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Flace (neighborhood or village)
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<Name of Area Frye Area
fair to good
Streets included*:
Allen Court
Boudreau Avenue
Brigham Avenue
Frye Street
SEE ATIACHED SHEET Jonas Court
Pearl Street
Pleasant Street (#s 182 and 190)
Roosevelt Street
Spring Street
Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form
AREA FORM
Although the ca. 30-acre neighborhood north of Elm Street between Pleasant and Roosevelt Streets
contains vernacular houses built from the late 1860's through the early twentieth-century, this area
derives most of its architectural character from the rapid growth of the 1890's. Thus it is the vernacular
Queen Anne style, particularly as expressed in small wood-frame, gable-end cottages, that predominates.
Most of the modest houses here have been altered to some extent, especially by synthetic siding and
changes in windows and doors. Most of the residences were built in the era when porches were
fashionable; many porches have been enclosed, however, and with other expansions and additions, few
buildings remain in their original form.
At the southeastern edge of the area is a short side street, Allen Court, that was part of the S.H. Howe
home factory complex. Its three houses include a 2- and a 2 1I2-story gable-end, and an example of
a less common late-nineteenth-century building type, a large 2 1/2-story, three-bay, side-gabled house
with twin ridge chimneys at #3. Marked as a "tenement" on maps, #3 may have functioned as a
boarding house for Howe factory workers. The small altered 2-story, three-bay gable-end house at #1
Allen Court was moved back from the edge of Pleasant Street between 1885 and 1889. (Cont.)
After the Civil War, coinciding with a period of rapid expansion in Marlborough's shoe industry during
the last third of the nineteenth century, much of the former farm district that flanked Pleasant Street
north of the West Village was gradually laid out with side streets and filled with modest, mostly single-
family houses. As in the Maplewood area east of Pleasant, and in the linear developments along upper
Mechanic and Hudson Streets, the primary occupants of this area were shoe-workers' families, although
people who worked at other trades moved here to purchase affordable, middle-class homes, as well.
With the exception of one house that disappears from maps after 1803, through the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, the mid-eighteenth-century Asa Brigham Homestead and Tavern was virtually the
only residence in the area. It stood just north of Spring Street (which was in existence by 1800), until
the 1970's, when it was finally demolished. (see Form #25). By the mid-nineteenth-century the house
and what was left of the surrounding farm in the area's eastern section had been inherited by Asa
Brigham's grandson-in-law, Stephen Howe, and then his son, Elbridge (see FonTIM: Witherbee Street).
The western section was by then part of one or two farms belonging to other descendants of the
Brigham family. (Cont.)
The vernacular Queen Anne streetscapes of Boudreau Avenue, the east side of Frye Street, and the
middle section of Spring Street consist primarily of three types of gable-end houses, most built within
a few years of each other in the 1890's. The most common house type, also seen in a few examples in
"te Maplewood area (see Area Form W) is a small two-story cottage with two facade doors, one at the
.de-hall entry of the main house, the other in the front of a short side bay. A wraparound porch
extends from one entry to the other, sometimes spanning the entire facade, and a short ell extends to
the rear of the bay. (Many of the porches, all probably originally standing on turned posts with sawcut
brackets, have been enclosed or otherwise altered. Intact examples remain at 42 Boudreau Street and
109 Spring Street.) In the groups of cottages at 101 to 111 Spring Street and 18 to 42 and 25 to 35
Boudreau, and at 43, 49, 53, 65, and 69 Frye Street, the two windows of the second story facade are
asymmetrically placed. In another group. of four slightly taller cottages at 83 to 93 Spring Street, the
asymmetry is carried through in a "cat-slide" roof extension in front of the side bay. Typical of their
era, the more intact of these 1890's houses retain 2-over-2-sash windows. Most were built with glass-
and-panel doors with a square glass light; at least one door with two vertical lights remains on Boudreau
Street, at #42. Similar doors and windows are seen at some other nearby larger gable-end houses, also
probably built during the 1890's. The 2 1/2-story gable-end at 59 Frye Street, however, has a double-
leaf glass-and-panel door. One altered example of another common Queen Anne house appears at 42
Pearl Street, where the facade has a wide polygonal bay at the first story and a rectangular, bracketed
one above it.
There was little construction in this area in the early twentieth century. A few houses were built on
the west side of lower Frye Street, including a side-gabled Craftsman bungalow at #32 and a pair of
Dutch Colonial Revivals on rubble foundations at #s 18 and 22. Across the street, at 53 Pearl Street,
is a large multi-unit building that may have been a boarding house for the I.A. Frye Shoe Company.
This is a two-story, hip-roofed, nine- by four-bay rectangular building, also on a rubble foundation, with
a single entry under a wide porch on short square posts. Although the window sash appears to have
been replaced, the building retains its wood clapboard siding. Other early-twentieth-century buildings
'., the area, all built in the 1920's, include two American Four-Squares, at 113 Spring Street and 36
rlgham Avenue, a few very altered gable-end Craftsman bungalows and simple, two-story Colonial
Revival houses in the Brigham subdivision, and a three-bay, 11/2-story gable-end cottage with 6-over-l-
sash windows at 60 Roosevelt Street.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
By 1875 Frye Street had been extended to Spring Street, and Boudreau (originally Wachusett) Avenue
had been laid out, with two houses, #s 15 and 21, on the east side. In the mid-1870's, shoe-
manufacturer S.H. Howe was also expanding his factory, which stood at the northwest comer of Elm
and Pleasant Streets, and he, too, was putting up housing nearby for his workers. Among his many
buildings were two "tenements" on what was then a lane just north of the factory, later named Allen
Court.
Through the 1880's, a few more houses were built on Frye Street and Boudreau Avenue. By 1889,
however, the stage had been set for the subsequent development of the area by the establishment of
two major subdivisions. The block between Frye Street and Boudreau, probably purchased by John
Frye from the heirs of Elbridge Howe, was laid out in thirteen building lots. West of Spring Street, a
large subdivision of 63 lots was planned on land belonging to Jonas E. Brigham, whose farmhouse stood
until recently at the east comer of Spring and Elm Streets. On paper, at least, it included Brigham
Avenue and Roosevelt Street, and twenty of the lots were projected for a northwest extension of Frye
Street.
John Frye's subdivision saw rapid development during the 1890's. He put up houses on all his lots
within a short period of time, resulting in two of the most consistent late-Victorian streetscapes in
Marlborough on Boudreau and upper Frye Street. By that time, much of the shoe industry's work force
consisted of first- or second-generation French-Canadian Americans, many of whom made their homes
in this neighborhood.
Only part of the larger western subdivision was ever developed. The center section of Spring Street,
from #s 83 through 111 on the west, and 88 and 90 on the east, filled quickly, but the streets of
Brigham Ave., Roosevelt, and upper Frye were not even put through until the 1920's.
As in other areas of Marlborough, with the slowdown in shoe-production, and the shoe-workers' strike
at the end of the 1890's, the pace of building lessened in the first part of the twentieth century. By
1929 there were only one or two houses built on the new Brigham Avenue, about the same number on
Roosevelt Street, and one more on Spring. In the 1920's Jonas Court (probably named for Jonas
Brigham,) was also cut through, with one house on it, completing the streets in the neighborhood.
The buildings discussed above and listed on the Area Data Sheet represent some of the most
historically or architecturally significant resources in the area. There are several more historic
properties located in the area, however. See Area Sketch Map for their locations.
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET Community Property
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702 68-432 1 Allen Court S.H. Howe tenement ca. 1870's Victorian
gable-end
703 68-431 3 Allen Court S.H. Howe tenement ca. 1870's astylistic side-
gabled house
704 68-430 5 Allen Court S.H. Howe tenement ca. 1870's Victorian
gable-end
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