Major Bibliographical References (Cite the books, articles, and other sources used in preparing this form on one or more continuation sheets.) Previous documentation on file (NPS): Primary location of additional data: - preliminary determination of individual listing (36 _ State Historic Preservation Office CFR 67) has been requested . Other State agency - previously listed in the National Register - Federal agency _ previously determined eligible by the National Local government Register - University _ designated a National Historic Landmark Other _recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey Name of repository: #. _ recorded by Historic American Engineering Record # 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 1/7 Page_ 1 OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA PREFERRED NAME JUSTIFICATION The property has been known as "Fernside" throughout most of its existence, and its primary historic significance is that of a rural summer retreat for working girls under that name. DESCRIPTION "Fernside" is a complex of three buildings (Photo # 1): a dwelling house and a playhouse theatre of clapboard and a metal-sheathed garage. A dedicatory flagpole also is included at the site. Plan # 1, the Site Map and Exterior Photograph Key) shows the arrangement of the site and is keyed to the Data Sheet. Situated on a 6.73-acre lot, Fernside is located on the northeast side of Little Wachusett Mountain, about a 1½ miles north of the center of Princeton, Massachusetts, and about two miles south of Wachusett Mountain, elevation 2,006 feet.
Princeton is situated in central Worcester County about fifty miles from Boston and about thirteen miles from Worcester. The house at Fernside is set on a hillside site at a height of 1,250 feet above sea level. It sits a short distance from Mountain Road with its main (west) façade facing toward the road (Photo # 2). In front of it is a small, grassy lawn with some scattered landscape plantings. Level and largely open, this lawn is bordered along the road by a row of trees. Some are small and recently planted, while some are mature. Across the road from the house the land climbs gradually upward. Formerly vacant and part of the Fernside property, that lot now has a house under construction at the top of the rise. Illustration # 3 shows Fernside as seen from this uphill location about 1910 with the Fernside vegetable garden in the foreground.
North of the house stands a 1½ story, clapboard, gable-front former barn, converted to a playhouse theatre (Photo #5). Between the playhouse and the main house is an asphalt-paved parking lot that is screened from the road by a row of densely-planted lilac bushes. Immediately west of the north end of the parking lot is a metal flagpole on a concrete base dedicated to Dr. Alice Bassett. North of, and very close to the north end of, the playhouse is a small, one-story, gable- front, metal-clad, two-car garage (circa 1920's-1930's). Immediately behind the main house, the land is terraced to provide a level area of lawn (Photo # 4). The terraced area extends a short distance to the east and north and a much greater distance to the south, providing the complex with an ample, and useful, private lawn. Eastward of the terraced area, the land falls off in a gentle downhill slope.
This downhill area is open and is subdivided by stone fences, apparent evidence of 19" century agricultural use, possibly as animal pasture. Further east, the property is enclosed by woods. At the south edge of the property is a pine grove. (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 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Scenic views, especially to the east and north, can be had from both the house and the grounds of Fernside. Illustration # 4 shows Fernside as seen about 1910 in relation to Mount Wachusett to its north. The rear porches of the house offer a panoramic view to the east over woodlands and fields, to rows of blue hills on the far horizon (Photo # 12).
On a clear day Boston skyscrapers can be seen in the distance. It is said that around the turn of the 20** century it was possible to see ships in Boston Harbor from this vantage point. THE HOUSE Exterior The house at Fernside consists of an original Federal-style central section, flanked by wings on either side that are compatible in design despite their mid-to-late 19" century date. The two-story, five-bay, center-entry, center-hall, double- pile, side-gable main body has interior paired chimneys. Two-story, four-bay, double-pile, side-gable wings extend from either side of the main body (Photo #2). See Plan # 2 for the ground plan and layout of the main floor of the house. Gabled dormer windows light the attic story on the main façade, while a combination of gabled and shed dormer windows extend across the rear face of the roof.
As was characteristic of the late Federal style, eaves of the house are projecting, but not broad. Window frames are plain and window sash are 6/6. Most of the window sash are modern replacements of earlier 6/6 sash. A mid-late 19" century one-story porch extends across the main (west) façade of the projecting main body of the house and also wraps around its two ends until it butts up against the west facades of the flanking wings (Photos # 1, 2, 6, 8). Front porch posts consist of slim paired rectangular shafts with jig-saw-cut volute-shaped brackets at either side. One-story porches similar in design to the front porch extend across the rear facades of the south and central sections of the house. The volute brackets of the porch posts on the rear porches are the same as those on the front porch; however, the posts on the rear porches consist of single, square-section shafts.
The style of both the front and rear porches suggests that they were added during the mid-to-late 19'* century, probably at the same time the wings were added. Further investigation is necessary to determine whether the porches were an entirely new addition or whether the present porch trim might have replaced earlier Classical style trim on a porch, or porches, original to the house. The rear porches rest on tall rectangular-section posts with volute brackets that stand in front of the above-grade basement at the back of the house. The level of the decks of these porches is the same as that of the ground floor of the house interior. They are used as an outdoor extension of the first floor common room at the back of the house.
Although deteriorated parts have been replaced and some new sections and new exterior stairways have been added to them in the late 20" century (see projecting terrace and stairs in Photo #4 and compare with Illustration #6), it appears that the sections of the porches closest to the house are largely original. While the posts have been replaced, both original and reproduction jig-saw-cut trim still ornaments them today. Simpler square-section balustrades have replaced the more ornamental late-19" century basket-weave balustrades seen in a circa 1910 photograph (Illustration # 5 ). (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 number1 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Page3 A recently constructed wood deck extends eastward of the rear porches and is positioned a few steps lower than they are (see Photo # 4 & Plan #2). A small deck has also been built recently on the rear of the north wing, off of the dining room. It replaces a toilet room (and formerly a privy) that occupied the same position. On the south end of the south wing is a recently built wood fire escape stairway that gives egress from the attic and second floor levels of the house. It connects to the south end of the rear porches. All of the porches, decks and stairways on the rear of the building have identical modern wood railings of square-section balusters.
After the south wing of the house was damaged by fire in 1892, it was enlarged from its original size. No photographs or descriptions have been found to document its pre-1892 appearance or configuration. Classical Details Classical elements used to ornament "Fernside" reflect the Federal/Neo-Classical and Greek Revival styles that were the height of taste in 1835 when this house was built. Each end of the main body of the building is ornamented with a Classical-style pediment trimmed with a narrow frieze below the roof cornice. A blind lunette is set in the tympanum of the pediment near the peak. A Classical frieze is carried along the base of the pediment and around the remainder of the house, just below the eaves. The doorframe at the main entrance (Photo # 3) is also Classical in design. The upper portion of the doorframe appears to be covered by the present porch ceiling.
The visible portion of the doorframe consists of a reeded outer frame with bulls-eye corner blocks and narrower inner frames between the sidelights and the door. Within the outer frame are a pair of 2/3 length sidelights with Classically-inspired subdividing muntins and with paneled enclosures below. A slim transom, of the same Classical design as the sidelights, is set above the door. The door is an eight-panel Federal style door. A narrow wood strip seen above the outer edge of the doorframe may be the frieze section of a frieze/cornice upper portion. Since no photographs or other illustrations of the house exist from the period before the addition of the porch, the original appearance of the doorframe is not known. A Classical, Roman-inspired, round-headed window is placed at the center of the main façade at the second floor level.
The simple design of the wings that flank the main body of the house is entirely compatible with the design of the original section. The ornamental trim found on the wings consists of Classical style projecting eaves, friezes at the eaves, and gable returns similar to that used on the main body. Dormer Windows Probably added between about 1890 and 1910, pedimented, gable-front, dormer windows on the main façade also carry out the Classical theme of the original central portion of the house. They are set in the three sections of roof across the main facade (Photo #2). There are two dormers on the front of the north wing, three on the front of the main body, and one on the front of the south wing. The center dormer in the main body is wider than the others and contains two 6/6 windows. Each other dormer is lighted by a single set of 6/6 sash.
On the rear, except for a single pedimented dormer on the north end of the roof of the main body of the house, all of the other dormers are shed dormers (Photo # 4). A shed (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 Page4 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA dormer containing a pair of 6/6 windows is set at the center of the rear face of each of the two wings. Located on the south rear section of the main body is a long shed dormer with a 6/6 sash window at either end and a blind section at the center. With the exception of the dormer on the north wing, the shed dormers were probably added during the 1940s or 1950s.
A 1935 photograph shows no dormers on the rear of the south wing and three individual gabled dormers on the rear of the main body of the house. A shed dormer was already in place on the north wing. Secondary Entrances Secondary entrances exist on the north end of the main body of the house and in the west wall of the north wing. Both are reached by way of the north wrap-around extension of the front porch (see Photo #8). The side entrance into the main body of the house from this porch appears to be original to the 1835 construction. Its moulded doorframe with bulls-eye corner blocks and a transom above the door is characteristic of the period, and is similar in design to the doorframe at the main entrance. The entrance to the wing is trimmed with a simple frame, which probably dates to the addition of the wing about 1870.
At the rear of the house a doorway gives access to the central section of the house from the rear porch. It is a modern, double doorway with a plain, late 20t* century frame and modern glazed, multi-pane doors. The present doorway replaces a single-width doorway that, according to the owner, was not original. It may be that there was no door at this location when the house was first built, especially if there was no rear porch at that time. Also at the rear of the house, another pair of multi-pane, glazed, modern, double doors open on to a balcony-like porch on the back of the north wing (Photo # 10). This balcony and its doors and doorframe are recent. The balcony replaces a privy (and later a rest room) that occupied this same position and that was reached by way of a hall from the kitchen. Another exterior entrance is located in the gable of the south wing.
In association with it is a two-level flight of stairs that functions as a fire escape and leads to the porches across the back of the house. A recently created double-door entrance gives access into the basement level of the north wing. The original basement doorway still exists on the east side. Interior A gracious note is set for the interior of the house by the wide center stair hall trimmed with simple but elegant details. Included in the hall are a straight-run staircase with a clean-lined railing of tapered cylindrical balusters and a walnut handrail ending in a spiral that turns around the newel post (Photo # 13); reeded, corner-block doorframes; and decorative glazing around the front door (Photo # 13).
Another elegant feature is a round-arched doorway with a reeded doorframe that occupies the rear wall, opposite the front door (Photo # 18 shows this door as seen from the opposite side). Original Classical style trim preserved in other rooms in the main body of the house includes reeded, block-cornered doorframes and pilaster-frieze-cornice type fireplace surrounds (Photos # 14, 15, 16, 18, 22 & 23). Doors are almost all six-panel Federal style doors. While rooms all through the first and second floors of the main body of the house have the same reeded, block-cornered doorframes, the parlor and dining room on the first floor have the most elaborate fireplace surrounds (Photos # 14 & 15), composed of fluted pilasters, moulded friezes, and severe rectangular mantels. Upstairs bedrooms have simpler fireplace trim (Photos # 22 & 23).
While their component parts are essentially the same as the more elaborate fireplace surrounds, their surfaces are plain and unadorned. (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 5 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA The present owners have restored and rehabilitated the house. The exterior has been preserved largely as it appeared luring its life as a summer vacation house for working girls. Inside the house the ground floor is much as it was in th acation house days. The only major change on this floor is that the former basement kitchen (no longer existing) ha: been replaced by a kitchen in what was the "Serving Room" next to the large dining room in the north wing.
The large dining room in the north wing survives very much as it appeared historically. It is also furnished with Fernside era tables and chairs left here when the summer vacation house closed in 1989 (Photo #20). Although rooms throughout the house have been replastered, original woodwork has been preserved. On the second floor, partitions that provided very small bedrooms for Fernside guests have been removed. Most or all of those partitions appear not to have been original. In the early years of the vacation house many, if not all, of the girls probably slept several to a room. An increasing desire for privacy led to the partitioning off of larger spaces to provide rooms for no more than one or two guests. In the 1835 main body of the house, larger bedrooms on the second floor of were partitioned off with this purpose in mind.
In that part of the house, the recent removal of the later partitions has restored several rooms to their original sizes, providing the spacious accommodations appropriate for a modern bed-and- breakfast inn. At the second floor level of the south wing some former bedrooms have been converted to bathrooms. Compare Plans # 3 and # 3A for the above-described alterations. Plan # 3A shows a plan drawn in 1968, which shows an arrangement of small private rooms of earlier date. Plan #3 shows an only slightly altered 1995 arrangement. This space in the north wing is now undergoing remodeling to provide more ample sized guestrooms. It is possible to get an idea of how the guests of the vacation house lived by looking at rooms at the third (or half-story) level of the north wing. Now used for storage, these rooms survive largely as they were during Vacation House days.
Here, ranged along the west side of a wide north-south corridor (Photo # 27, Plan #5), are three small bedrooms with their ceilings slanting inward to conform with the line of the roof (Photo #28). At the north end of the corridor is a small half bathroom. Its door is visible at the north end of the corridor in Photo #27. Guests staying on this floor would have to have taken their baths in a bathroom downstairs or used the low, round, portable, metal bathtubs, which are still stored on this floor and in the attic of the house. Ornamental features of these rooms are limited to the door frames. The interior window frames have been removed to allow insertion of replacement windows and have not been remounted. The moulded door frames are wide with bulls-eye corner blocks, possibly dating from the late-19th century. Doors are four- panel doors of the late-19th century type.
Walls are plastered and projecting corners of the dormer window sections have beaded edges. Floors are random boards (pine?) painted grey. In the place of clothes closets or wardrobes, there is in each room a shelf equipped with clothes hooks and a towel rod. In one room, still intact around the shelf are canvas curtains are that hid the clothes from view (Photo #29). (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 NPS Form 1 10-900- (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 7 Page 6 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA BARN/PLAYHOUSE THEATRE This building, originally a gable-front American barn, was probably built around 1870. It is rectangular in form with a narrow one-story addition that extends nearly the full width of the north gable end.
The building is quite plain except for a narrow frieze that trims the eaves along the sides and in the gables. Eaves are projecting with no gable returns. Windows and doors are trimmed with simple plank frames. Most windows have 6/6 sash. Long side windows have 12/12 sash. The building was converted to its present state as a playhouse theatre in 1921. Illustration # 1 shows the south and west sides of the barn as they appeared before its conversion. Comparison of Illustration # 1 with Illustration # 7 and Photo #5 shows that the present theatre entrance is located off-center where the barn door once was. In front of the entrance a two- level, hip-roofed porch was added at the same time. The lower level of the porch is reached by several stairs rising from the ground. The sides are enclosed in latticework.
The front of the porch was originally treated with a segmented arched entrance surrounded by latticework. The arch panel has been removed while the building is under repair. It is to be returned to its original location. In 1999 the failing original stone foundation of the barn/playhouse was replaced with a new one in concrete. At the same time the early-20th century exterior stairway to the second level apartment was removed for future replacement by an interior stair. Originally rising from the east side of the theatre, the exterior stairway gave access to the second level of the porch (Illustration # 7a). To replace it, an interior staircase will be built to provide access to upstairs rooms and to the upper level of the porch.
The second level of the porch has a balcony-like appearance with its typically early-20th century style balustrade of square-section balusters wrapping around the front and the sides. In the 1920s conversion of the barn to a theatre, several windows were altered. A single window at the second story level on the main facade was replaced with a double window. Small square stall windows on the west side were converted to larger windows. The windows in the two center bays, corresponding to the theatre auditorium, were made to extend upward nearly to the eaves. Tall windows of the same configurationwere opened up on the east side to correspond to them. The window at the south end of the west side is smaller. Above it is a small squarish window that corresponds to an upstairs apartment on the south side.
The stall window farthest north on the west side was opened up to form the present western doorway, sheltered by a small hip-roofed porch. With the replacement of the original foundation and the excavation of a full cellar where none existed before, windows and doors now open from the foundation at the basement level on the east side where none existed before. Interior The ground floor of the theatre building is subdivided into an entryway, an auditorium hall, and a stage/backstage area. The interior is rustic in appearance (Photo # 24), with the framework of the roof being left open to view (Photos # 24 & 26). The wall around the stage is sheathed with unpainted, horizontally laid, tongue-and-groove boards that rise only as far as the level that corresponds with the floor of the former hayloft. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (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_ 7 Page "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA A small second floor apartment extends the length of the south side of the building. One room (about 10 feet) deep, the apartment consists of three rooms. Listed in consecutive order from west to east, its rooms include: a sitting room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The original entrance was by way of an exterior stairway, now removed, to the second level of the front porch. The apartment entrance is a door from the porch into the sitting room. An interior staircase is planned. Until it is built, the apartment is inaccessible. The one-story, pediment-front garage stands north of the theatre (Photo # 5). Its eaves are projecting with no returns.
It is a pre-fabricated garage covered with metal that is moulded to look like clapboard. At the entrance are two sets of double- leafed metal doors treated in the Classical style. The garage probably dates from the 1920s. DR.BASSETT FLAGPOLE Immediately southwest of the theatre is a cylindrical metal flagpole resting on a low, truncated, pyramidal base of concrete. The flagpole can be seen in Photos # 1 and 5. A bronze plaque on the base is inscribed: In Honor of Dr. Alice Hally Bassett Unselfishly devoted to the interests of Fernside for over 50years September 4, 1950 Archaeological Description Ancient Native American sites are not currently recorded on the property or in the general area (within one mile). The density of ancient sitesin this area typifies a low density pattern representative of north central Worcester County and north central Massachusetts in general.
Low settlement density may characterize actual Native American settlement patterns in this area, however, underreporting is also probably a major causal factor. Environmental characteristics of the nominated parcel are not well suited for most Native American sites. Fernside is located on a well drained, terraced landscape within a generally sloping area on an east facing slope northeast of Little Wachusett Mountain, about 2 miles south of Wachusett Mountain. The nearest wetlands are located over 2000 feet north of the property. Given the above information, a low density exists for locating ancient Native American resources on the Fernside parcel. A high potential exists for locating historic archaeological resources on the nominated property.
Historical research combined with archaeological survey and testing may locate archaeological evidence of the Eveleth House and farmstead complex believed to be part of the nominated property. In 1761, Lieutenant Joseph Eveleth purchased the land on which the Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside now stands. Late 19th century informants report that an old house once stood on the north side of the present house. Structural evidence may survive from the Eveleth House, barn and outbuildings. (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 7/8 Page_8/1 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Archaeological evidence of occupational related features (trash pits, privies, wells) related to the Eveleth period of occupation may also survive.
Structural evidence may also survive from renovations made to the existing building and earlier barns or outbuildings that no longer survive. Occupational related features should also exist related to the Harrington period of occupation and later use of the complex as a hotel, boarding house, tavern and summer vacation house for working girls. (end) SIGNIFICANCE The Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside meets National Register Criteria A and C at the local level. Under Criterion A the property is significant as an early, possibly the first, summer vacation house for working girls in the United States. In its role as a vacation house for working girls it is also significant for its long-term social/humanitarian service connections with working girls and with women's organizations in Boston. Fernside is also significant for its associations with the summer resort economy in Princeton.
Of the many hotels and boarding houses that existed in Princeton during the second half of the 19" century and the early 20" century, this is the most long-lived and best preserved of the few hostelry buildings that survive here today. Under Criterion C the Harrington House/Fernside is architecturally significant as an example of a late Federal period single-family dwelling converted to use as a hostelry during the town's summer resort era. The Early History of Princeton Wachusett Mountain, Princeton's most dominant geographic feature, received notice relatively early in the English colonization of New England, despite its considerable distance from the first-settled areas along the seacoast. Official note of the mountain was first taken in 1632 when Governor Winthrop and his party took sight of it from "Boston Rock" in Waltham.
As early as the 1640s, a route of travel from Boston to the Connecticut Valley and Springfield was opened through this general area. Colonial settlers first came into possession of the territory that would become the town of Princeton in 1686. In that year a twelve-mile section of wilderness, known as the Naguag Purchase, was acquired from members of the Nipmuck tribe by (continued) NPS Form 110-900-a (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_ 8 Page2 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA a private group of English colonists who were mostly from the nearby town of Lancaster. However, a delay in settling the area seems to have been caused by political uncertainty in the colony during this period and also by continued Native American aggression in the region.
During King Philip's War and later, between 1675 and 1713, several European settlements in the area were attacked and burned, driving off the surviving settlers and discouraging new settlement. A part of the Naguag Purchase was finally incorporated as the Town of Rutland in 1714 by act of the Massachusetts General Court. It was later subdivided to form all or parts of Princeton, Hubbardston, Barre, Oakham, Paxton, and Rutland. It was not until 1742 that the territory that the first permanent settler, Joshua Wilder of Lancaster, arrived in would what would become the town of Princeton. During the 1740's and 1750's other settlers followed Wilder to settle the area. The "East Wing" of Rutland, the adjoining "Watertown Farms," and unincorporated areas consisting of several large farms to their east were combined to form an independent district in 1759.
This action was in response to complaints made by the inhabitants of these areas that the Rutland meeting house was too far away for them to travel conveniently to Sunday meetings. The new district was known as Prince Town, named in honor of the Rev. Thomas Prince of Boston (1687-1771) who was the largest landholder in the area. District status allowed residents to establish their own religious congregation and to build a meeting house, but did not allow them separate political representation. Finally, in 1771 the Prince Town district was incorporated as the Town of Princeton. Early Settlement of the Property at 162 Mountain Road According to Blake's History of Princeton, Lieutenant Joseph Eveleth (1732-3-1790) purchased the land on which the present Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside now stands in 1761, the year of his marriage to Ruth Wetherbee.
It is believed that a dwelling was first built on the site in 1771, the same year as the incorporation of the town. Current research on the property has uncovered no description of the size or appearance of that early house. The location of Eveleth's property was about a mile from what was then the town's meeting house center. Even though the town pound, the town burying ground, and the center school were clustered near the meeting house during the late 18" century, no real center village settlement yet existed when Eveleth built his house. During this period Princeton was a community of dispersed farmsteads like Eveleth's, with little or no clustered settlement in the entire town. Eveleth's house was built on Lot 3 in the "Watertown Farms" section of Princeton (see Lot 3 WF, Illustration #8).
The western boundary of Lot 3 was part of the division line between "Watertown Farms" and the "East Wing" sections. Located only a short distance north of the intersection of Westminster and Mountain Roads, Eveleth's farm was situated near a major route of travel through Princeton during the Colonial period. This route led from the town of Westminster southward through Princeton to Holden and on to Worcester. Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside The present house at 162 Mountain Road is believed to stand near the site of the earlier Eveleth dwelling. It was built in 1835 by Captain Benjamin Harrington (1774-1852). According to the 1888 recollections of Abbey Wilder Davis (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 Page 3 OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA compiled by Florence Davis, an old house once stood on the north side of the present house. It would seem that if that statement is true, the older house must have been Eveleth's. Captain Harrington was not a young man when he built this house as his own private dwelling. He was already sixty-one years of age and he and his wife had been married for thirty- one years. Benjamin Harrington had owned the Eveleth homestead for many years before building the new house. In 1803, shortly before his marriage to Nancy Jennison (d.1863) in 1804, Harrington bought from Eveleth's son, Abishai, a forty-four-and- one-quarter-acre parcel of land with the buildings standing thereon. Also included in the sale was an additional ten-and- three-quarter-acre parcel of woodland and pew # 31 in the town meeting house.
Excepted from the sale were the portions of the house and barn and privileges to the well and dooryard of the barn that had been set aside to Lieutenant Eveleth's widow, Ruth. When Mrs. Eveleth died in about 1811 Harrington came into possession of her portions of the house and barn. In 1812 Harrington's father also sold him another portion of the Eveleth homestead, forty-six and two-thirds acres that were part of Ruth Eveleth's "widow's thirds." The same deed also conveyed to him two other parcels, one of two acres and one-hundred-thirty rods and an additional eleven-acre lot of woodland. It is unclear where Benjamin and Nancy Harrington lived before building the present house. They may have lived in the Eveleth house or it is possible that they lived in the same house with his parents.
The idea that they might have lived with his parents is suggested by the fact that in 1804, the year of his marriage, Harrington's father sold him half of his own homestead and half of the buildings thereon. His father's farm seems to have been located on Mirick Road on the south side of Pine Hill, a short distance northeast of the Eveleth place. Benjamin Harrington, was the third of nine children born to Abijah (1743-1821) and Sarah Livermore Harrington of Princeton. According to the published history of Fernside, he was "State Surveyor." He served as Princeton selectman in 1810 and as Town Treasurer from 1817 to 1821. Benjamin Harrington's will indicates that, although they had no children of their own, he and his wife, Nancy, brought up two boys, Henry Boyles (ca.1802-1863) and Nathan Danforth (1811-1881), from childhood.
At Harrington's death, the two men were appointed co-executors of the estate. The History of Princeton tells us that Boyles cared for Mrs. Harrington after her husband's death. However, until the homestead was sold out of the family in 1857, she may have lived in the south portion of the house, which had been designated as hers in her husband's will. If that was the case, it is likely that Danforth lived in the northern half until he sold the property to Wilkes Roper. The 1857 Worcester County map shows Danforth as owner of the Benjamin Harrington House and Boyles as the owner of a house located a short distance further north on the west side of Mountain Road. Danforth sold the eighty-three-acre family property in 1857, having made the decision to go west. On the deed of sale to Roper his residence is given as Idaho City in the Idaho Territory. After the sale, Mrs.
Harrington probably lived with Boyles in his own house nearby until both she and Henry Boyles died in the same year, 1863. (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 8 Page4 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Danforth and Boyles married sisters. Henry Boyles married Louisa Eveleth in 1831 and Nathan Danforth married Harriet Eveleth in 1836. They were daughters of Joseph Eveleth and Catherine Mirick, and granddaughters of Lieutenant Joseph Eveleth, who had built the first house on this piece of land. The Benjamin Harrington House Converted to Use as a Hotel About 1870, or very likely some time earlier than that, possibly during the 1860s, the Benjamin Harrington House began to be used as a summer hotel.
The 1870 Worcester County Atlas map indicates that the Benjamin Harrington House was known under Roper's ownership as "Summer House." Roper added wings to either side of the original house to provide ample room for its new use as a hotel. The ground plan of the building shown on the 1870 atlas suggests that the wing additions had already been made by the time the map was made. The 1881 Princeton directory gives Roper's address as "road to Mountain House," indicating that he may have lived here and operated the hotel himself. Guests during Roper's ownership are said to have included Harvard professors and students. Roper continued the operation until 1885, when he leased the building to F. A. Boyd who ran it as a boarding house. At some point during this latter period, it was used as a tavern and fell into disrepair.
The Harrington House adaptation as a summer hotel was not Roper's only hotel conversion. In 1860 he remodeled the then-vacant Baptist Church on Princeton Common as a hotel, known first as Prospect House and later as the Princeton Inn. According to Blake's History of Princeton, Roper operated Prospect House successfully for many years. It burned in 1923 after having served a long life as one of the town's most distinguished summer hotels. "Fernside": Vacation House for Working Girls In the summer of 1890 Wilkes Roper rented the former Harrington property to persons from Boston for use as a summer vacation house for working girls. In September of that same year Miss M. Josephine Allen of Boston purchased the property, then conveyed it a short time later to a trust on behalf of the Girls' Vacation House Association.
The purchase price for the house, the barn, ten acres of land, and furnishings was $3,800. The place was given the name "Fernside." Fernside was founded by Miss Allen (see Illustration # 9) and operated under her personal supervision for twenty years or more. As "Fernside," the property served as a vacation house for women for nearly one-hundred years. A 1939 brochure noted: Fernside attracts new friends each year and retains old ones. Since 1890, more than 5,000 girls and women have benefited by vacations at Fernside. It has become a tradition, passed on from mother to daughter. In 1986, a newspaper article reported that some guests were still returning year after year. By that date, however, the clientele had changed.
Working girls, toward whom the vacation house was originally directed, no longer dealt with the same social problems and work environments that working girls' clubs and summer vacation houses were established to confront. Working girls' clubs themselves had largely fallen by the way by the 1930s. In the mid-1940s surviving (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 8 Page5 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA working girls' clubs were frequented by older members who had begun their memberships as girls. At some point in the 1940s or 1950s, in correspondence with the aging of the clientele, the name of the corporation that operated Fernside was changed from Girls' Vacation House Association to Fernside Vacation House, Incorporated.
In about 1942 the Fernside Appreciation Club was established with former guests as its members. This group maintained an enthusiastic clientelebase and also raised money for equipment and other items needed for the house. During this period, girls' vacation houses like Fernside saw the same change in demography as the surviving working girls' clubs. Fernside's clientele no longer consisted mostly of young women. The quiet summer days spent at Fernside no longer had the appeal they once did among younger women. During the mid and late 20 century period Fernside was in competition with the increasing availability of travel and much wider choices for summer vacations. Perhaps its being limited to women also gradually diminished its attraction. Nonetheless, Fernside kept going, supported by an endowment, contributions, and paying guests.
As of 1986 one current regular guest had returned to Fernside for sixty-two consecutive summers, and another for thirty-six. Such guests said they were attracted by "Good company, peace and quiet, and especially the food." The cost, which in the 1890s had been three dollars a week, was still reasonable in the 1980s, at seventy dollars a week, including meals. During the 1980s the number of guests declined, especially as many long-time visitors died or became too old and infirm to continue coming. Although some new guests were attracted by brochures and by word of mouth, Fernside welcomed its last guests as a summer vacation house for women in the summer of 1988. The following spring, Fernside president, Doris L. Campbell, age ninety, wrote a letter to all past guests for whom there was a current mailing address to tell them of the decision not to open for the 1989 season.
A picnic was held for Fernside "alumnae" that summer. At that event, each person present was allowed to take with them some object as a souvenir of the house before it was put up for sale. In September of 1909 Fernside Vacation House, Incorporated sold the property, the house, the barn/playhouse, and a small garage to William Zottoli and other Zottoli family members. The size of the grounds of the vacation house was smaller at the time of the 1989 sale than it had been in the 1890s. During the mid and late 20" century period, three parcels of land were sold off from a tract that by 1956 had expanded to thirty-five-acres. These sales took place in 1964, 1984, and 1988 and included most of the holdings onthe west side of Mountain Road.
The $300,000 proceeds from the sale of Fernside in 1989 were distributed to Boston charitable organizations to be used for the sole benefit of women, young and old. Gifts of $25,000 each went to the City Missionary Society, Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, Inc., Salvation Army of Massachusetts, Inc., Rosie's Place, Inc., Back Bay Aging Concern Committee -- Old and Young United, Inc., and Transition House, Inc. The remainder, presumably about $150,000, went to the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, with which Fernside had been associated for all or most of its life. Current research has not shown how much of the endowment still existed at the time of the sale and, if any survived, how it was disposed of. (continued) OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 NPS Form 110-9008 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 6 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA From 1989 until 1994 the new owners used Fernside as an inn without making any notable changes to the building. When the present owners purchased the property in 1994, the so-called Harrington Field across the road was no longer included with it and the total lot size had diminished to a little under seven acres. Fortunately, although some dwellings have been built on former Fernside property to the south and west of the house, the open and wooded land that has traditionally been part of Fernside's grounds and of its adjoining properties survives largely intact. After sale by the Zottolis, the house and its outbuildings were renovated and restored.
Since 1996 Fernside has been operated as a bed and breakfast inn, continuing its long history as a hostelry. Clubs for Working Girls The Setting in Which Working Girls' Clubs Originated During the late 19* century more and more women began to work outside their homes. The Industrial Revolution and the appearance of department stores provided important sources of employment for women. For certain jobs, like department store clerk, women were considered desirable employees, since the clientele was largely female. Other jobs were often available for women during this period partly because of inequality of wages. Women workers were in demand in some cases because their pay was lower than that of men's for the same jobs. The trend toward women in the workplace grew in spite of the fact that society at this time generally held working girls and working women in low esteem.
In the case of lower class women, working was most often a financial necessity. For less economically deprived women during the late 19th century, working was more and more often a choice that provided them or their families with extra spending money and the trappings of gentility that could be had no other way. A girl's salary might permit her or her family to have finer clothing, nice furniture, and maybe even a piano. Because their daily lives took them out of the home, which was traditionally the place of the woman, working women were seen in a negative light especially by the upper classes. They were often viewed as immoral or seen to put themselves in danger of immoral influences.
Despite the fact that an 1884 report on Boston's working girls showed that this class of worker was just as moral and honest as the rest of the citizenry, genteel reformers of the late 19" century attempted to provide moral guidance to them by volunteering with organizations such as the Young Women's Christian Association, Girls' Friendly Societies, settlement houses, and working girls'clubs. Clubs In an effort to attain social respectability, young wage-earning women began forming working girls' clubs with the assistance of genteel sponsors. During the late 19" century, large numbers of working girls' clubs began to appear in American cities. They were at their peak of importance around the turn of the 20** century. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-8 (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_7 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Sponsors originally saw themselves as volunteer social workers with goals of improving the morals and standards of the working classes. However, both classes of women worked together in the clubs on the basis of cooperation, self- government, and self-support. In time, through mutual association in clubs that functioned democratically, both the wage- earners and the sponsors learned from one another. Through the common bonds of womanhood they gradually became more equal in their outlooks. Working girls' clubs provided wage-earning members a chance both for socializing with other women and for self- improvement lectures, classes, and discussions.
Each club created and implemented its own organizational agenda. Members worked with their sponsors to organize not only social events but also classes in subjects including cooking, sewing, calisthenics, and literature; discussions on moral responsibilities; and committees to aid impoverished neighbors. Documents left by working girls' clubs indicate their concern with issues such as womanhood, respectability, democracy, class hierarchy, male supremacy, wage work, trade unionism, race, and nationality. Programs nurtured feminine virtues and enforced refined behavioral codes, yet, club members strongly repudiated the idea that respectable femininity was incompatible with working for a wage. Each club had two classes of members, wage-earning members and club sponsors. Club sponsors were typically members of the non-wage-earning upper class.
Daughters of the wealthy, they were often young women in their twenties. According to Priscilla Murolo's history of working girls' clubs: ...they traded the world of the debutante or fashionable matron for the more ascetic, though no less elitist, realms of benevolent work. Club sponsors devoted enormous amounts of time and care to organizational duties that no wage earner could undertake. They searched for suitable meeting rooms, recruited teachers for club classes, and saw to a host of other tasks that had to be handled during business hours. Many identified with club members, referring to themselves as working girls whose wages had been "paid in advance" by providence.... By participating in these clubs, many were carrying on family traditions of social reform.
Also, club work supplied upper class women with opportunities for intellectual growth and executive experience that was difficult for them to attain otherwise. Chances were still limited at this time for women to have professions of their own, even if they were fortunate enough to be among the few who had had the benefit of a college education. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (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_ 8 Page8_ "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Early Working Girls' Clubs and M. Josephine Allen The first working girls' clubs are believed to have been established in the mid-1880's. The first may have been founded in New York City in 1884 by a group of twelve female silk weavers from the city's west side who formed the Working Girls' Society.
The goals of their organization were cooperation, self-government, and self-support. Boston's first working girls' club seems to have been formed about the same time. In 1884 a working girls' club drawing its membership from a group of young women employed in a Boston knitting mill is said to have been organized under the sponsorship of M. Josephine Allen, the founder of Fernside. Two years later, in 1886, Miss Allen, with the assistance of Miss Edith M. Howes, organized a second club in the city's South End with a more diverse membership. That club, known as the Shawmut Avenue Working Girls Club, was listed in the Boston City Directory as early as 1890 and had its meeting rooms at 401 Shawmut Avenue. At that time Miss Allen was its president. Soon after its founding, the Shawmut Club had a membership of two-hundred-fifty.
The size of the club required a paid employee to run its operations. From the beginning, the club's volunteer workers spent much time assisting in the formation of similar organizations in towns all over the state. It is unclear for how long Miss Allen's first club survived, since she herself writes that the city's first working girls' club was established in 1886, apparently referring to the Shawmut Avenue club. Perhaps if the earlier club did not last very long she considered it unsuccessful and therefore not truly the "first." Another early Boston working girls' club (founding date unknown) was the Jerusalem Stars of the North End.
It is referred to in the history of the Rockport Lodge as an early club that met "under the long and devoted leadership of Miss Julia Frothingham." Nationwide Network of Working Girls' Clubs According to a very brief 1936 account of the history of the Shawmut Avenue Working Girls' Club written by Edith M. Howes, M. Josephine Allen was active in the establishment of two other organizations that helped strengthen the cause of working girls and women: the Massachusetts Association of Women Workers and the National League of Women Workers. These two organizations were established in 1897. Although she seems not to have held office in either of these groups, fellow sponsors of her Shawmut Avenue club, Miss Howes and Miss O. M. E. Rowe, did. Boston and New York were not alone in the establishment of working girls' clubs.
When the first national convention of the Association of Working Girls' Societies was held in New York City in 1890, clubs had been organized in cities all around the country. Not only were there clubs in New York and Boston, but also in Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, and in other Midwestern cities, as well. In the Northeast there were so many that interclub associations had been established in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and greater Boston by that date. Others were soon to be organized in Connecticut and eastern Pennsylvania. In 1894 a second convention of the organization was held in Boston. Nearly one hundred clubs with a combined membership of over eleven thousand were represented there. If Midwestern clubs had attended the convention, another twenty clubs and two thousand more members would have been added to the count. (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-8 (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_g "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Except for a few clubs with African-American membership in Philadelphia and Boston, the movement was limited to Caucasians. Yet working girls' clubs were otherwise ethnically diverse, counting among their members Catholics, Protestants, and Jews drawn from the same groups that composed the working class in general at that time. The largest number were of Irish, German, and northwestern European extraction. Members were typically factory and office workers, store clerks, seamstresses, laundry and restaurant workers, domestic servants, and teachers. However, in general, the majority of club members belonged to the highest paid levels of the female workforce.
The Shawmut Avenue Working Girls' Club and Its Association with Activist Movements Benefiting Women The early aims of the genteel sponsors of the Shawmut Avenue Working Girls' Club may have been the social and moral reform of its working-class women members. Yet, it is quite clear that the outlook of at least a few club sponsors was soon altered by their own personal interaction with their working membership. Sponsors of the Shawmut Avenue club played an important role in an outstandingly progressive period of advancements in American women's rights, which took place during the late 19* and early 20* centuries. Current research has not made it possible to know precisely what were Miss Allen's views as president of the Shawmut Avenue Working Girls' Club.
Neither has it provided an understanding of how her efforts to form a working girls' summer vacation house meshed with the organization's other activities. However, in addition to Miss Allen's apparent key role in establishing institutions to help working women improve their condition, the work of fellow members of the Shawmut Avenue club is evidence that the club was at the heart of women's rights activism in Boston during the "progressive era." Miss Allen's fellow club sponsors, Miss Edith M. Howes and Miss O.M.E. Rowe, became active proponents of labor reform. As directors of the Massachusetts Association of Working Girls' Clubs, they were successful in the effort to win an eight-hour workday for Boston department store workers in 1896.
They then continued to work in support of women's labor reform on a broader scale by promoting national organizations that they believed would help improve women's working conditions. They were active in the organization of the National Association of Working Women in 1897 and in the founding in 1898 of the Massachusetts Consumers' League, which encouraged better working conditions for women by placing seals of approval on goods manufactured under conditions meeting its standards. In 1904 Miss Howes was also active in the establishment of the Boston Trade School for Girls, with the purpose of giving girls the same advantages that boys' trade schools offered boys. By training for non-domestic service trades under workshop conditions, girls could begin working at higher wages.
The aim was to make it possible for girls to become self-supporting and self-respecting at a time when working-class girls typically had few career choices outside domestic work and other low-paying jobs that kept them from being fully independent. When the first experimental girls' trade school was taken over by the City of Boston in 1909 it became the first state-aided industrial school for females. Miss Howes was also responsible for establishing the Massachusetts Association of Women Workers in 1897. The Massachusetts Association of Women Workers was associated with the National League of Women Workers, which was founded that same year. After 1920 these two organizations were known respectively as the Massachusetts League of Girls' Clubs and the National League of Girls' Clubs.
In 1925 the Massachusetts League of Girls Clubs (formerly the (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (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_10 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Massachusetts Association of Women Workers) had a membership of over four thousand women who belonged to thirty- two member clubs. The Peak Period of Importance of Working Girls' Clubs From about 1890 through the beginning of World War I, the clubs worked effectively to achieve important goals benefiting women. In a society that was attempting to keep all classes of women confined to a domestic role, these clubs provided an indisputably female niche from which women could play an active role outside their homes.
These clubs allowed women to take an executive position, working under their own (rather than male) direction, in achieving goals that they believed to be important. Reform efforts originating from working girls' clubs not only won new rights and greater self-determination for women but also benefited society at large. The reform efforts associated with working girls' clubs were part of a widespread trend in American cities toward social reform during this period that confronted a wide array of social problems associated with a fast-growing industrial urban society.A sampling of reforms addressed during this period included, among others, questions such as housing, political corruption, temperance, fair wages, child labor, and women's rights.
With the beginning of World War I, the momentum that had previously been directed toward the improvement of the condition of women was siphoned off by the war effort. Except for the brief period between the end of the war and the passage of woman's suffrage in 1920, the resolve and the power of women to shape their own destinies that had been achieved during the progressive era was never regained until the advent of the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Summer Vacation Houses for Working Girls Associated with working girls' clubs were summer vacation houses. Summer vacation houses for working girls, such as "Fernside," permitted women workers a period of rest and a chance to get away from the crowded city and from the long hours of their jobs during the summer (see Illustration # 10 for an early advertising broadside).
The 1910 published history of Fernside explains how the idea for the vacation house in Princeton originated: The first Working-Girls' Club in Boston was formed in 1886. The following winter a young lady entertained its members one evening with the account of a summer spent in Switzerland and showed them many photographs of its beautiful scenery. On inquiry it was found that not one of her hearers had ever seen a mountain, and few if any had been beyond the suburbs of Boston. An arrangement was made by which ten of these girls, the following summer, spent two weeks at a farmhouse in Rindge, N. H., and climbed to the top of Mt. Monadnock. It was an event in their lives. In the autumn an evening at the Club was devoted to hearing their experiences in the country, and especially their account of the ascent of the mountain. They were greatly envied by all who heard them.
(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_11 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Based upon the success of this experiment, fund-raising and planning was begun for a similar vacation opportunity the following summer: On June 1, 1887, an appeal was published in the Boston Transcript, addressed to those highly favored young girls who were to spend the summer at Bar Harbor, Newport, or perhaps in Europe. It was a plea that each from her abundance should contribute enough to give some working-girl a two weeks' vacation in the country. This was a new object, which not only touched the hearts of the young girls, but interested their fathers and mothers. In response more than a thousand dollars were received.
Such a contribution was not only unexpected, but almost overwhelming. Where were the recipients of so large a sum to be found, and where were the boarding-places adapted to their needs? With the assistance of the Superintendent of the Y. W. C. A. and city missionaries, needy wage-earning girls were found, as well as farm houses where they were welcomed for the small board offered for them. The fares of many were paid to Maine and New Hampshire, where they visited relatives and friends. A pilgrimage was made in August to all the boarding-places, to ascertain the quality and quantity of food received, and also the behaviour of the girls. When the response to the appeal for funds for the following summer was even greater than the year before, a boarding house was rented in Laconia, New Hampshire. That summer, both it and the best of the places from the year before were all filled.
The history notes the success of the venture and remarks upon the goals that could be accomplished if a permanent girls' summer vacation house could be established: It was now evident that a permanent work had been created, and that it needed personal supervision. It might be made not only a means of rest and refreshment of spirit, but an opportunity for imparting refining influences, high standards of conduct, a knowledge of the laws of health, and a noble dissatisfaction with present aims. To do this, a permanent Vacation House seemed necessary, which would be a refuge for the weary and discouraged, a "pleasure dome" for the joyous, and a center of elevating influences. Fernside: A Permanent Summer House For Working Girls As a result of the successful summer experiments of 1887, 1888, and 1889, an effort was made to find a permanent summer vacation house for Boston working girls.
In the spring of 1890 a suitable place was found in the former Benjamin Harrington House in Princeton. The Fernside history describes the desirable qualities of Princeton and of the house: (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 8 Page_12 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA [Princeton] was on the eastern slope of Mt. Wachusett, twelve hundred and fifty feet above the sea. On one side rose the beautiful mountain crowned with its Summit House. Behind lay a broad smiling valley stretching to the horizon, with a seemingly uninterrupted view to knew nothing of factories or trolley cars. The invigorating air, beautiful situation and peaceful surroundings had attracted visitors for many years.
The house secured was an old-fashioned square mansion, with a hall through the center to the piazza at the back, and good-sized wings on either side. It was commodious and well arranged for its purpose. That summer's effort at Princeton was a complete success, supported, as previously, by generous donations. In the fall, the former Benjamin Harrington homestead was purchased as a Working Girls' Vacation House. Before the next summer season, repairs were made, partitions added to some rooms, and wallpapering and painting was done. In 1892 an appeal to donors raised funds for the purchase and repair of the house. To provide water enough for a house occupied by more than fifty people, it was also necessary to buy an additional ten acres across the road from the house in order to increase the water supply. That purchase, made in 1894, cost an additional five hundred dollars.
The Daily Routine of Fernside in the Summer The Fernside history describes the appearance of the house, how it was used, and the typical daily routine during the early 20* century period: At Fernside the rising bell sounds at seven, followed by the breakfast call a half hour later. Our dining-room with its four long tables, each seating twelve, and presided over by a hostess or the housekeeper, is quickly filled. To the newcomer it is a surprise to enter so beautiful a room. Yet all is really simple. The paint is spotless white and the paper has a light green foliage design. White shelves with a few fancy plates and pitchers decorate the walls. The muslin curtains and neatly set table with pretty china attract the eye. The cost has been small, but the effect is pleasing.
A mother complained that there was no living with the girls when they returned from Fernside, as the home table must be set just as it was there and the rooms cared for in the same way. Invigorating air and change of diet bring great appetites. The cooks maintain that it takes a whole week to satisfy the new arrivals, and then a fresh set come just as hungry. The scales, purchased by small contributions from the girls, are a source of eager interest, and are surrounded at the close of every meal. After the bedrooms are put in order various employments (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-a (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 8 Page_ 13 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA occupy the morning. Perhaps an excursion party of twenty ascends Mt.
Wachusett, retuning in time for dinner. Others take the mail-bag to the village post-office, pick berries which grow abundantly n the pastures, or walk to the Lake or the Haunted House. The food is well cooked and abundant and the variety of vegetables is enjoyed. Then the household separates, some to the writing-tabl in the large second-story hall, where five can sit at a time; or to the hammocks under the old apple trees in the orchard which adjoins the house. Others retire to their rooms to rest or prepare for the evening entertainment. Eleven are notified that it is their turn to take an afternoon drive, and the pleasure is great to those unaccustomed to such a luxury. If the weather is rainy, afternoon tea is often served. After the six o'clock supper a game of croquet is usually played and it witnessed by all on the front piazza. Short walks are taken within sight of the house.
At dark the music-room is soon filled. Older or quiet ones look on from the reading-room at the dancing, games, or charades and hear the piano-playing and singing. At half past nine all surround the piano to sing the evening hymn, and then go to their rooms. Lights are put out at ten o'clock. On Thursday night a grand entertainment is always given in honor of those who are to leave the following Saturday. It may be a play or a children's party; a minstrel show, a fancy dress ball, or a "reception by President and Mrs. Roosevelt." The property trunks are put into requisition and wonderful results secured. This is the life of the house. A woman worn out with care, after a week's vacation in which she had laughed more than in years before, said she never knew there could be such good times and nothing wrong.
Photographs of Fernside's common room (Illustration #11) and library (Illustration # 12), probably taken in the early 20th century, give a sense of the pleasant environment that was provided and the simple but elegant way that it was decorated Playhouse Theatre Putting on plays was such an important part of the stay at Fernside that the barn was converted to a playhouse in about 1922. With the widespread adoption of the automobile by the third decade of the 20th century, the barn was no longer needed to house horse and carriage. The present automobile garage was probably put up around this same time to shelter the new means of vehicular travel. A stage and backstage area was created at the north end of the former barn. A portion of the backstage area was set aside for the storage of costumes.
The theatrical property trunks mentioned above contained a large collection of costumes from every era. Begun in 1890 during the first year of Fernside's operation, the collection, which continued to grow with new gifts each year, served for many years as a stimulus to dramatic creation and as a great source of fun. During the last years of its life, Fernside's aging guest population no longer gave plays anymore and the collection was sold off in the 1980s. (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 8 Page_14 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA With the conversion of the barn to a theatre, a small apartment reached by an exterior stairway was created at a second level on the south end of the barn.
This small apartment was sometimes used by Sara Ware Bassett, the author-sister of Dr. Alice Bassett, Fernside's treasurer. Miss Bassett was described in a circa 1930's newspaper article as "well-known Cape Cod novelist and author of 'Eternal Deeps." According to the article: "Each year she completes a novel, Miss Bassett delights the guests of the house by reading aloud from it." These readings were among a variety of educational and cultural activities that were part of a typical summer stay at Fernside. Among other presentations, there were lectures, on subjects ranging from art to books to health to social matters, and classical music concerts by Boston musicians.
Memorial Lookout A rustic shelter built in 1957 of fieldstone and cedar logs stands in the front yard of a late 20" century house built on what was once Fernside property, immediately to the south of the former "vacation house" near Mountain Road. Dedicated as a "Memorial Lookout", it was built when the present house lot where it stands was a portion of the grounds of Fernside. It was described in 1957 as affording "a breathtaking view across the valley...a place set apart for Fernside folk and their visitors to rest and meditate and to absorb the peace which only such a place can give." (See Illustration # 13).
A plaque placed in the shelter read: In loving memory of Dear friends who made And shared the FERNSIDE spirit This lookout is dedicated July 14, 1957 Although it no longer is part of the Fernside property, the Memorial Lookout still stands a reminder of the outdoor activities and the search for rest and relaxation that were a major element of summer life here. Some of the other outdoor activities offered by a typical Fernside vacation were hiking, blueberry-picking, croquet on the lawn, badminton, lawn-chair-sitting, and hammock-lolling. Fernside's Guests The Fernside history describes the sort of girls that were guests in 1910 and the effect their stays here had upon them (told from the point of view of the founder, Miss Allen). It also describes the mutual respect she believed was exchanged between the working girls and the upper-class women who were their hostesses during their stays.
But what of the girls who enjoy its privileges? Are they of the same class as those for whom its doors were opened in 1890? They are the same, yet not the same. They work still in the department stores, dressmaking (continued) NPS Form 1 10-900-8 (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 8 Page 15 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA establishments, factories, laundries, and restaurants. Their homes are in the same streets, in South and East Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Charlestown, and similar places. Their wages have increased, but not so much as prices; their hours are about the same. They need change of scene, air, and rest as much as ever. Yet now their requirements are greater, their outlook broader.
When they first went to Fernside, they preferred the almost unfurnished attic which six or eight could occupy together; now they desire the single bed and prettily furnished room. Once they had to be restrained from going in large parties to the village and sitting on the Town Hall steps; and some complained that there were only country roads to walk on. City life must be reproduced as far as possible. Now they appreciate the distant view,love the woods and the berry-picking, and have discovered the charm of country life. The city working-girl twenty years ago had hardly noticed the sky, the clouds, or the stars' now she talks about them. She has opinions on subjects outside her own narrow life and likes to discuss them. Now as then, she desires only to rest the first day or two of her vacation, and then abandons herself to high spirits and fun but it is not so loudly expressed.
Something certainly of this change is due to the atmosphere of the house and the influence of the hostesses, who are not only admired but loved by the girls. Constant companionship in walks, games, dancing and entertainments breaks down all barriers, and they become friends. After two weeks of association with those whose opportunities have been so much greater than their own, the girls are deeply impressed with the devotion of the hostesses in giving so much time to making their vacation a happy one. On the other hand the ladies declare that they receive fully as much as they give. The bravery and self-sacrifice of the working-girl, her sense of responsibility for others, and her unselfishness are an object lesson not easily forgotten.
The Boston Women's Educational and Industrial Union and Applications for Fernside Vacations Fernside was associated with the Boston Women's Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU). With its membership open to all women, the WEIU, was established in 1877 to aid women in achieving economic and intellectual self-reliance at a time when social norms, prejudices, and labor practices made these goals extremely difficult. In a building that it owned on Boylston Street in downtown Boston, this organization offered services, such as vocational guidance and employment bureaus, to assist women. Equally importantly, this building served as a "safe" place where women of all classes could appear in public without being labeled unvirtuous. Applicants for summer stays at Fernside were interviewed by an "experienced agent" in the offices of the WEIU two evenings a week during the summer.
The female agent admitted applicants who brought satisfactory references. Although Miss Allen wrote in about 1891 that Fernside was intended for members of what may have been the Boston or Massachusetts network of working girls' clubs, it seems that membership in any specific organization was not a (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 8 Page 16 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA requirement for the acceptance of women who applied. None of the available brochures that advertised Fernside indicate that the clientele was limited to membership in any organization. Selection of guests was described as "unsectarian".
Assuming that this practice was actually followed, a non-sectarian approach would have opened up the opportunity for a summer vacation to deserving women who might otherwise have been unable to participate. Non-sectarian acceptance was important during the late-19"'-early-20" century period, when members of certain religious denominations (Jews and Catholics, for example) were not admitted to many organizations, clubs, or hotels. No documentation has been found to possibly all, of the guests were originally from Boston. It is not known whether applications were accepted from women residing in other places. By 1910 the house could accommodate forty-two guests. Organized groups of twenty-one departed each Saturday for a two-week stay with a group returning back to Boston from Princeton on the same day.
Some paid their full board and travel fares, while others received a discount based upon their economic ability to pay. The Fernside history tells of the guests whose expenses were covered by donations and of other guests who did not precisely fit the description "working girl": Unlike other vacation houses, no worthy needy girl is ever excluded for lack of money. For this reason the house cannot be self-supporting. All those assisted are expected the second year if possible to pay a part of if not all their expenses. Three quarters of the whole number last year paid in full. Others paid a week's board or their fares. Of course the names of beneficiaries are never divulged. When a girl is obliged to leave the hospital where she may have had an operation or long illness, she is in no condition to return to her work.
A few weeks in the country brings back her strength, and fits her again to earn her living. Such girls are always welcomed at Fernside and are allowed often to remain a month. The older sister, who spends her days in making a home for the wage-earning members of the family but has no ready money, is often invited. She is gladdened by the joy which surrounds her, and her freedom from drudgery. No girl is admitted under seventeen years of age. When the house first opens, and just before it closes, many middle-aged and older wage-earners are received M. Josephine Allen, the Shawmut Avenue Working Girls' Club, and Fernside During Fernside's period of greatest importance as a social experiment, its first twenty years or so, the operation of the vacation house was overseen by its founder, M. Josephine Allen (Illustration # 9).
The Fernside history suggests that Miss Allen's personal involvement as a sponsor in the Shawmut Avenue club led her to establish Fernside (see above, Summer Vacation Houses for Working Girls). Not only did she have an important role in planning and organizing the details and logistics of the operation of the hostelry, but she was also its resident manager. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Fernside, Miss Allen's niece, Mrs. Malcolm Taylor, told of her aunt's "great (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 Page 17_ "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA love of people, of her zeal and boundless energy, and of her tireless efforts through the early years to make "Fernside" what it has become." Miss Allen's descriptions of the details of Fernside's founding, its management, and its daily activities suggest that she fit very closely the model of the typical working-girls' club sponsor. Her writings, part of which are quoted above, indicate that she was not only an able manager but also an educated and capable woman who welcomed the undertaking of a major project outside the traditionally domestic sphere of the turn-of-the- twentieth-century American woman.
Expressed clearly in her writing are certain goals that were characteristic of as to their working-class vacation house guests. Unfortunately, little information has been discovered about Miss Allen's life and her credentials. Considering that she seems to have played a key role in the early establishment of programs for the assistance of working girls in Boston, it is incredible that neither her birth and death dates nor any obituary or other biographical review of her life have been found. It is known, however, that Josephine Allen was a member of an influential and socially conscious Boston family that had a tradition of charitable work. Descendants of Mayflower passengers, the Allens moved in the "right" social circles in Boston. The social and professional importance of her immediate family members is confirmed by the publication of their biographies in one or more reference works.
Biographies of her successful brothers can be found in several publications, including ones in Who's Who in New England of 1909. During her years at Fernside, Miss Allen lived at 132 Marlborough Street in Boston (see Illustration # 14 ), with her brother, Rev. Frederick Baylies Allen, and his family. Rev. Allen, was assistant rector of Trinity Church in Boston while it was under the leadership of the influential Rev. Phillips Brooks. Subsequently, from 1888 to 1914, he was superintendent of the Boston Episcopal City Mission. From 1914 until shortly before his death in 1923 he continued his work there as financial secretary. Their father, Frederick Deane Allen, a partner in a successful Boston dry goods business, was known for his concern for the poor.
He was described as "a charitable and public-spirited citizen, giving freely of his time and means for the furtherance of every good work in the community and in the Church." Their brother, Francis Richmond Allen, a successful Boston architect, was also involved in social causes. Fernsidedeeds and other documents indicate that Miss Allen had the interest and support of male family members in her efforts to assist working women. Her brother, Rev. Frederick B. Allen, was the author of an article, "Must Working Girls Clubs Be Self Sustaining?", published in 1891 in the periodical Christian Union. In his role in aiding the poor at the Episcopal City Mission, Rev. Allen's work was closely related to that of his sister's. One program was an effort not unlike his sister's summer vacation house for working girls in its approach.
Called Mothers Rest, it gave respite through (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 8 Page_18 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA recreation and excursions to overworked or sick mothers and their children. He also acknowledged the vital role of women volunteers as social workers in the programs of the city mission, organizing Women's Aid as an indispensable olunteer arm of the mission. It is interesting to speculate on how much Miss Allen'swork might have influenced that oi ner brother in his own realm and vice versa. Other family members, Benjamin Preston Clark and Malcolm Taylor, th husbands of Rev. Allen's daughters, Josephine and Louisa respectively, served as the original trustees for Fernside.
Taylor's son, Frederick Baylies Taylor, and grandson, Frederick Baylies Taylor, Jr. also served as trustees. These men were not just convenient males roped into trusteeships. They too were personally involved in social work. Clark and his wife were active in work with clubs for boys. Malcolm Taylor, an Episcopal minister, was by profession active in social causes. Taylor was rector of St. Thomas Church (Episcopal) in Taunton, Massachusetts, from 1906 to 1921and General Secretary of the Episcopal Province of New England after 1921. Miss Allen's strength of conviction seems to have been important in involving her own family members in the Fernside endeavor. Their apparent dedication to her mission, probably bolstered by the Allen family tradition of social work, is one of the major reasons for the long survival of Fernside.
Two successive generations of Allen family members remained actively involved in Fernside until it closed in 1989. Her nieces, Josephine F. Clark and Louisa R. Taylor, were active throughout their lives. Mrs. Clark was actively involved from 1906 through 1960. Mrs. Taylor was for many years Clerk of the Board of Directors. Mrs. Taylor's husband, son, and grandson were all involved, as well. Her grandson, Frederick B. Taylor, Jr. was still a member of the board of directors as the time of the sale of the property in 1989. The long-time personal involvement of physician Dr. Alice H. Bassett (see Illustration # 15) also made an important mark on the longevity and character of Fernside. Dr. Bassett, who lived at 56 West Cedar Street in Boston, was active in the early years of Fernside. After Miss Allen's term had finished, she served as president and then "honorary" president.
She was the treasurer of the organization for sixty-three years. It was due to her efforts that modern plumbing was installed in the house in the 1930s. She also fought successfully to save a row of maple trees in front of the house when they were threatened by the widening of Mountain road in 1950s. Sometime in the 1930s Dr. Bassett bought a house of her own on the west side of Mountain Road a short distance north of Fernside. She and her sister, novelist Sara Ware Bassett (see above under Playhouse Theatre), spent their summers there, allowing Dr. Bassett to be closely involved in the life at Fernside. The Fernside flagpole was dedicated to Dr. Bassett in 1950. The long-time involvement of Fernside presidents Sara Comins, Gertrude E. Lovell, and Doris Campbell also contributed to the long survival of Fernside.
Fernside and Other Early Summer Vacation Houses for Working Girls Is Fernside the Earliest Summer Vacation House for Working Girls? Available evidence suggests that if Fernside was not the first vacation house for working girls in the United States, it must have been one of the very earliest. Current research has discovered no other summer houses for working girls in operation any earlier than Fernside. No statistics have been found to show how many vacation houses for working girls were in operation during the late 19th (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 NºS 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 8 Page_19 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA and early 20" centuries, either in Massachusetts or in the larger United States.
In fact, very little information on the subject of vacation houses for working girls has been found at all. Priscilla Murolo's history of working girls' clubs makes several mentions of girls' vacation houses. However, she was apparently unaware of the existence of Fernside, since she makes no mention of it. Miller's Place: One of the First Summer Vacation Houses The earliest vacation house mentioned by Priscilla Murolo was opened in 1890 by the New York Working Girls' Society at Miller's Place on Long Island in New York. This is apparently the same operation mentioned in a 1916 edition of The Club Worker, which described "Holiday Houses at Miller's Place, Long Island" belonging to the New York League of Women Workers. In a wooded setting and with an ocean beach on Huntington Harbor, this property housed its guests in a group of cottages with spacious porches.
Miller's Place was used both for summer vacations and for daytrips. Other Early Summer Vacation Houses Murolo notes that by 1893 several other vacation houses for working girls existed on Long Island. She also lists the establishment of a vacation house at Madison, Connecticut in 1892 by the Connecticut Association of Working Girls' Societies and one opened in 1899 at Whitford, Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Association of Working Girls' Societies. The Worcester, Massachusetts, Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) established what, presumably, was a working girls vacation house in Princeton in about 1896, not long after Fernside began operation. The 1898 Worcester County Atlas shows the "Y.W.C.A. Vacation Rest" on Goodnow Road. The property was the gift of Edward A. Goodnow to the YWCA in 1895.
Goodnow, a Princeton philanthropist, is known to have made other gifts on behalf of women and the education of women. Nothing is currently known about the operation of "Vacation Rest". YWCA records show that the house was destroyed by fire in about 1905. It seems never to have been replaced. A study of the records of the Worcester Y WCA, now being conducted by scholar Lisa Connelly Cook, may provide more information about the character and operation of the YWCA "Vacation Rest" and its place in the history of summer vacation homes tor women. Early 20th Century Summer Vacation Houses for Working Girls The largest number of Summer Vacation Houses for Working Girls seems to have existed in the early 20th century. However, the statistics are few. By 1914 the New York Society for Working Girls was operating five.
Other than Fernside and the YWCA vacation house in Princeton, only two Massachusetts vacation houses for working girls, the Rockport Lodge and Snowshoe Cottage, have been identified by name in research for this project. These two houses both date from the early 20th century. A few other Massachusetts Summer Houses for Working Girls are known to have existed in the early 20th century, but only through vague mention. The Rockport Lodge The Rockport Lodge (MHC form #320) is still in operation in the seaside resort town of Rockport. The Rockport Lodge occupies a former 18"* century farmhouse that has had additions made to it. The additional construction of a separate (continued) OMB Approval No.
1024-0018 NPS Form 110-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page_20 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA annex allows it to accommodate numerous guests. It, like Fernside, has a theatre in a former barn. The Rockport Lodge was established in 1906 by the Massachusetts Association of Women Workers, under the leadership of Miss Edith M. Howes (see above under Shawmut Avenue Girls' Club). Miss Howes was a sponsor of the Shawmut Avenue Girls' Club, as was Miss M. Josephine Allen, the founder of "Fernside." The Rockport Lodge was the replacement for a short-lived earlier Massachusetts vacation house established by the same organization in 1904 at Bayside.
The Rockport Lodge was created to serve working girls, apparently those who were members of the Massachusetts Association of Women Workers (known after 1920 as the Massachusetts League of Girls' Clubs). Like Fernside, the Rockport Lodge was initiated as a vacation home offering "cheerful and wholesome service to working women." Following the dissolution of the Massachusetts League of Girls' Clubs in 1930, the Lodge continued operation under a trusteeship. For a number of years it was associated with the Young Women's Christian Association. After 1946 it was operated in affiliation with the Women's Educational and Industrial Union (WEIU) in Boston. Today, many of the clientele of the Lodge are long-time guests, now advanced in age, who have been returning for many years.
No longer associated with the WEIU, and following a complete change in its board of trustees in 1996, the Rockport Lodge today is making a concerted effort to find a source of young guests in order to fend off its otherwise inevitable demise. Over the past few years a younger clientele has been achieved by renting rooms to young women (and, beginning in the year 2000, also a few young men -- in accommodations segregated by gender), who work as summer help in Rockport area hotels, restaurants, and businesses. It appears that by identifying this clientele market, the hostelry may have found a niche that will help it survive. Although not vacationers, as were the original guests at the Lodge, these new guests are young working people similarly in need of pleasant and inexpensive summer housing.
In an effort to find economical summer housing, today's young guests are not averse to shared bathrooms and the traditionally communal life that has historically been part of summers at the Kockport Lodge. Kentals of the theatre and the acceptance of a tew overnight guests have also helped the organization keep operations in the black. Snowshoe Cottage Another Massachusetts house for working girls is listed in a 1920s brochure of the Massachusetts League of Girls' Clubs. It is Snowshoe Cottage at Wellesley Farms, open for summer and winter sports on Saturdays and Sundays. Snowshoe Cottage was located on the estate of Miss Marion H. Niles, president of the Massachusetts League of Girls' Clubs in the 1920's. Exactly how it operated and its dates of existence have not been learned.
Pennsylvania Summer Vacation Houses 1911 is the earliest date found in the research for this project for a summer house for working girls in Pennsylvania. In 1911 the National League of Women Workers opened a vacation house in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania. It was later operated by the Western Pennsylvania Association of Women Workers. In 1916, according to a publication of The ClubWorker (continued) NPS Form 110-900-2 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page_21 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA issued that year, a vacation house accommodating twenty-six girls was established by the Western Pennsylvania Association of Women Workers. Located in the Ligonier Valley, forty-five miles from Pittsburgh, it was described as a "camp".
Its building, overlooking Loyalhanna Creek, was built of rough lumber and was rustic in its accommodations. This vacation house offered camp-like outdoor activities such as hiking, swimming, and picnicking. Girls' Vacation Association A Girls' Vacation Association (also called the Working Girls' Vacation Association), established about 1915 in New York City,helped working girls save money for vacations. The papers for this organization are held by Barnard College, but have not been consulted for this research. For that reason it is not known exactly how the organization was operated or for what kind of vacations the New York organization helped girls save. Neither is it known whether it provided its own vacation houses.
Vacation Houses for Working Girls as Trend Setters A 1949 article on Fernside in the Christian Science Monitor stated that vacation lodges similar to Fernside were then being operated in locations all across the country by organizations such as the YWCA and others. A 1956 Worcester Sunday Telegram article on Fernside called it the oldest vacation house in Worcester County, suggesting that at that time there might have been several others like it in operation in the region. The article, however, classifies Fernside together with summer camps and calls it a "forerunner of camps for young people as they are operated today by many Worcester County agencies." It seems likely that the authors of both of these articles lumped Fernside and the concept of the summer vacation house for working girls together with summer recreational camps for children.
Further research is necessary to better understand how widespread was the tradition of summer vacation houses for working girls, their specific histories, and how they might have influenced trends toward summer camps for children and young people. Princeton as a Summer Resort Town Throughout its history, Princeton has been appreciated for its mountain setting, its scenic landscape, and its clean air. As early as the mid-18 century, it was the home of the country estate of the Honorable Moses Gill of Boston. Gill was the son-in-law of Princeton's namesake, the Rev. Thomas Prince, who was its largest landowner and one of the founders of the town. In about 1825 Ward Nicholas Boylston of Boston, who inherited Gill's estate, built himself a new brick house, designed by Asher Benjamin, near the site of the earlier Gill mansion. That house still stands on the east side of Worcester Road.
Summer vacationers first began to come to Princeton in the 1830's, at about the same time that its town center was taking shape. During that period, visitors started traveling here in numbers to spend their summers in a pleasant country setting where the air was cool and where the scenic views from Mount Wachusett were widely known. The advent of stagecoach service through Princeton made summer vacations in Princeton more available to a broader public. During the mid and late 19th century, the writers John Greenleaf Whittier and Louisa May Alcott were among notable summer visitors to Princeton. Both were inspired to write about their experiences here. (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 8 Page_22 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA While the earliest summer vacationers probably took room and board in the local tavern or in the private homes of residents, there was enough demand for rooms by 1846 to encourage the construction of the Wachusett Hotel (no longer standing). It stood on the site of an earlier tavern at the intersection of Worcester Road and Boylston Avenue, facing Princeton Common. That hotel was enlarged in 1869-1870 to provide a total of sixty rooms. At a later date a twenty- room annex was also added. In 1860 a second hotel, the Prospect House (no longer standing), was established in the vacant former Baptist Church, also on Princeton Common (see above, Wilkes Roper).
Originally accommodating seventy-five guests, it was later enlarged to a capacity of one hundred. The 1870 Worcester County Atlas shows what appear to have been as many as seven hotels (or possibly a combination of hotels and boarding houses) in operation at that date. They included the two hotels mentioned above, plus the rustic Summit House (no longer standing) on top of Mount Wachusett; Mountain House (no longer standing), at the southern foot of the mountain; Summer House (the Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside), at 162 Mountain Road, southeast of the mountain; Pine Hill House (no longer standing), east of and directly opposite the mountain; and Forest House (on Hubbardston Road, see below under Architecture). The arrival of the Boston, Barre, and Gardner Railroad in 1870 further encouraged summer tourism in Princeton during the latter years of the century.
From Princeton Depot, which was about 1½ miles from the center of town, guests took horse- drawn transportation to their hotels. During this latter portion of the 19th century new hotels were built that appear to have offered more amenities than some of the earlier ones. However, few, if any, could have been described as "luxury" hotels. None seem to have placed more emphasis on luxury and service than on the natural setting and the healthful outdoor activities available in Princeton. In 1904 the large Wachusett House on Princeton Common had a single bathtub, located on the ground floor (with the key available at the desk). Grand View House (no longer standing), across the road from the Mountain House, is said to have been oneof the best-appointed hotels in town. The good quality of its mattresses was the Mountain House amenity that deserved mention in local histories.
In 1885 a new three-story Summit House (no longer standing) replaced the smaller and more rustic old hotel on the same site. However, current research has not discovered the details of its offerings. Many other summer visitors stayed at boarding houses that were operated at various spots around town in private homes. Modern plumbing was not installed at Fernside until well into the 20th century. Yet, the girls' vacation house seems to have fallen within the general standards of the times for summer vacation living in Princeton, with the scenic views from its porches, its elegant stairhall entry, its pleasant common room, its library, the ample and pleasantly appointed dining room, and its small private bedrooms. During the late-19" century Princeton's economy depended largely on its hotel trade and summer visitors.
It is estimated that at the height of its life as a summer resort, the town's population increased during the summer months by as many as seven hundred. The swelling summer population created business not only for its hotels and boarding houses but also for vendors of refreshments and amusements, and for its agricultural market, as well. Summer activities gave life to the town. Not only did people climb Mount Wachusett, walk to the lake, and go blueberry (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 8 Page_23 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA picking and picnicking, but there were carriage rides to scenic places, croquet matches on the town common, coaching parades, and dramatic events as entertainment.
Princeton in the 20" Century Princeton's heyday as a summer resort lasted through the early years of the 20" century. In 1900 the Commonwealth of Massachusetts took over Wachusett Mountain as a state reservation. The state remodeled the Summit House Hotel on top of the mountain in 1908. As the town's largest hotels were destroyed by fire one by one, they were not replaced. The Grand View Hotel went in 1899, the Wachusett House in 1910, Mountain House in 1914, and the Prospect House (then known as the Princeton Inn) in 1923. The Summit House burned in 1970. There was little incentive to rebuild since, during the early and mid 20" century period, the advent of the automobile and the growing popularity of driving vacations made a long stay at a summer hotel less appealing than it once had been.
Although people continued to come to Princeton and a few hotels and boarding houses remained in operation, there were many fewer summer guests than before. Around the turn of the 20t* century, a number of families who had summered in Princeton during the years of its heyday as a vacation spot bought or built vacation houses of their own in the town. During the early 20" century, the town returned to its pre-resort life as a farming community. Dairying, orcharding, and poultry raising were the major agricultural enterprises. During this same period the town's earlier successful woodworking and leather goods industries declined. The number of industrial enterprises in the town fell from 27 in 1875 to fewer than five in 1915. The population also fell from 1,279 in 1870 to 800 in 1915 and to 707 in 1935.
Today Princeton is a quiet town that still preserves much of its historic rural appearance and 19 century character. This is so despite suburban development that has expanded outward from the city of Worcester over the past thirty years bringing with it a dramatic increase in population to over 3,200. Although the town is no longer a summer vacation spot. many visitors still come by car to enjoy the scenery. Wachusett Mountain is also popular with hikers during the warmer months. Today the mountain's wintertime ski operation, which attracts mostly regional day skiers, has replaced summer vacations as a major contributor to the town's economy. ARCHITECTURE Harrington House/Fernside and the Federal Style Dating from the very end of the Federal period, the Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside has elements characteristic of both the Federal and Greek Revival styles.
The five-bay, center-entry, center-passage, side-gable form of the house is typical of the Georgian and Federal styles. The simplified and somewhat severe Classical trim, however, shows the influence of the Greek Revival style that was becoming popular in the United States by the mid 1830s. Although high-style examples of the Greek Revival style were being built during the 1820s and early 1830s in Boston, the Federal style was still the standard for houses of the well-to-do in many smaller places during the same period. In out-of- the-way New England communities, like Princeton, the Greek Revival influence made inroads only gradually. (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_ Page 24 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA The house form most typically associated with the Greek Revival style is the sidehall-entry, gable-front form of the ancient Greek temple. Yet, during the 1830's Greek Revival style houses were often built for well-to-do families in the traditional two-story, double-pile, five-bay, center-entry, center-passage form. For example, most of the Greek Revival style houses designed by the noted masterbuilder Elias Carter for the elite families of nearby Worcester, were not modeled directly on the Greek temple. Instead, although they were fully endowed with weighty Classical detailing, they were traditional in plan.
Most even had hip roofs, a popular Federal style element, to give them a more massive and imposing look. The Greek Revival style elements seen in the Harrington House/Fernside are more tempered by the delicate taste of the Federal style. When interpreted by local builders during the transitional 1820's-1830's period, Greek Revival elements were often less massive than those seen on high style examples. Instead, they were treated in the slimmer, more low-relief idiom of the accepted Federal style. Examples of this treatment can be seen at the Harrington House in the exterior low-relief, pedimented gables and narrow friezes and in the lightweight interpretation of the exterior and interior corner-block doorframes. It is also evident on the interior in the lightweight effect of the pilaster-architrave fireplace surrounds (Photos # 14, 15, 16, 18, 22 & 23).
Those that are the closest in spirit to the new style are those in the two more formal front rooms (Photos # 14 & 15). Also Federal, both in its Roman derivation and in its delicate proportions, is the narrow round-arched doorway in the east wall of the entry hall (Photo # 17) and a similar window in the upstairs stairhall (Photo #21). The low-relief, eight-panel front door (Photos # 3 & 13) and six-panel interior doors (e.g., Photos # 14 & 15) seen here are also distinctly Federal. If Captain Harrington had wanted take the Greek Revival to heart, he might have chosen a heavy two-panel Greek Revival front door, strongly vertical in its lines, and the more typical four-panel Greek Revival style door for the interior. That Harrington's House antedated the popularity of the Greek Revival style in Princeton is clear.
The first full-blown example of the style to appear in town was the pedimented, distyle-in-antis Congregational church built at the head of the town common (now relocated to the east side of the common) in 1838, several years after the construction of the Harrington House. During the following several years, other important local buildings on the town common were built in the Greek Revival style. An imposing tetra-style, temple-front Baptist church (later converted as the Prospect House Hotel and no longer standing) was built in 1840. In 1842 a modest pediment-fronted town hall further confirmed the Greek Revival as the "style of the day." The largest number of Greek Revival style houses can be found in East Princeton, an industrial village that grew up in the town during the mid-19th century period when the style was widely popular.
Vernacular expressions of the style, they were mostly built between about 1840 and 1870. Other examples of the Greek Revival, especially Greek Revival gable-front cottages, can be found scattered through the town. Yet, since the town's population did not grow after about 1840, only a comparatively small number of Greek Revival houses were ever added to the town's much larger stock of Federal period, and earlier, dwellings. Porches in American Architecture Although a few porches are known to have been used on American buildings in early Colonial times, they appeared (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 8 Page_25 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA somewhat more often after about 1730.
Yet, even during this later period, porches were still rarely seen, except on inns and taverns, until after about 1840. During the mid and late 19" century, porches also became widely popular for American houses in a variety of sizes and styles. Porches, derived from ancient Greek temples, were a common element of Greek Revival style houses popular from about 1830 through the 1860's. But the porch was made even more fashionable by the mid-19* century architectural pattern books of landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing. They depicted "romantic" houses with porches overlooking "natural" country settings. The romanticizing of nature and the availability of less expensive, machine-cut building materials made porches not only stylish but economically available to a growing number of families during the mid and late 19* century period.
During the second half of the 19 century, most American houses were built with porches. Some of them were quite extensive. Often much deeper than earlier porches they were not limited to a single front porch, but wrapped around two or more sides of the building as do the porches at Fernside. Porches at Harrington House/Fernside The lace-like design andjigsaw-cut execution of the posts on the front and back porches of Fernside suggest that they were mid-19* century additions. The apparent covering-over of the upper section of the doorframe at the main entrance by the front porch ceiling (Photo # 3) also suggests that a porch was probably not original to the design of the house.
For these reasons, it seems likely that the front and back porches, historically called "piazzas" at Fernside, were added when the Benjamin Harrington House was first converted to use as a hotel sometime shortly before or about 1870. The addition of these porches was influenced not only by the change in use, from house to hotel, but also by the wide popularity of porches for American dwellings during this same period. Verandahs and Hotel Life Porches, more commonly known as "piazzas" or "verandahs", were a characteristic part of 19* and early 20" century hotels, especially those located in resort or scenic locations. Extensive porches were an important part of very early hotels found in "healthful" locations. The 1820's Nahant Hotel, mentioned above, had two levels of porches surrounding it on all four sides.
Hotel verandahs were a symbol of hospitality and the heart of summer hotel life. As "outdoor rooms" they offered hotel guests a public-private space where they could enjoy the healthful benefits of nature in a civilized and protected environment. Porches served as places from which to take the air and enjoy the scenery, or from which to observe the social activity of the street. They were also the most popular place in a summer hotel to meet and socialize with other guests. The Architecture of Other Princeton Hotels 19t and Early 20* Century Princeton Hotels Now Lost The largest of Princeton's 19* century hotels were rectangular, two- or three-story wood buildings with wings or ells that were also two-or three stories in height. While most had gable roofs, one had a hip roof and another a mansard roof Two of them had cupolas on top so guests could look out at the surrounding landscape.
Styles ranged from what might be called "mid-19" century vernacular" , to Greek Revival, to Stick Style. The architecture of all but one could be classified as "plain'. The exception was the substantial and well detailed Greek Revival style Prospect House, originally built as a church and later converted to use as a hotel. (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 NPS Form 110-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number8 Page 26 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA All of Princeton's 19" century hotels had porches. Porches of a design similar to those at Fernside are seen in photographs of several Princeton inns and hotels.
Among them are Wilkes Roper's Prospect House (no longer standing), the earliest portion of Grandview House (no longer standing), Mountain House (no longer standing), and Harrington Farm before replacement by the present porch (see Illustrations # 16a & b for views of Princeton hotels). Princeton Hostelries Surviving from the 19" and Early 20" Centuries Today, although none of the largest summer hostelries survive from Princeton's heyday as a summer resort, a few remnants of smaller inns and boarding houses do still exist. Of those, Fernside is the largest and best preserved. It is also the one with the longest history as a hotel or inn. Harrington Farm Harrington Farm on West Princeton Road is similar in appearance to Fernside (see Illustration # 17) but historically was a little smaller in the size of its accommodations.
Similar to Fernside, it is a two-story, five-bay, center-entry, side-gable, double-pile, Federal period farmhouse with a one-story porch across the width of the main façade. It was enlarged for use as a summer inn by the compatible addition of a two-story wing and a two-story ell. It first began welcoming summer guests about 1888. In the early 20" century it had a capacity of about thirty. The integrity of Harrington Farm's building and historic setting is not quite as well preserved as at Fernside. Front porch posts that were originally similar to those at Fernside were replaced in the mid-to-late 20th century. A large, circa 1990's restaurant/meeting room section added to its rear ell is clearly a modern addition. Despite its still undeveloped surroundings, the character of its rural setting has been altered by the recent loss of a picturesque barn that stood across the road from it.
Two Former Princeton Summer Inns on Hubbardston Road Two other buildings that once accommodated summer guests survive as single-family dwellings opposite one another on Hubbardston Road at the intersection with Allen Hill Road. They are Pratt's Cottage and Forest House (or Grimes House). Although both have had additions made to them, they still have the appearance of single-family dwellings. Pratt's Cottage Pratt's Cottage, a two-story, three-bay, sidehall-entry Greek Revival style house was first used as a boarding house in 1867. It was taken over by members of the Pratt family in 1876 and was still in operation well into the 20" century. During the early 20" century, it was the only hotel or inn in Princeton that was open year round.
Forest House (Grimes House) This large, two-story, five-bay, center-entry, four-square, hip-roofed house with paired chimneys was built in 1795 and elegantly detailed with Classical ornament in the Georgian/Federal style. Possibly the most elaborately (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 NPS Form1 10-900-3 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page_ -27 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA ornamented house in Princeton, it has an elegant circular staircase. It is said to have served as a stage coach tavern in the 1820's. Mount Pleasant House Mount Pleasant House, built in 1868, was operated as a summer hotel until 1908. After later enlargements were made to it, this hotel was able to house between forty and sixty guests.
Separated into two sections and moved apart in 1912, it now exists as two single-family dwellings, each with a mansard roof, on Goodnow Road. Archaeological Significance Historic archaeological resources described above have the potential to contribute important information on the early history of Princeton during a period when dispersed farmsteads characterized most settlement in the town. Additional historic research combined with archaeological survey and testing may identify the size and architectural details of the Eveleth House that are currently unknown.Similar research might also locate various components of the Eveleth farmstead complex including barns, outbuildings and occupational related features (trash pits, privies, wells).
This information can be used to establish and refine a regional pattern for 18" century farmstead complexes in Worcester County and Central Massachusetts in general. Detailed analysis of the contents from occupational related features can also contribute important social, cultural and economic information relating to the Eveleth family and the extent that 18th century residents in the area were dependent on regional markets or self-sufficient. Information may be present indicating some level of manufacturing was important, possibly a cottage industry, in the farmstead and family economy during the 18" and 19*" centuries.
Detailed analysis of the contents from occupational related features can also contribute important social, cultural and economic information on the inhabitants, workers and clientele of the hotel/boarding house (1870), tavern (after 1885) and summer vacation house for working girls (1890) operated at this location. Archaeological resources may reflect the extent moral guidance and social respectability were stressed with working girls at Fernside, possibly through diet, material culture, recreation, and education. Structural evidence may also exist around the present building indicating its appearance and configuration prior to fire damage in 1892 and adaptative patterns of reuse as functions of the Harrington House changed during the last half of the 19 century and early 20" century.
No photographs or descriptions have been found that document the pre-1892 appearance or configuration of the Harrington House. A small deck on the rear of the north wing, off the dining room replaced a toilet room that was formerly a privy at the same location. The barn, originally built about 1870, was converted to a playhouse theater about 1921. (end) 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_ 9 Page 1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES MAPS Plan of Princeton, Massachusetts, Surveyed and Drawn by Amos Merriam, October 1830, Early Divisions and Province Grants Plotted by Francis E. Blake, 1911, delineated by K. A. Mossman. Walling. Map of Worcester County, Massachusetts, 1857. Beers, F. W.
Atlas of Worcester County, Massachusetts. New York: F. W. Beers, 1870. Reprinted Rutland, Vt.: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1871. Richards, L. J. Atlas of Worcester County, Massachusetts. Springfield, Ma. : L. J. Richards & Co., 1898. PROBATE RECORDS Will, Benjamin Harrington, Worcester County Registry of Probate, Book 91, Page 709-710 DEEDS Worcester County Registry of Deeds: 151/290 (Eveleth to Harrington), 155/57 (A. Harrington to B. Harrington), 190/64 (A. Harrington to B. Harrington), 522/450 (N.Danforth to H. Boyles), 523/537 (H.Boyles to N.Danforth), 745/89 (N.Danforth to W. Roper), 1453/304 (W.Roper,etc. to M.J.Allen), 1453/305 (M.J.Allen to M.J.Allen,etc.), 1929/108 (Allen et ali. To Girls Vacation House Assoc.), 12409/90 (Fernside Vacation House, Inc. to W.E. & M.H.Zottoli & C.Zottoli-Kelly & R.Kelly) PUBLISHED WORKS Allen, M. Josephine.
The Story of Fernside, A Vacation House for Working-Girls. c.1912. Blake, Francis E.History ofthe Town of Princeton in the County of Worcester and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1759-1915, vols. 1 & 2. Princeton: Published by the Town, 1915. Cannon, Cornelia J. The History of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union: A Civic Laboratory: 1877-1927. Boston: Thomas Todd Printers, ca. 1927. Clark, Josephine F. Benjamin Preston Clark, October Eighth, 1860 - January Eleventh 1939. Boston: Josephine F. Clark, 1947. Deutsch, Sarah. Women and the City: Gender, Space, and Power in Boston, 1870-1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. (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 Page_ 2 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Duiy M.s.
Ih Episopal Diocess of Masachuses, 1784-1984; 4 Mission to Remember, Proclaim and Fulil. UBLISHED WORKS (continuec ames, E. T. Notable American Women, 1607-1850. Volume I. Cambridge, MA.: Belknap Press of Harvard Universit Aurolo, Priscilla. The Common Ground of Womanhood: Class, Gender, and Working Girls' Clubs, 1884-1928. Urban nd Chicago: Universitv of Ilinois Press. 199' Murphy, Marion; Inman, Marjorie; Densmore, Elizabeth, eds. The Princeton Story, 1759-1959: 200th Anniversary of the Town of Princeton, Massachusetts. Princeton: Town of Princeton, 1959. Wilson, Richard Guy, ed. "Victorian Resorts and Hotels: Essays from a Victorian Society Autumn Symposium", Nineteenth Century, vol. 8, Nos. 1-2, 1982 (Victorian Society in America). Rockport Lodge, 1906-1956. Rockport: Rockport Lodge, c. 1956 NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS Blackburn, Harriet. .
"Pioneer Vacation House of Sixty Years Ago Will Welcome Girls Again This Summer", June 9, 1949, Christian Science Monitor. Booth, Phyllis. "Hotels flourished, then perished" in "Experience Princeton", The Landmark, July 7, 1994, pp. 1S& 6S Courtemanche, Dolores. "Wish You Were Here", Worcester Telegram & Gazette, August 18, 1985. Eichs, Margaret Follin. "Country Vacations for Working Girls Were Unheard of Until Fernside Was Established", Boston Transcript, June 20, 1939. Feinsilver, Michael. "Satisfaction with a job well done: 46 Years on Mount Wachusett" in "A Scrapbook of Princeton's History". The Landmark, July 20, 1989, pp. 2-3. Green, Frances. "Princeton Has Oldest Vacation House in Worcester County", Worcester Sunday Telegram Feature Parade, June 24, 1956, p.27. Loysen, Carole. "The Gentle Life at Fernside". The Holden Landmark, 1979, pp. 17-18. (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 Page3 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA March, Heather. "The quiet attraction of Fernside". The Landmark, August 7, 1986, p. 13. Marquis, Albert. Who's Who in New England, 1909, pp. 31, 217 & 913. Chicago: A.N. Marquis, 1909. (F.B. Allen, F. R Allen, B.P. Clark, M.Taylor) Marquis, Albert. Who's Who in New England, 1938, p. 1241. Chicago: A.N. Marquis, 1938. (M. Taylor) Matchan, Linda. "Members of the Fernside Club", Boston Globe, no date (ca. 1980's). Noll, Anna H. "The Far and Near Club Visits One of the New York Vacation Houses", The Club Worker, October 1916, vol. XVI, # 1, p. 14. Spilman, Marguerite. "Western Pennsylvania Association Vacation House", The Club Worker, October 1916, vol. XVI, # 1, pp. 10-12.
Tolman, Lynne. "Fernside's Gentle Traditions Will Endure", Worcester Sunday Telegram, December 10, 1989. "Rev. Frederick B. Allen Dead", Boston Transcript, February 20, 1925. "Hoop Skirts and Bustles Popular on Mt. Wachusett". Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 1936. "Week-End Parties At Fernside House", Worcester Post, July 3, 1937. "Orchid Vacation is at Fernside This Summer". Boston Transcript, July 24, 1937. "Jubilee Cake". The Boston Herald, June 26, 1939. New England Historical and Geneological Register # 49, p. 225. Boston: NEGHS, 1895. (Frederick Deane Allen) TOWN DIRECTORIES 1881 Princeton Directory ADVERTISING FLYERS, BROCHURES, AND APPLICATION INFORMATION Flyer, "Fernside", undated, ca. 1900?. Collection of Jocelyn and Richard Morrison. Application information, "Fernside", ca.1890-1910. Collection of Jocelyn and Richard Morrison.
Advertising Brochure, "Fernside: A Vacation House for Business Girls from Seventeen to Seventy at Princeton, Massachusetts," 1939. Collection of Jocelyn and Richard Morrison. (continued) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 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_ 9 Page 3 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Advertising Brochure: "Fernside," c1940's? Collection of Jocelyn and Richard Morrison. ADVERTISING FLYERS, BROCHURES, AND APPLICATION INFORMATION (continued) Flyer: "History of the Rockport Lodge", c.1990's Advertising Brochure: "Rockport Lodge, Inc.", 2000 UNPUBLISHED WORKS, NOTES, AND LETTERS Allen, Eleanor W. "Recollections of Seventy Summer in Princeton", typewritten manuscript, undated, c. late 1950's Allen, M. Josephine.
Untitled paper given to the association of clubs at the time of the buying of the property of Fernside for the Girls' Vacation House Association, typewritten copy, c.1890. Collection of Jocelyn and Richard Morrison. Letter, Doris Campbell to former Fernside guests, March 22, 1989 Handwritten note, Doris Campbell, about final Fernside picnic, July 17, 1989. Ceccacci, Susan McD. National Register Nomination, Princeton Municipal District, 1998. Cook, Lisa Connelly, letter to S. Ceccacci, February 23, 2001, regarding YWCA "Vacation Rest" in Princeton. Cook, Lisa Connelly, letter to S. Ceccacci, February 26, 2001, regarding Edward W. Goodnow and YWCA "Vacation Rest" in Princeton "Fernside's Golden Jubilee", typewritten manuscript, c. 1939 Fernside papers, Princeton Historical Society, including financial reports and minutes of executive board meetings Gitleman, Hillary.
Massachusetts Historical Commission Inventory Form, Rockport Lodge, 61 South Street, Rockport, June 1987. Howes, Edith M. "The Shawmut Club" paper read October 24, 1936 at Golden Anniversary Luncheon held at WEIU Izard, Holly V. Typewritten letter to Jocelyn Morrison regarding historical research on Fernside, November 14, 1994. Massachusetts Historical Commission. "Reconnaissance Survey Report: Princeton, 1984." (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 Page_ 4 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Smith, M. and Santero, P.Massachusetts Historical Commission Inventory Form, Fernside, 162 Mountain Road, Princeton, May 1995. Anonymous typewritten description of the dedication of Fernside's Memorial Lookout, July 14, 1957.
Anonymous handwritten notes taken from 1888 "Notes and Anecdotes" by Abbey Wilder Davis and Florence Davis, ca. 1990s, Collection Jocelyn and Richard Morrison. PHOTOGRAPHS AND POSTCARDS Fernside Collection, Jocelyn and Richard Morrison Fernside Collection, Princeton Historical Society PLANS Frank Wiggins, Jr., Builder. Girls' Vacation House, Plans for Alterations, June 21, 1968. Massachusetts Archives, Massachusetts Public Safety Records, Y/1/1 #81777. Herron & Carlson, Architects, Worcester. Plans for Renovations to Fernside, March 18, 1994 (revised Chenot Associates, Inc., Architecture Land Planning, Princeton, November 28, 1995), Collection Richard and Jocelyn Morrison. (end) "Fernside" Name of Property 10. Geographical Data Acreage of Property 6.73 acres UTM References See continuation sheet. (Place additional UTM references on a continuation sheet) 1.
Zone 19 Easting 262/860 Northing 4705/610 2. Zone Easting Northing Worcester, Massachusetts County and State 3. Zone Easting "Zone Easting _ See continuation sheet /erbal Boundary Description Describe the boundaries of the property on a continuation sheet. Boundary Justification (Explain why the boundaries were selected on a continuation sheet.) 11. Form Prepared By name/title Susan McDaniel Ceccacci, consultant, with Betsy Friedberg, NR Director, MHC organizationMassachusetts Historical Commission date May 2002 street & number 220 Morrissey Boulevard telephone (617) 727-8470 city or town Boston state Massachusetts _ zip code 02125 Additional Documentation Submit the following items with the completed form: Continuation Sheets Northing Northing A USGS map (7.5 or 15 minute series) indicating the property's location.
A sketch map for historic districts and properties having large acreage or numerous resources. Photographs Representative black and white photographs of the property. Additional items (Check with the SHPO or FPO for any additional items) Property Owner (Complete this item at the request of the SHPO or FPO.) name_Richard and Joselyn Morrison street & number 162 Mountain Road (P.O. Box 303) telephone_(978) 464-2741 city or town_Princeton _ state Massachusetts_ zip code_01541 properties for isting or detersine eligiity for isting, to is properies, and fo ameni existing istings. Response to this reques s reguitred to obain a benefit in accordance with the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 U.S.C. 470 et seg.).
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_10 Page_1 OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA GEOGRAPHICAL DATA VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION The boundaries of the property corresponds to the lot listed with the Princeton Assessor as Lot 24. BOUNDARY JUSTIFICATION Lot 24 is a 6.75-acre lot on which the house has stood since the time of its original construction in 1835. (end) OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 NPS Form 110-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number_ Page_ "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA PHOTOGRAPHS, ILLUSTRATIONS, PLANS Photographs taken by Susan Ceccacci Photos 1-5 are 8 x 10", taken in 2000. Photos 6-26 are 3 x 5" , taken in 2000.
Photos 27-29 are 3 x 5", taken in 2002 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 13. 14 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. Looking south from Mountain Road, general view Main façade of house, looking east from Mountain Road Front door of house, looking east from front steps South end and rear (east) side of house, looking northwest from lawn West and south facades of playhouse, looking north.
Bassett flagpole in foreground Main façade and south end of house, looking northeast North gable end, main body of house, looking north North end of main body of house and porch, looking south North end of north wing with deck, looking southeast East side of house showing porches, looking southwest Porch, east side of main body of house, looking north Looking east towards Boston, from rear porch Interior, entry hall, ground floor, looking west Interior, parlor, ground floor, looking southeast Interior, dining room, ground floor, looking northeast Interior, common room, ground floor, looking north from library Interior, doorway from common room to front hall, ground floor, looking west Interior, library, ground floor, looking south from common room Interior, ground floor hall in north wing, looking south into library and common room Interior, large dining room in north wing, looking west Interior, second floor hall, looking west Interior, second floor bedroom looking northeast Interior, second floor bedroom, looking southeast Theatre, interior, looking northwest toward stage Theatre, interior, stage, looking north Theatre, interior, unenclosed roof structure, looking northwest Interior, third floor corridor, north wing 28.
29. NPS Form 110-900-a (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number Page_ Interior, third floor bedroom, looking west from door to corridor Interior, third floor bedroom, shelf, clothes hooks and towel bar OMB Approval No. 1024-0018 "Fernside" Princeton (Worcester), MA Illustrations 1. 2. 3. 4. 6. 7. 7a. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 13. 14 15. 16. 16b. 17. House and barn, ca. 1890-1910, looking northeast Main façade, looking east ca. 1910 Seen from high field across Mountain Road, looking east, ca. 1910 Main façade and Mt. Wachusett, ca. 1910 Back porch or piazza, looking south, ca. 1910 Rear view, before reconstruction of porches and present deck, ca. 1980s Looking north with playhouse, n.d. Main entrance to playhouse, with stairway to upstairs apartment, ca.
1920s Map of Princeton, Amos Merriam, 1830 Portrait of M. Josephine Allen Broadside, ca. 1900, advertising Fernside Library, looking south, circa 1910-1920 Lookout (1957), no longer on property Boston home of M. Josephine Allen, 1920s Dr. Alice Bassett Princeton's summer hotels, 1893 More Princeton summer hotels, 1893 Harrington Farm, Princeton, late 20" century Plans 1. 2. 2A. 3. 3A. 4. 5. Site map and photograph key Pians foraplerations, 19 to photographs Second floor plan and key to photographs Plans for alterations, 1968 Basement plan Sketch plan, north wing, third floor and key to photographs (end) Map # 1 2 3 4 MHC# 34 35 BENJAMIN HARRINGTON HOUSE "FERNSIDE" PRINCETON (WORCESTER), MA Name Date Benj. Harrington House/ "Fernside" Barn/Playhouse garage Dr. Bassett flagpole 1835, ca. 1870 1892 ca. 1870, 1921 ca.
1920s-30s Style Status/ Resource Fed/Gr Rev C/B elements Gr Rev elements of Class. astylistic C/B C/B C/O MOUNTAIN ROAD PLAN #1 BENIAMIN HARRINGTONHOUSE/ FERNSIDE 162 MOUNTAIN ROAD PRINCETON, MASSACHUSETTS SITEMAP AND PHOTOGRAPHKEY (EXTERIOR) (NOT TO SCALE) 131 12. L4h LOOKOUT ONPROPERTY NOLONGER PART OF FERNSIDE LEGEND MAP # KEYEDTO DATASHEET - PHOTOGRAPH# ANDDIRECTIONOF VIEW I BUILDING O FLAGPOLE SCHEWW DE VOKE RNE WIN exat.wp 20 ZVTH VINA renaceh NATHUATOM D NEN FLOMBING SYSTI PLAN#2 oreil -10-0 5:6 - REPLACH BRAN (+ Ruel5 e 4*) LU PORCH 16 KTERC rvw.viEw 1000-3TORM/ACRIDEN CR 7 #FIRE pAAcE BREAKPAST ROORIDR. 17 18 READINU ROOM CL ch. 13 PRIVATE DINING ENTRANCE HALL 19< RECEPTION /TV V 15 HaNoLE9 14 MAIN LOUSE EIKET FLOOK PLAN SALET:/4:=110' AND KEY TO PHOTOGRAPHE PRATPORM repMe trmTo posTo tEla M R Esrf Seelot mmbkiv PORCI+ ARCHITECTS HERRON & CARLSON, a.i.a.
yeonwy.a ROOM 5:i pne: LEGEND #L= PHOTO#&DIRECTION OFVIEW 2 OXFORD PLACE, WORCESTER, MA 01609 CHENOT Associates, Inc. ARCHITECTORE DNG NØ: ZEVIED 11/23/45 A-2 MAR. 18, 1994 MAR 12,,1994 Reaorations to FERNSIDE Moumtain Road - Princeton - MA FIRST FLOOX PLAN #2A BRCH Fernside, Plans for Alterations, Ground Floor, Frank Wiggins, Jr., Builder, June 21, 1968. (Massachusetts Public Safety Records, Y/1/1 #81777, Massachusetts Archives) CDHERVVE CE LOOBe PLAN#3 zice plp 24 CliOL SPUNRiD Jtert wod Marsru K-SIM GTP BD. BOUNDRATED WAW.. 2STAR APTTOOE PRPANCES ROOY DATH HRCJWAN 21 UPPER HALL sr Daz FOOM E Pav Rpai 23 L ROOM3 -MAIN HOUSE BECONR FL00K FIAN SCAtE:-Mefo AND KEY TO PHOTDORAPHS BATH SOUTH HALL BATH ARCHITECTS HERRON & CARLSON, ai.a. 2 OXFORD PLACE, WORCESTER, MA 01609 CHENOT Associates, Inc. ARCHITECTURE O FEANNING DYGNE: REVISED 1/28/95.
A-3 BOVTH LYING LEGEND #<=PHOTO#DIRECTION OF VIEW MAR1B1914 Renovations 1o SECOND FLOOR us-r.o BEp PoPA WOOD FRE EXCAPE CAT WALK Roo P DEb: BATN RbON BATH BED Ropm BooM PEP OOM BEb RoM Remgve BED RiM 4AC D-IEN EXIEDOOR 134 Sokid CARE B-AUE LIGHT LACATDAN B-TIRE ALAÜM BELL +STATÓN C-3, TAK HT 6- NEW Wkkh %TRE COdE SHPENSS + 1A SORID CORE DeRA D-MEW EKTE DOOR 1% SokE CoRE CPANTwith Fier Rfenhat Per ® BED Poam #ALL B6R,0oM. 06» BED ROOH BED Doom PEPC H Roo PLAN #3A Fernside, Plans for Alterations, Second Floor, Frank Wiggins, Jr., Builder, June 21, 1968. (Massachusetts Public Safety Records, Y/1/1 # 81777, Massachusetts Archives) PIeOCILO.L. PT. 2x10C16"o.c. Ar. (2x0C60c. PT 4xi2 (1-PIECE) 0-0 + ZXIO 18' EXUTNA SEHAR NEV 1E.
D018G BOILER RENNN MARMTEN SHOP - NEN 4'CONE FNOE NANG VINEAS FPUNPATONG pogciies whwe CAMNIZG PLAN#4 NVENH WING SCHEDULE OF WORK MAIN HOIGE CONCA NO. PAENALDET COi MHA thgr EYIERNVA EROLIO Exr. WV. JoVoTA FXOT: MP.TANEL BCHEDULE DE EXTEZIDRL VORK EXLST STONE NEYPANOFZAMING E HIEPECK HEY BART INWUATIOL, TVEK AWP CLDDE SUNVES- ENAY SNLAVE ZEPAEED, HEN PORCH RUORG TO EXIST ZTONE ROUNDATLAN .MAN HOVSE BAGEMENT SCALE-K-1O" BYUT CRAWL AACE NOQTUCTUFAL CHAALe OV CEATT INCULATIS CYEEN KAOTEL SOUrHt VING t02 eXxT aienics AR CHITECTS HERRON & CARLSON, a.i.a. BULONLE TAN 2 OXFORD PLACE, WORCESTER, MA 01609 CHENOT Associates, Inc. ARCHITECTURE DIVAND ZEVIGED 11/28/95 A-1 MAR 12.1914 Renovations te FERNSIDE Mountain Roed - "Princeton - MA/ BASEMENT 14 .to HASFL 84 +28 BES ROOM CORRIDOR.
>2T PED ROOM ROOM (NOT TO SCALE) LEGEND #K=#HOTO#ÖTRECHON OF VIEW L PLAN #5 Fernside, Sketch Plan of Third Floor of North Wing ILLUSTRATION #1 Fernside, House and Barn, about 1890-1910. View looking north east Ferngide ILLUSTRATION # 2 Fernside, main façade seen looking east from Mountain Road about 1910 Fernside - from the gurden ILLUSTRATION #3 Fernside, seen from high field across Mountain Road, looking east, about 1910 ILLUSTRATION # 4 Main façade of Fernside on the right, about 1910, with Mount Wachusett rising to the north Mt. W'achusett and Fernside Fernside Piazza ILLUSTRATION #5 Fernside, back porch, or piazza. View looking south about 1910. ILLUSTRATION #6 East (Rear) View of Fernside in the 1980's before the reconstruction of porches and the addition of the present deck east of the porches The rear view of Fernside with its verandas facing the magnificent view to the east.
ILLUSTRATION #7 View of Fernside looking north with playhouse theatre on left side of photograph. The playhouse was converted from its original use as a barn in 1921. FERNSIDE. PRINCETON. MASS. ILLUSTRATION # 7a Main entrance to Playhouse with stairway to upstairs apartment seen on the right. Circa 1920's-1930's? "FERNSIDE", PRINCETON, MASS. sbardston 1000 Rods MEIN Grautkinn! éa Riso N40H Nesti a Groak. Nesiminster N52+E 775 Ross wa caltes sn wulhe Uruik 1. Thampaan, Mecal Htabls Brighan 1/ a Linanman s Brado FAlkeNs . Petumplich r.neelands: ----Hond Wil. latmn Rlaip. ZU 18 SRondoll Masona Mills Yeight adore Morsi 24 gia roet tty ope "Witeon menter Sand Rice 10% -5H.3 - Exro Nemion aaxtre Teuchenr Meron Bai Dani: Choever G Meses Fort Fahw Horrey ouetico 5 w.F - ThasGill WF 9 WF Dnd 165" Sterens yset v d.bleaso C. Mirick aplist W.F k 4 Hovseya Maslingsli wr. 13 HouselAsas.
Jalen Denis - F Mpteick Aseh 11 IF 20 w.r 'WATERTOWN. 16 W.F ..-.- 15./13 WF MF -madeeriootw 17 1. Bren 18 Mill .Mas Potass Willand rerung Farm 12 w.r. - wFi4 3 Wi isma - Brooks Intaisan. -Tammery WF 15 iaBoyiafa Iwhidney 2 Aeyes E. Moyoo Caepsssn 282 - O.Welch Potash Allens Richardan Wilderg Amostiyen.. DEi Pror Chandie Brattle Form 1 E 7 B Rape Jos Aly eblagrene distonce Sterling L. Pour Wote RBall Meadow M Mill rlim 5Hery 556m lastue Fampal nearly 1204 Rods Mader Stone Mant. Sterling Note East Wing ond Dirisions - WatertounFormsand - Other Farmns Adjocent incluoed of time of incorporation Hubbandstan Alnnex 1810 ILLUSTRATION #8 Map of Princeton, Massachusetts Surveyed and Drawn by Amos Merriam, 1830, with Early Divisions and Province Grants Plotted by Francis E.
Blake, 1911 The lot on which the Benjamin Harrington House/Fernside stands was Lot # 3 of the Water town Farms section laid out in 1736. Lot # 3 is indicated by heavy lines. ILLUSTRATION #9 Portrait of M. Josephine Allen, pioneer in causes for working women and founder of Fernside Fernside 1 THIS house, formerly known as the "Princeton Vacation House for Working Girls " will open for the season on Saturday, July I. It is conducted exclusively for the benefit of women wage-carners, over serenteen years of age, and is in Princeton, Mass., beautifully situated on the side of Mount Wachusetr. The house is in perfect order, the table ample, with fresh vegetables daily from the garden. The mountain can be ascended in two hours from the house. Each person is expected to aid in the care of her bedroom and to do her share of the table work.
The price of board is $t.00 a week, and the railroad fares S1.90 for the round trip. Reduction is made sometimes for those greatly needing a change of air, but unable to pay the abore prices. Each person is expected to remain two wecks. All board and railroad tickets must be obtained from the "Fernside Agent," and paid in advance. She will be at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, No. 26+ Boylston Street, every Tuesday and Friday evening, from 7 to 9 o'clock, beginning Tuesday, June 13. A deposit of fifty cents is required at the time of application; this will be deducted later from the regular board. The parties, twenty-one in cach, will leave every Saturday from the South Station, and are met at Princeton station by the "Fernside" carriage. Applications should be made early, as the house accommodates but fortv-two.
All are requested to bring their clothing in bags, as the transportation of trunks from the station is difficult. to bring a supply of underclothing to last during the stay. MISS M. J. ALLEN, President ILLUSTRATION # 10 Broadside, circa 1900 (?), advertising Fernside as a summer vacation house for working women ILLUSTRATION #11 Fernside, Common Room, view looking north about 1910-1920 (?) Famei _ Princo ILLUSTRATION #12 Fernside, Library View looking south, circa 1910-1920 (?) ILLUSTRATION # 13 Lookout, now no longer on property belonging to Fernside. Built as part of Fernside in 1957. 132 MARLBOROUGH STREET ILLUSTRATION #14 The Boston home of Miss M. Josephine Allen ILLUSTRATION # 15 Dr. Alice Bassett, successor to Miss Allen as the driving force behind Fernside and Fernside treasurer for over sixty years WORCESTER'S COLUMBIAN TRIBUTE.
WORCESTER'S MOST ATTRACTIVE been favorably known to summer tourists. The fact that SUMMER RESORT. many of the guests have returned season after season for the last 20 years, furnishes a recommendation of the hotel, the The picturesque town of Princeton, Mass., is situated value of which all will recognize. To the seeker after a cool, on table land, 1,125 feet above the sea level, and extends healthful place to spend the summer months, Princeton offers unrivaled inducements. southward from the base The ridge on which the Wachusett House stands is off-shoot of Wachusett Mountain, the of Wachusett Mountain. Its bracing air, pure spring second highest elevation in the state, and as we stand on the hotel piazza we are 1,130 feet above the level of the sea.
water, scores of pleasant elevation secures exemption from morning fogs drives and picturesqne mosquitoes; the air is singularly dry and bracing; even in the hottest weather there is always a breeze across the ridge, and views, attract thousands of the thermometer rarely indicates a temperature above 85°. visitors to it during the summer months for health The view from this house must be seen to be appreciated Rates at the Wachusett will be found as reasonable as good and recreation. One of accommodations and excellent cuisine will warrant, and the great advantages of special terms can be made by families who wish to make a Princeton is the compara- long stay, and reduction of regular rates can always be had in The hotel contains 60 bed roons, and tive ease with which it can its annex, the-Wachusett Cottage, contains 20more. be reached.
The Worcester division of the Fitchburg cottage is only a few steps from the hotel. railroad runs five trains daily each way, through the Sons are the proprietors, as they have been for many town, making: close connections at Worcester trains to and from Boston, New York, Albany and the west. The hotels are located from two and a half to three miles from Princeton station. Well equipped coaches take passengers over a fine, picturesque road, walled on either side by birehes, maples, pines, chestnuts, hickories, ash and spruce. This ride is one of the many charming features of this delightful summer resort. It takes only fifty-five minutes to reach it from Worcester, ahout two hours from Boston or Providenee, and five hours from New York. And the drive by road from Worcester is along sixteen miles of as delightful a road as can be found in New England.
We herewith illustrate with pen and picture its charming, home-like hotels, from whose piazzas on every side can be seen the finest scenery that the eye can gaze upon in New England. The village bas its Congregational church, its Goodnow Memorial building, presented to the town hy Mr. E. A. Goodnow Worcester, a native of Princeton, to be used as a public library; its Town Hall, store, post office, telephone and telegraph oflice, and all the conveniences of any first- resort. It has been said by those spending the summer in Princeton, that one can spend an entire season at this delightful place and take a different drive every day, each one vieing in interest with all previons ones in attractions for those seeking rest and recreation. Prospect House. - Mr. W. C. Davis is the proprietor of this charming summer home, which has accommodations for from seventy-five to one hundred persons.
the centre of the village of Princeton, near the church, store, post office, telephone and telegraph office. It has broad piazzas on three sides, from which is seen one of the finest views in New England. The house is very clean and home-like, the beds are good, and the excellence of its table is well kuown to its numerous guests of the past eleven years. A good stable, both livery and boarding, is connected with the house. For parties desiring particularly quiet rooms, he has a number of attractive cottages at his command in the immediate vicinity, where desirable rooms can be obtained. The prices at this excellent house are, per day, $2.00 to $2.50; by the week, $8.00 to $15.00, according to the location of Grand View House. - This hotel - was formerly the "Mountain Cottage" and is owned and conducted by Mr. Wm. R. Howe. It is beautifully situated on the eastern slope of Mt.
Wachusett, Prince- ton, Mass. This house has been enlarged, remodeled and refurnished from top to bottom. There are open fire-places in the parlors, pure running spring water, both Wachusett House. - The Wachusett House, situated in every floor, bath rooms and all the the beautiful and healthful town of Princeton, Mass., has long modern improvements of a city hotel. It doubtless has the ILLUSTRATION #16a Princeton's summer hotels as they were in 1893. WORCESTERS COLCMBAN TABITE. best sanitary appointments of any house in Princeton. The business of this popular botel has increased so rapidls tat Mr. Howe intende to double its caparity tor the entertain ment of gueste next spring. so that next season he will easil! be able to accommodate 100 boardders. This speaks columes not only for the house and its surroundings, but for its man- agement.
It is substantially furnished, and every bedroom is fitted up with the finest quality of hair mattresses and the best patent springe, a luxury seldom foud in summer hotels. The viewn from this house are unsurpassed, and the table supplied with all the delicacies of the season. A largo farm connected with the house supplies the table with fresh vege- tables and berries daily, while the dairy produces the butter. cream and milk. Prineton, one of the most charming locations in the town. From its higd olecation, the air is pure and bracing, and the rrnings of the warmest days are uniformly cool and delight- While overlooking a wide extent of varied seenery, its immediate environs abound in picturesque views and beauti- From this high elevation, 1,300 feet, there is seldom dew upon the grass, and it is perfectly free from the humid air and mosquitoes so annoying in other places.
table at this popular house is abundantly supplied, and its time-honored landlord, Mr. M. H. Bullard, and his good famils, are always on the alert for the comfort of their numerous guests. Mount Plcasant Housc. This hotel is delightfulls sitnated in the midst of a farm of 150 acres. The house itself etande on a lawn surroundded bs a beautiful grove, and though charmingly retired from the main road. is so situated as to cool southwesterly This is in every respert a truly comfortable home, and has borne a bigh reputation for over twents vears. It has fifty-five well furnished rooms, and its genial proprietor, Mr. C.A. Whit- taker, makes the comfort of his guests his constant study. Mountain Housc.--This favorite summer resort is sit- uated on the eastern slope of Wachusett Mountain, in ocaaH HYHY SEASON-OPEN MAY20TO OCT15.- Sommit House.
This house is located 2,180 feet abore the sen level, on the summit of Mount Wachusett, as ite name implies, and this season Mr. F. E. Miller is its genial landlord, who is doing all in his power to make the hotel a comfortable home for those serking mountain air. The Summit House in loeated on the top of Wachusett Mountain, which is the second highest eleration in the state, being exceeded only by Graplock. While the height is sufficient for pure air and a magnificent view, it is not such as to make the ascent a tire. some cimb. A good road winds with easy grades to the top of the mountain, disclosing at every turn new beauties of seeners. From the obsercatory, where a good telescope and field glasses are supplied, the finest view in the state is ob- tained.
Parts of 6 states can be seen, dotted with villages, cities, towns, lakes, and moun- Sunrise as seen from the top of Wachusett well repays the early riser, and numbers pass the night there for that pur- pose. This hotel has accommodations for 50 guests, the rooms being large and airy, and provided with excellent beds. Mr. Miller makes a specialty of catering for excursion partien, who can have dinner ready for them on their arrival, by giving notice in advance br telephone or letter. The Summit House is reached by rail over the Woreester divi- sion of the Fitchhurg R. R. andcoaches meet every train at Princeton station to convey passengers to the summit. ILLUSTRATION #16b More Princeton summer hotels, 1893, from A Tribute to the Columbiam Year by the City of Worcester ILLUSTRATION #17. Princeton, Harrington Farm, a summer hotel in Princeton.
Late 20th century view taken after porch posts, which had formerly looked very much like those at Fernside, had been changed. RICk d.
UNTED STANEG DEPA PAENSOR EHE INTERTOR NATIONAE ARUATON DE UIN OREC PLACES REQUESTED ACTION: NOMINATION PROPERTY NAME : Fernside--Vacation House for Working Girls MULTIPLE NAME : STATE & COUNTY:MASSACHUSETTS, Worcester DATE RECEIVED: DATE OF 16TH DAY: DATE OF WEEKLY LIST: 5/17/02 6/19/02 DATE OF PENDING LIST: DATE OF 45TH DAY: REFERENCE NUMBER: 02000695 6/03/02 7/01/02 REASONS FOR REVIEW: APPEAL: N - DATA PROBLEM: N LANDSCAPE: N OTHER : REQUEST N PDIL: PERIOD: SAMPLE: N SLR DRAFT: COMMENT WAIVER: N VACCEPT RETURN REJECT ABSTRACT/SUMMARY COMMENTS: LESS THAN 50 YEARS: PROGRAM UNAPPROVED: NATIONAL: N N 4/27/02ne Entered in the National Fogistar RECOM./CRITERIA REVIEWER TELEPHONE DISCIPLINE DATE DOCUMENTATION see attached comments Y/N see attached SLR Y/N BENJAMIN HARRINGTON HOUSE/FERNSIDE PRINCETON(WORCESTERCO.) MA PHOTO: S.
CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: LOOKING SOUTE FROM MOUNTAN RoAD PHOTO #1 BENJAMIN HARRINGTON HOUSE /FERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCESTER. CO.) MA PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW!: LOOKING EAST PROMMOUNTAIN ROND, MAN FACADE OT PHOTO#2 FERNSIDE 162 BENLAMINHARRINGTON HOUSE/PERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCESTERCO.) MA PHOTO: S, CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: FRONT DOOR OF HOUSE, LOOKING EAST FROM FRETTS PHBTO #3 BENUAMIN HARRINGTON HOUSE/FERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCESTER CO.) MA PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: SOUTHEND ANDREAR (ERST SIDE) OF HOUSE, LOOKNGNY PHOTO #4 DENDAMIN HARRINGTON HOUSE (FERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCESTER CO) MA PHOTO: S. CECCACCI 2000 WEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: WEST ANDSOUTH FACADES OF PLAMHOUSE THEATRE & GARA DR, BASSETT FLAGPOLE IN FOREGROUND PHOTO#5 ZINHMNHARRINGTON-OUST/TERNI PRINCETON (WORCEGTERCO.) MA PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER.
VIEN: MANFACADE (WESTSIDE) T 19F HOUSE, LOOKINENE PHOTC#F 6 B,HAPRINGTON HOUSE /TERNS PRINCETON (WORCESTER CO.) PHOTO: S. CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER. VLEW INDRTH GABLE END, MAI FOUSE,LOOKiNG NORT+ PHOTO#7 IB,HARRINGTON-OUSE/FERNS PENCETON (WORCESTER.CO.) " PrOIO: : CECCHCCI 5000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEN: HORTHENDOF MAINEOI TORCH, LOXENG SOUTE FLOTOF 8 B.HARRINSTONHOUSE/FERNSI PRINCETON (WORCESTERCO.) N PHOTO: S,CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: NORTHEND OF NORTHW DECKINCOCATION OFF IN FOREGROUND, LOOK PHOTO# 9 B,HARRINGTON HOUSE (TERNSI PRINCETON CUVORCETERCO.) PHOTO: S,CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEN: E SIDEOFHOUSE SHOWINC MANBODY (R)8S WAGG SOUTHWEST PHOTO #10= B.HARRINGTON HoUsE rERNS PRINCETON (WORCESTER CO.) PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 gerrai NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: PORCH, E, SIDE OFMAIN LOOK N. PHOTO #11 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE (PERNS PANCETON (WORCESTER CO.) PHOTO: S.
CECCACC 2000 NEGATIVE : OWNER HEW: VDOKING EAST CTOWARDT PORCHAT REAR of HoUS 5 PHOTO#I2 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE yFERN, PRINCETON(WORCESTER.CO.) PHOTO:S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE : OWNER WIEW: INTÉRIOR, ENTRYHAL LOOKING WEET PHOTO#13 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE / FERNSI PRINCETON (WORCESTERCO.)M PHOTO: S, CECCACCI 2000 NEGATVE: OWNER VEW: INTERIOR, PARLOR (EWT GROUND FLOOR, LOOKINS FHOTO ## BHERRINGTONTOUSE (TERNS, PRINCETON (NORCECTER CO.) HHOTO: S.CECCACC 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNEZ VIEW: NEROR, INING ROd GROUND FOOR, LOOKiNK IFTOEIE B.HARRINGTON HOUSE/TERNS PRINCETON (WORCESTERCO.)) PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: INTERIOR, COMMONR GROUNDHOOR, LOOKN UBRARY PHOTO #16 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE/FERNEDE PRINCETON (WORCESTERCO.) MA FHOTD: S-CECCACCI 2000 NELTTIVE: OWNER VIEN: INTERIOR, DOORWAYFROM COMMONIOOM TOFRONT HALL, GROUNDFLOOR, LOOKINGWEST 7HOIO#17 ET IIIOSZO 3.
HARRINGTON HOUSE/FERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCE STER CO.) MA FHOTO:S.CECCACCI 2000 NECSATIVE: OWNER VIEW: INTERIOR, UBRARY, DOKINGSFROMCOMMON ROOM, GROUND FLOOR PHOTO#i8 ETIOS20 8. HARRINGTON HOUSE/PERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCESTER CO.) MK PHOTO: 9.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATLVEI: OWNER YIEW: INTERIOR, GROUND FLOOR HXL IN N WING, LOOKNG S INTO COMMON ROOME UBRKRY PHOTO#19 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE /FERNSID PRINCETON (WORCETER CO.) H PHOTO: S.CECCHCCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEN: INTERIOR, GROUNDALDON DINING ROOM IN N WIN WEST PHOTO #20 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE /FERNSIDE PRINCETON (WORCETERCO.) MA PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: INTERIOR, 2ND FIOOR, HALL, OoKNGWEsT PHOTO #21 5. HAREINGTONTDUSE/FERNS FRINCETON,WORCESTERCO.) FOTO:ICECCACEI 2000 NEGATIVE' ONNER. VIEW' INTERIOR, INDFLODR, LKINGNE THOTOHZ2 4ti @.HARRINGTONHOUSE/FERNSII PRINCETON (WORCESTER CO.) PHOTO: 9.
CECCACC) 2000 NEGKTIVE: OWNER VIEW: INTETZIOR, ZNDHOOR, i LOOLINGSE PHOTO #23 B.HARRINGTON HOUSE/FERNSIDE TRINCETON (WORCESTERCO.) MA PHOTO:S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGFRUE: OWNER U/DU111 13 VIEW: THEXTIZE, INTERIOR, WOOLING NW TOWARD STAGE PHOTO #2A B.HARRINGTON HOUSE (FERNSID PRINCETON (WORGESTERCO.) MA PHOTO: S.CECCACEI 2000 NEGATIVE:OWNER VIEN: THEATRE, INTERIOR, SI NORTH PHOTO#25 BARRINGTONHOUSE/TERN. PRINCETON (WORCEGTERCO.) PHOTO: S.CECCACCI 2000 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: THERTRE, INTERIOR MENCLOSED ROOF SR LOOKING UP8 NW PHOTO #26 HR: B.HARRINGTONHOUSEFERNEITE PRINCETONCNVORCEXER.CO.)MA PHOTO: S. CECCACCI JANUARY 2002 NEGATIVE: OWNER VIEW: CORRIDOR LOOKINGN BRDILOOR, NWING PHOTO#ZT ESCAPE-AI XOXEX XEROX 402A DP 241b. Pa B,HHERINGTONHOUSE PERNSITE PRINCETON(WODCESTER.CO.) MA PHOTO: S.CECCACCI VANUARY 2002 NEEATNE: OWNER.
VIEW: NWBEDROOM, BRD FLOOR, N WING, LOOKING W FROM DOORTO CORRIDOR PHOTO# 28 BnySeN BX XEROX 024 DP 24 lb. Paper hree Hole Punched corder no. 3R3317 Amomt: 10 Reams x I/Wit E Sa8 24 (90g/Nr) TRoPhics RM ROBERT MONDAVI WINBRT IDOK, CALIFORNIA B.HARONGTONHOUSE AERNADE PRINCETON(WODCESTER.CO.)MA PAOTO: S.CECCACCI JANUARY 2002 NECATIVE:OWNER. VIEW: GHELF, CLOTHES HOOKS STOWEL BAR ON E WALL OF SOUTHERNMOST BEDREOM, 3RDFIOOR, NWING PHOTO #29 BENAMINHARRINGTON HOUSEPERNSITE PRINCETON (WORCETERCO.) MA .10 000 M mnalwerer }) cam-,M. suruR VInc. SREANE DICKSON/ JONES ,82c. ANiK SAnc Pg: LABELL MINNS WILOLIFE SANCTUART orrIscoN or cranoRiAs ane name LITTLE WACHUSETT -8x4251-5y KALCHIAN DoW s.'inca, 15.04 LOWTV:MAL PAPE l6.sa CARrec GReEN 17.50 means 2-/l 8A PRINCETON CaiiA CuAN HOINIERE GLAINNES Dow 8B MPC FASENENE MDC Pincaos " 0LE, K- MDC. PAXTON HILSA 34. INC.
57 J1.M ALAd PAXTON HILAS, TAT INC 60-1 35.70 mRes ncaes LIPOWERAN ; 57-2 PÁXTON, HLUS /NC. SCALE RECEIVED 2280 MAY : 7 2022 NAT. REGISTER OF HIS: A NATIONA: Pp arFS The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Massachusetts Historical Commission May 10, 2002 Ms. Carol Shull National Register of Historic Places Department of the Interior National Park Service Mail Stop 2280, Suite 400 1849 C Street, NW Washington, DC 20240 Dear Ms. Shull: Enclosed please find the following nomination form: "Fernside", 162 Mountain Road, Princeton (Worcester), MA The nomination has been voted eligible by the State Review Board and has been signed by the State Historic Preservation Officer.
The owners of the property were notified of pending State Review Board consideration 30 to 45 days before the meeting and were afforded the opportunity to comment. Sincerely, Betay Friedherg Betsy Friedberg National Register Director Massachusetts Historical Commission Enclosure CC: Susan Ceccacci, consultant Richard and Joselyn Morrison, owners Joyce Anderson, Princeton Historical Commission Philip M. Connors, Planning Board Chair James T. Hart, Chair, Board of Selectmen 220 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, Massachusetts 02125 (617) 727-8470 - Fax: (617) 727-5128 www.state.ma.us/sec/mhc
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