Sharon Historic District

The Sharon Historic District contains six residences dating from the mid-eighteenth century to the ear_y twentieth century, two Greek Revival churches, and an early twentieth century libgary. These nine bulldings are located on a one block stretch of North Main Street in the Town Center. The buildings form a cohesive visual group, set back from the street with well landscaped lawns. To the south is Post Office Square, surrounded by altered and modern commercial buildings. Directly north is a modern Church and School, and farther north on Main Street are a nixture of a few nineteenth and many twentieth century houses, not related historically to the District. The Unitarian Church and the First Congregational Church are the visual focal points of the district.

The Unitarian Church (1), a story white clapboard Greek Revival buiiding, was constructed in 1842. The three bay facade has a pediment supported by four Greek Doric columns, with a plain entablature. Iwin Ilights of stairs lead up to the two outer bays of the porch, and between them a third flight descends to the partially sunken vestry under the church. In the portico a pair of paneled doors flank a large 20/20 central window, with shutters on the lower half. This fenestration and shutter pattern is repeated onthe side elevations, each side having three identical windows on the main story. The vestry windows onthe side elevations are directly beneath the main floor bays, and are 10/10 sash.

A square bell tower rises in three tiers from the ridge roof, diminishing in size and terminating in a spire, and a clock face embellishes three sides of the base of the tower. The First Congregational Church (8), similar in style to the Unitarian Church, was built in 1839.

/ARCHITECT STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Located on North Main Street in the midst of modern commercial and residential. development, the Sharon Historic District contains the only contiguous, cohesive group of buildings representing the historic development of Sharon, Architecturally, the nine buildings, some which replace earlier structures, display a variety. of eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century styles. The buildings directly north of the district are modern, and do not relate to the district. To the south is Post Office Square, commercially developed, with a few altered late nineteenth century buildings, and many modern intrusions. The Square is not included in the district because it has lost, through modern development, whatever sense of time and plkace it once had.

Sharon was originally part of a 1637 "New Grant" given by the Dorchester Proprietors to encourage new settlement. In 1726 the present towns of Sharon, Canton and Stoughton, were separated from Dorchester and called the Stoughton Territory. Settlers in the southern part of the Stoughton Territory (now Sharon), finding it difficult to attend public worship in the northern part of the territory, petitioned the General Court in 1739 to be set off as a separate precinct. request was granted and. in 1740 the Second Precinct of Stoughton was established. It was incorporated in 1765 as the independent town of Stoughtonham, and in 1783 changed its name to Sharon.

The Second Precinct was first developed where the Sharon Historic District stands today, half way between the two major thoroughfares in Sharon, the Bay Road on the eastern edge of town and the O1d Post Road on the western edge. The Unitarian Church(-) stands on the site of the first Parish Church of the Second Precinct, built c. 1740. The original meetinghouse was razed c. 1785 and a new one built in 1787.