of Native American sites. The library is located on a well-drained, level to moderately sloping terrace less than 500 feet from Hop Brook, a tributary of the Sudbury River. The latter river eventually drains to the Merrimack River. Extensive ancient Native American settlement has been documented in the Sudbury River drainage throughout most periods of history, especially from the Middle Archaic through Contact Periods. Given the above information, the size of the nominated property (3.03 acres) and impacts related to construction of the library, additions and landscaping. A moderate to high potential exists for locating significant ancient Native American resources on the Goodnow Library property.
A low potential exists for the recovery of historic archaeological resources on the library property. Historic land use has not been identified on the property prior to the construction of the library in 1862. Activities conducted at the library are not known to have left significant archaeological remains. (end) Goodnow Library Name of Property Significance Applicable National Register Criteria (Mark "x" in one or more boxes for the criteria qualifying the property for National Register listing.) XA Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history. _B Property is associated with the lives of persons significant in our past.
XC Property embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period,or method of construction or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values, or represents a significant and distinguishable entity whose components lack individual distinction. _D Property has yielded, or is likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history. Criteria Considerations (Mark "x" in all the boxes that apply.) Property is: _A owned by religious institution or used for religious purposes. _B removed from its original location. _C a birthplace or grave. _D a cemetery. _E a reconstructed building, object, or structure. _F a commemorative property. _G less than 50 years of age or achieved significance within the past 50 years. Narrative Statement of Significance