Hillside

Hillside lies at the base of a natural bowl land formation, with trees, planted in the last half of the nineteenth century, growing at the edge of the large lawn which surrounds the house. The property originally encompassed approximately eighty acres, as shown in the map surveyed by Henry David Thoreau in 1854. Extensive plantings, including many native and foreign trees, covered these acres. Now only ten acres remain, but they retain their rural and pastoral aspect, and most of the trees planted as part of the Old Colony Nurseries are extant. Hillside was designed in 1845 by the amateur architect Reverend Samuel Longfellow, brother of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and built the same year by Benjamin Marston Watson, famed horticulturalist and friend of the Concord Trancendentalists.

The Gothic Cottage, which faces south, is reminiscent of the styles found in Andrew Jackson Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses. The facade has a steeply pitched cross gable covering a central pavilion which has a Tudordarched opening on each of its three sides. The ls story building, covered with clapboards, has an asphalt shingled ridge roof. A story ridge roof ell extends from the western half of the northern elevation of the house, and has a dormer on its western elevation. A 2 story hip roof addition, built in the 1890's, is attached to the l story ell, and lies directly north of the eastern half of the main part of the house. The fenestration, as with many Gothic Cottages, is irregular.

The first floor windows of the whole house are topped by label molding, as is the center opening in the entrance pavilion. The molding extending down the sides of the windows are now covered by shutters, a recent addition to the house.

/ARCHITECT 1845 Rev. Samuel Longfellow STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Hillside is significant not only for its association with the internationally famous Old Colony Nurseries, but also for the close relationship between the Watsons, the original owners of the house, and the many Concord Trancendentalists who stayed there. Benjamin Marston Watson, when he graduated from Harvard in 1839, decided to return to Plymouth to take care of his mother's garden, instead of following one of the more conventional occupations. According to Edward Everett Hale, he established "such a nursery garden as New England had never known until that time." This nursery was a tremendous success, acquiring a national and international reputation.

Watson was responsible for introducing the Japanese Honeysuckle to the United States and encouraged its use throughout the country. He anticipated much of the work later to be undertaken at the Fenway and the arboretum in Boston by planting at Hillside Asclethra, Black Alder, Viburnum Cassinoides, Rhodora, and Rhododendrum Maximum. He also planted and cultivated Yellow and Canoe Birches. Watson was greatly interested in mass production of garden vegetables for the Boston market and for a while attempted to grow melons, turnips, celery and cabbages. He also grew peaches on a large scale and at one time had three thousand peach trees planted. He acted as a consultant to people with horicultural problems throughout New England and was greatly respected in his field.

Watson, besides being a successful horticulturalist, was interested in literature and philosophy. He and his wife, Mary Russell Watson, were close friends of the major Concord philosophers of the mid-nineteenth century, and of numerous other American philosophers of that time.