Lewis, Deacon Willard, House

Description of the property

The Deacon Willard Lewis House is located on the southern half of a small block bounded by West Street, Station Street and Elm Street. To the rear of the house behind a row of trees is the Kendall Company parking lot, and to the west and east across Station and Elm Streets are commercial buildings. To the south of the house is the town common, which is now the center of walpole's downtown area and therefore greatly altered from its nineteenth century condition. The Lewis House is the oldest house on the common, and the last remnant of walpole common's early nineteenth century development. The house is a 2 story ridge roof clapboard building, five bays wide and three deep, with a five bay ell to the west. Built c.

1826, the house was altered in the late nineteenth century, and again very recently. The facade has five wiae ana ro on 6/6 windows on the second floor and two floor length bay windows with heavy dentiled cornices flanking a modern central doorway. There is another bay window on the west facade of house, similar in detailing to the front bays, but without full length windows. The ell to the west has five irregularly spaced 2/2 windows and an off-center entrance, and five small 3/3 windows on the second floor. The music room, built c. 1870-80, extends across the rear elevation of the main house. This addition has a full brick basement and a low pitched roof.

The front boundary of the house is marked by a low cut granite wall which was the foundation of a fence built the same time the music room was added.

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Statement of significance

c. 1826; 1863 BUILDER/ARCHITECT The Deacon Willard Lewis House is significant as one of the last remaining buildings associated with the colonial and federal development of the town of walpole. It gains further significance through its association with Deacon Willard Lewis, one of Walpole's outstanding nineteenth century industrialists. The Lewis House, which fronts directly on the town common, was built on a parcel of land known as the Rev. Phillips Payson schoolhouse pasture. The house was built next to the sixth water-power privilege on the Neponset River, which was Walpole's original source of power, thus making the site important to the early development of the town.

Deacon Willard Lewis, who bought the house and the sixth water-power privilege in 1863, was born in West Roxbury in 1808, and moved with his family to walpole when he was very young. Lewis, who was a prominent member of Walpole's business community, conceived the idea of making lint by machine for bandages, and manufactured these bandages for the Civil War effort. Lewis was also a deacon at the Walpole Orthodox Church and represented Walpole's interests in the Massachusetts General Court in 1872-83. After purchasing the water-power privilege in 1863, Willard continued to manufacture lint bandages for the U.S. Government and began to make carpet lining, cotton batting and cotton percolator.

His business thrived and by 1875 his mill employed 70 people and turned out two tons of batting a day. The house remains today as a reminder of the development around the town common and of the contribution Deacon Willard Lewis made to the growth of the community.