BlockThe nomination, in full
Bibliography, boundary description, and the people who prepared and reviewed the nomination.
FORM B - BUILDING MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION 80 BOYLSTON STREET BOSTON, MA 02116 white) Sketch Map: Draw map showing property's location in relation to nearest cross streets and/or geographical features. Indicate all bufldings between inventoried property and nearest intersection(s). Indicate north (SEE ATTACHED MAP) UTM REFERENCE USGS QUADRANGLE SCALE 19.318390.4692470 NEWTON, MA 1:25,000 AREA FORM NO. 2095 Newton, Mass. MRA Town NEWTON (Nonantum) Address 1-3 Bridge Street Historic Name Bemis Mill Use: Present offices Original _logwood grinding mill DESCRIPTION Date early-mid 19th century Source Newton histories Style Architect Industrial vernacular unknown Exterior Wall Fabric brick Outbut1dings none Major Alterations (with dates) roofline altered (late 19th .c.); concrete- block addition (1920s). Condition Good; 1981 rehab for offices Moved no Date Acreage 41,215 sq. ft.
(less thon l acre) Setting Adjacent to Bemis Dam at Charles River, opposite Watertown's Aetna Mills. Recorded by Kathlyn Hatch; Peter Stott Organization Newton Historical Comm. Date February 1977; April 1986 NATIONAL REGISTER CRITERIA STATEMENT (if applicable) As one of the oldest mill complexes in Newton and for its associations with the industrial growth of Newton, the Bemis Mill meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE Describe important architectural features and evaluate in terms of other buildings within the conmunity. The three-story brick mill complex is typical of modest industrial construction built in the second and third quarters of the 19th century built along eastern Massachusetts rivers.
Utilizing the heavy mortised frame of siow-burning mill construction throughout, the building also displays the low-pitched gable-roof favored by insurers by mid century as a deterent to fire. Unique to the building is evidence of the control mechanism which operated the rolling dam and the rope drive which powered the mill across the river (see below). Like its neighbor across the river and many industrial buildings in the Boston area, the mill has recently been rehabilitated for professional office space. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE Explain the role owners played in local or state history and how the building relates to the development of the community. Industry played a major role in the development of Nonantum. factory complex at Bridge Street contains the earliest buildings remaining from the area's growth as an important manufacturing center.
For virtually all of history, the site has been closely linked to mills on the opposite . (Watertown) the river, to which the mill was linked by a bridge in earliest dam at this location is thought to have been built by 'David Bemis in 1778 (Pettee: 105; Jackson reports 1760), with a paper mill constructed the following year, probably on the site of the existing mill. (On the Watertown side, in 1778, Bemis built grist and snuff mills, which eventually became the successful cotton mills of the Bemis Manufacturing Company.) A disastrous fire in the winter of 1792-3 destroyed the mill; such importance was the nascent paper industry to the Commonwealth that upon petition by the Bemis brothers, Luke and Isaac, the Commonwealth made a loan of one thousand pounds toward the rebuilding of the mills least equal size and extent of the mills lately destroyed by fire" (quoted in Pettee: 105).
Luke Bemis and his brother-in-law, Caleb Eddy, operated , the mills evidently with some success until after the War of 1812, equipped with three vats, three beating engines, and a glazing and rolling ma chine. BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES Newton Journal 10/6/1866. otis Pettee, Industries and Manufactures," in D.H. Hurd, History of Middlesex County (3 vols., Phila., 1890) 3:105. Solon F. Whitney, "[History of] Watertown," in D.H. Hurd, History of Middlesex County (3 vols., Phila., 1890) 3:403-404. Francis Jackson, A History of the Early Settlement of Newton (Boston, 1854). U.S. Census of Manufacturers, 1820 Manuscript returns. Barlow & Bancroft Insurance Survey No. 3273, "Aetna Mills," May 1874, Museum of American Textile History. lot2 INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORI CAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Commnity : Newton, Mass.
MRA Form No: 2095 Property Name: Bemis Mill Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued below. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE, cont. The three-story mill is L-shaped in plan, with the base of the ell built along the Charles River. eehandnade beick 15 Handmade brick is laid in a common-bond pattern with segmental window heads. A parapeted firewall separates the original building from a similar three-story addition, apparently built prior to 1875. Both upper-level loft doors on the Bridge Street side, now the mill's main entrance, lintels. The river elevation, fronting directly on the Charles, has a foundation of large granite blocks; two arched openings at the base of the narrow east wall are all that remain from the water-power system that ran under this section of the building.
Part of the 1822 granite-faced rolling dam remains on the Newton side of the river, but the millrace has altrace hased Fotling disappeared. single-story concrete-block additions were added about 1920. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE, cont. The firm, however, was unable to withstand the flood of imported paper, making it necessary by December 1820 to run at only one third capacity. In 1821, the paper business was given up, and the mill was sold to Luke's brother, Seth Bemis (1775-1851), who then operated the cotton mills on the Watertown side of the river. At that time, the dam created a millpond that extended as far upstream Boston Manufacturing Company's mills in Waltham, much to the latter's consternation.
To relieve this, the company offered Bemis $1000 for every inch that he would lower the To his later regret, Bemis accepted the offer, The present "rolling dam," constructed in 1822, was probably the result of this arrangement. (Its operation has long been a topic of conjecture. belived that the term refers to the means by which the height of the water flowing over the dam could be regulated -- either by means of a sill or flashboards rolling along a track on the top of the dam; or by large rollers which could move up or down the sloping downstream face of the dam. Wooden pulleys set into the mill wall above the southern end of the dam are thought to relate to its operation. It is also possible that the name refers to the curved downstream face, then an unusual feature in dams.
[The reverse curve spillway was not introduced until Jervis's use of it in 1838 on New York's Old Croton Dam.] Another rolling dam was constructed in 1835 on the Merrimack Canal in Lowell, but its operation is no better understood.) It is unclear whether the old paper mill was rebuilt at this time: in any case, Seth Bemis converted it to the manufacture of dyewoods and drugs, and particularly to grinding logwood, a Central American tree whose ground pulp produced a favorite dye for woolen goods; its blue shades ranged from light lavender to a dense blue-black, depending on the number of immersions. The Boston firm of William F.
Freeman & Company was a major importer of the material, organized by William Freeman (1790-1870) and his Staple to Inventery form at bottom INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Office of the Secretary, Boston Commumity: Newton, Mass. MRA Property Name: Bemis Mill Indicate each item on inventory form which is being continued belaw. 242 Form No: 2095 HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE, cont. son, William F. Freeman (1817-1888). In 1847, William Freeman purchased Bemis's logwood mill; in 1860, his son bought control of the mills on the Watertown side as well. Freeman was probably instrumental in the organization in 1863 of the Aetna Mills, of which he was Treasurer. The Newton mill, however, continued to be used for grinding dyewoods until the early 1870s. In 1870, the mill employed fifteen men and produced 1500 tons of logwood dye annually.
The closing of the Logwood mill left the Newton mill with excess water-power capacity which the Aetna heavy gearing on the second floor and Aetna's Mill No. 1. A vertical slot in the logwood mill's river facade identifies the location of this power transmission belt. Sorting of raw wool before it was processed on the Watertown side, was LEUEE company chose to utilize by installing a belt drive across the river to also carried out here. For the remainder of Aetna's corporate history, the Newton mill remained a subsidiary operation. After Aetna moved to Fitchburg in the 1920s, an auto fabric manufacturer moved into the vacant Newton mill, constructing at that time the exisiting single-story concrete-block on the south and west. In 1981 the building was rehabilitated for the offices of an electronics firm.
Staple to Inventory form at bottom NPS Form 10-900-a (3-82) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form Continuation sheet Item number OMB No. 1024-0018 Exp. 10-31-84 For NPS use anly received 1/43/86 date antered Page Multiple Resource Area Thematic Group Name Newton MRA State Middlesex County, MA Nomination/Type of Review 21. West Newton Hill Historic District 22. Adams, Amos, House 23. Adams, Seth, House 24. Auburndale Congregational Entered Church NatioDa 25. Bartlett--Hawkes Farm 26. Bayley House 27. Bemis Mill 28.
Bigelow, Henry, House Date/Signature subsinatira KorsalKeeper latick Andur 94,86 Attest Bettiz: Savzge 9/4/81 Fubaceatlre Len Keeper vatich Anduus 9486 Attest Bettol Sauzge "/4181 Entered in the Mational Register fKeeper Aelmßan 445 Attest the Begister Jeeper AelaruBzun 94186 Attest afllc-eu inch9 National tegiator fkeeper SilerByan s1194 Attest Entered in the Mational Register ofKeeper AelareByun914186 Attest Intored in the reticnei Registez fKeeper DeloreeBza 214188 Attest fKeeper SeluserByen 914184 29. Blodgett, William, House Entered in the Mational Register 30.
Brackett House Entered in the Natonal Register Attest fKeeper Attest fueeper Attest DeloreaßByen 914181 DebreaByur 914188 86001773 WASO Form - 177 ("R" June 1984) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES EVALUATION/RETURN SHEET Bemis Mill (Newton MRA) Middlesex County MASSACHUSETTS resubmission nomination by person or local government owner objection appeal Substantive Review: Reviewer's comments: sample J request Jappeal Working No. Fed. Reg. Date: 23 1986 2/3/87 Date Due: _ 8/21/86 -176/86 Action: LACCEPT 9-4-86 _RETURN. Ates REJECT_ Federal Agency: _ -NR decision Recom./Criteria Reviewer Discipline Date see continuation sheet Nomination returned for: - _technical corrections cited below _substantive reasons discussed below 1. Name 2. Location 3. Classification Category Ownership Public Acquisition 4. Owner of Property 5.
Location of Legal Description 6. Representation in Existing Surveys Has this property been determined eligible? yes no 7. Description Condition J excellent good fair deteriorated ruins unexposed Check one J unaltered altered Describe the present and original (if known) physical appearance summary paragraph completeness clarity alterations/integrity dates ] boundary selection Status Accessible Present Use Chack one original site moved date 8. Significance Period Areas of Significance-Check and justify below Specific dates Builder/Architect Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) J summary paragraph completeness clarity J applicable criteria J justification of areas checked J relating significance to the resource context J relationship of integrity to significance justification of exception Jother 9. Major Bibliographical References 10.
Geographical Data Acreage of nominated property Quadrangle name UTM References Verbal boundary description and justification 11. Form Prepared By 12. State Historic Preservation Officer Certification The evaluated significance of this property within the state is: national state local State Historic Preservation Officer signature date title 13. Other 1 Maps - Photographs - Other Questions concerning this nomination may be directed to _ Signed - Date Phone: - GPO 918-450 Comments for any item may be continued on an attached sheet APR 1986 Newton, Mass. MRA 1-3 Bridge St., Nonantum (BemisMill) Inv. #2095 ASe 7 KocozAa S Serkey -TAPPROXIMATE CHARLE BRIDGE 10474 20 17 35 33 STREET 26 STREET CALIFORNIA 37 38 39 27 29 30 TRAVERSE STREET 23 22 21 ST. 26 24 CALIFORNIA 94SS MELBOURNE AVENUE 24 PUDD City of Newton Assessor's Maps. Sheete 8 & 9 Metric Serles.
1979 Scale: UTM grid line interval = 100 meters (328 feet) Newton, Mass. MRA 1-3 Bridge St., Nonantum (Bemis M111) 21-2-2