Cary, Otis, House

neighborhood in southern Foxboro. The two-acre site is primarily wooded, and 10 ect rone souin suret, ar ine pronereed, and highest point. The lot is fronted by a low fieldstone retaining wall. Built in 1837, the Otis Cary House is a five-bay, central entrance_Greek Revival-style building that rises 2 1/2 stories to a gable roof. The house consists of a main block with rear 2 1/2-story ell. The main block's front and side rest on a dressed granite foundation, while the rear and ell sit on ashlar rubble. The main facade's first floor is sheathed in its original wide horizontal boards. The remainder of the main block and the ell are presently sheathed in vinyl siding, which was applied in such a way that the building's details survive intact.

Beneath the siding is shake shingle siding and beneath that is the original clapboard sheathing. The building is joined to a barn (built in the mid 19th century) by a single-story modern breezeway. The building is oriented with its main facade facing northwest. The primary elevation's first story is fronted by a full-width porch whose slender posts are vernacular interpretations of Greek Revival columns. These are early-mid 20th century replacements of earlier columns. Three-quarter side lights over inset shadow panels flank the central entrance. Corner boards with flat pilasters and the hint of a capital, and a deep frieze beneath a projecting roof cornice, frame the building. 6/6 windows here and elsewhere in the building have molded window enframements.

Two brick interior chimneys are located behind the gable roof's ridge. The building's main block is two bays deep with a fully enclosed pediment at each gable end. The gable contains two windows on both east and west elevations.

(in one paragraph) Builder Architect Unk nown The Otis_Cary House, a Greek Revival-style dwelling located in the southern part of Foxboro, in southeastern Massachusetts, retains integrity of location, design, setting, feeling, and association. The house holds associations with the beginnings of industrialization in Foxboro, as Otis Cary was a successful Eury ass weil a manufactor in the town in the early and mid 19th century, as well as a local politician and community leader. While the building's primary significance lies in its historical assocations, the Otis Cary House is also architecturally significant as an example of the Greek Revival style. house thus fulfils Criteria A, B, and C of the National Register of Historic Places on the local level.

Otis Cary (1804-1888), the first owner of the nominated property, was born in Bridgewater but came to nearby Foxboro while in his twenties. In 1834, Cary bought the Mill Street Iron Foundry,_located near the cary_house, along the Cocasset River (no longer extant). The area was south of Foxboro's town center. Cary's business prospered when he discovered a new process for extracting additional ore from the vast quantities of waste ash that were dumped around the foundry. He was thus able to continue producing cast items while substantially reducing the cost of his raw materials.

In 1848, Cary purchased the Nason Cotton Mill on Water Street (also nonextant), which he then sold--at a profit--to Oliver Carpenter, who operated it as the South Branch of the Union Straw Works, Foxboro's prinary industry in the mid 19th century. Because both the foundry and the straw mill do not survive, the cary House stands as one of the only structures related to this early part of Foxboro's industrial development.