Newell Farm

CHECK ONE XORIGINAL SITE MOVED DATE. Newe1l Farm is located on Main Street in West Newbury, set back 200' from the street at the end of a carriage drive circle edged by spruce trees. The nominated area around the house comprises 3 lightly wooded acres, while the rest of the 60 acre property is mostly farmland which stretches eastward to the rear of the house. The present farmhouse was built by Colonel Moses Newell in 1846. The main body - of the house is a five bay, brick, 2½ story house with a center entrance. The ridge roof has gable ends to the sides, four interior end chimneys, and a Greek Revival entablature composed of a slightly projecting four course architrave, above which is a four course frieze and a two course cornice of alternating projecting brick dentil-like headers.

The doorway has rectangular footings and lintel while the windows are treated with inverted triangular lintels and rectangular sills of sandstone. The front entrance has a six light transom and four pane sidelights. The original wooden front steps, weakened by termites, have been replaced by 1½ ton granite steps which were once footings from the cellar of an old house across the street from Newell Farm which was demolished in 1941. The north elevation is three bays deep with two shuttered windows in the gable. The south elevation of the main block is five bays wide on the first story, four bays on the second story, and has two shuttered windows in the gable. The narrow center entry is decorated with a transom and narrow lintel.

To the rear of the main block is a narrower, two story extension two bays deep with a doorway in the westernmost bay. Projecting south from the extension stands a two story kitchen ell.

/ARCHITECT Col. Moses Newell Newell Farm is significant architecturally as a fine Greek Revival/Federal style house built from salvaged materials. Historically, the property is significant for the roles its owners have played in local and state politics and business, and because the pro- perty has remained under continuous family ownership since 1761. Newell Farm is outstanding architecturally for the area because of its unusual size and materials. Most of the other significant houses in the region are of clapboard and far smaller in size than this stately brick house. Moreover, Col. Moses Newell, the original owner, is reported to have built this house with salvage materials from buildings demolished in 1845 to make room for the addition to the State House in Boston.

Moses Newel1 sent his loads of butchered meat from the farm to Charlestown Navy Yard on a regular basis. Returning by way of Beacon Hill, he would bring back loads of building materials. house at Newell Farm. Evidence to support this concept includes an article in the Haverhill Gazette of May 18, 1933, in which L.W. Smith wrote about the farm: "I heard my uncle (Cyrus K. Ordway, partner of Moses Newell) say to some friends that Col.

Newell bought the marble caps over the windows in his house also the ones under the window sills, the blinds, windows, and folding shutters, marble mantels and much of the fine woodwork of the house from one of the fine old houses of Boston that was being torn down to make room for a new building..."1 There are three extra sandstone lintels that match those of the house, one of which was found buried to the rear of the building.