Tenement House, Chelmsford Glass Works, Lowell

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS MASS,9-LOW,3-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Chelmsford Glass Works Tenement House is the only extant housing model erected by the company for its operatives. Description: The Tenement House hugs the ground, stretching fifteen bays long. The Tenement House stands at one and a half stories under a pitch roof. Each gable end has two windows. Clapboard covers three sides of the house, while its West wall is shingled. Changes to the building consist of a one story covered entrance porch with shed roof on the West side and of a one story lean- to in back of the East unit. The Tenement House holds three housing units. The elevation for each house unit falls into five bays. Its four windows are arranged two per side of the entrance door. History: Established in the Chelmsford Glass Works recruited skilled operatives from Germany.

Topping out at twenty families, the company built a two story overseer house as well as smaller houses for the operatives and their families. Company housing was near the primary manufactory and also nearby the Middlesex canal. The canal brought essential raw materials to the manufactory's doorstep; the needed materials were potash, sand, and wood. The Tenement House is reminiscent of plans by English architect, John Woods. The architect's plans were published in A Series of Plans for Cottages, or Habitations of the Labourer. Either in Husbandry or the Mechanic Arts.

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS MASS,9-LOW,3-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Anne R. Wardwell, "National Register for Historic Places Nomination: Chelmsford Glass Works: Long House," National Park Service, Includes photograph. Historic Buildings of Massachusetts, edited by John C. Poppeliers. Scribner Historic Building Series. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Photographic catalogue of historic buildings, built primarily during the colonial and federal periods.