Piety Corner Historic District

Piety Corner Historic District
Covenant Congregational Church
Location Roughly Bacon and Lexington Sts., Waltham, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°23′20″N 71°14′19″W / 42.38889°N 71.23861°WCoordinates: 42°23′20″N 71°14′19″W / 42.38889°N 71.23861°W
Area 65.6 acres (26.5 ha)
Architectural style Federal
Governing body Local
MPS Waltham MRA
NRHP Reference #

89001499

[1]
Added to NRHP March 09, 1990

The Piety Corner Historic District encompasses one of the oldest settled areas of Waltham, Massachusetts. It is centered on what is now a major road intersection, the junction of Totten Pond Road with Lexington and Bacon Streets, and includes the city's largest single concentration of well-preserved 19th and early 20th-century houses. It extends south from Totten Pond Road along Bacon Street as far as Greenwood Lane, and along Lexington Street to Beaver Street.[2] The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.[1]

The Piety Corner area was first settled by English colonists in the late 17th century, when it became known as "Hosier's Corner" after an early resident. It acquired its present name because it was home to a number of ministers. None of the houses from the early settlement period survive in the district, although Waltham's oldest house, the c. 1721 Hagar-Smith-Livermore-Sanderson House, is not far away. The district's oldest properties are the Federal style Sanderson-Bemis House (c. 1819-29, 380 Lexington Street) and the Jonas Clark House (c. 1825, 399 Lexington Street).[2]

The focus of development in Waltham shifted south toward the Charles River in the 1820s with the establishment of the Boston Manufacturing Company, and the Piety Corner area saw relatively little development. There was a surge in development after 1860, when the Swedenborgian Church (now the Covenant Congregational Church) was built; its present English Medieval building was built in 1879. A number of Second Empire mansard-roofed houses were built, as were two of Waltham's finest Carpenter Gothic houses, at 326 and 356 Bacon Street. One of the city's most unusual houses was built during this time in 1875: originally built as an octagon house, 361 Bacon Street was later truncated to its present odd shape. By the late 19th century the area was transformed into a fashionable upper-class residential area, as evidenced by a number of fine Queen Anne and Colonial Revival houses. Particularly fine examples of the first style are found at 326 Lexington (1888) and 395 Lexington (1891).[2]

The Piety Corner area was broken up to some extent by the construction of Totten Pond Road, a major roadway leading west from the junction, in 1960. As a result, a portion of the historic area, near the junction of Lexington and Lincoln Streets, is now separated from the main area, and was listed separately as the North Lexington Street Historic District.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2008-04-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "NRHP nomination for Piety Corner Historic District". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2014-04-30.