Source: R. Kline.
Entered: July, 2002.
Source: R. Kline.
Entered: July, 2002.
Source: "More About Octagons," Carl Schmidt.
Entered: October, 2002.
Photograph, perhaps taken in the 1950s.
Source: R. Kline "More About Octagons," Carl F. Schmidt.
Entered: July, 2002.
Updated: October, 2002.
Photograph, supplied by the owner.
Source: Harold Gordon, the current owner.
Entered: November, 2004.
Left click on the image for a large version.
Floor plan.
Map showing location of house.
Robert B. White, who is a great-great-grandson of the builder, relates the following, based on some family genealogical work done in the 1950s:
STEPHEN RAWSON WHITE father of Edward Rawson White and grandfather of
Stephen E. and Merton G. White was a versatile character. His parents
Freeborn (Freeburn) White and Abigail Rawson White were married at
Upton in 1810 but they soon removed to West Boyleston and then to
Waterville, Vt. and then to Eden Vt. both in the northern part of the
state where they located. Stephen R. was their first child and he
married Nancy Mowry Fowler at Northbridge and setled at Farnumsville
in the town of Grafton. For many years he was overseer of the poor
for the town of Grafton. He also served in the state legislature.
One of his enterprises was buying in Vermont horses cattle cheese and
butter which he sold in Massachusetts. For a time he was Station
Agent for the Providence & Worcester R.R. at Farnumsville. That was
before there were any Automobiles, trucks or busses and the railroad
was the only public carrier. Of interest is the way they did business
in that era. At night he took the days receipts to his house for
safe keeping and once a month a collector came from Providence to
gather the money.
About 1855 he build a house at Farnumsville up the hill from the
RR station following the design of the firm of Fowler & Wells. The
idea of the design was that since a circle gave the most area for a
given perimeter, but was not practical for building, an octagon shape
should be adopted. The idea was not good because this shape allowed
four square rooms and three triangular rooms with such acute angles
that much of their floor space was not usable. However quite a number
such houses were built thruout the country. I saw one at Oswego
N.Y. and about 1932 I saw in an Indianapolis Ind paper an item telling
of the razing of an octagonal house on South Dearborn St and about the
firm of Fowler & Wells who promoted the idea. They were versatile men
and had a considerable following for their magazine on phrenology.
Concrete was not known then but for the 18" thick walls he used forms
just as for pouring concrete now filling the space with stones picked
up on the place with lime mortar to fill the interstices. The outside
of both house and barn (which latter was square) was marked off to
simulate stone blocks and the house was often referred to as the
stone house. On account of the thickness of the walls the house as
very cool in summer and warm in winter and because of the construction
after 60 years the repair on the outside was only $20.00. He made a
contract with the railroad (I have no record of the date) wherby they
walled up and roofed over a spring on a hill on his woodland and piped
the water to a water tank at the station for use in their locomotives.
The pipe also carried water to his house and barn and the contract
also specifed the amount of and the uses to which the water (over and
above the needs of the RR) could be put. Since there was already
water piped into the house it was possible for my Aunt Abby about 1890
to install a hot water system of heating and an inside toilet and bath
room. There was no other house in the countryside that had these
conveniences and probably very few even today.
Source: R. Kline and "More About Octagons," Carl Schmidt.
Entered: October, 2002.
Updated: March, 2005.
Updated: September, 2008.
Source: Andrew Rasanen.
Entered: June, 2001.
Updated: July, 2002.
Source: R. Kline.
Entered: September, 2002.
Source: R. Kline, and "More About Octagons," Carl Schmidt.
Entered: September, 2002.
Source: R. Kline, and "More About Octagons," Carl Schmidt.
Entered: September, 2002.
Source: R. Kline.
Entered: July, 2002.
Photograph.
Source: Evan Lattimore.
Entered: April, 2002. Updated: November, 2002.
A segment of an 1899 panoramic map shows the house at the center of the image.
Old photograph.
Dan Malloy, a local historian, mentions that at least two sources say there were once three octagon houses in Hopedale. He relates that a Utopian socialist commune operated from about 1842 to 1856, and might have had to do with there being three.
1870 map.
Dan Malloy supplied the map above, which shows the location of the three houses in Hopedale. Two of the houses are located at the corner of High Street and Union Street ( map street names - High Street is Dutcher Street in year 2007), near the upper right part of the map. One is labeled the "W. Bancroft" house, and the other the Machine Co. house, one of two properties shown that were owned by the Machine Co., which later became part of a consolidation known as the Draper Company. Who W. Bancroft was is not known at this time. The third is off Hopedale Street, and is near the lower, center, part of the map. It is also labeled "Machine Co."
Sources: R. Kline. Dan Malloy.
Entered: July, 2002.
Updated: March, 2005.
Updated: May, 2005.
Updated: February, 2007.
Old photograph
A segment of an 1888 panoramic (or "bird's eye ) map shows the house off Dutcher Street, in the middle of the image.
Source: Dan Malloy.
Entered: May, 2005.
Dan Malloy has located an old photograph of the house, likely to the rigth side, and relates the following information about how the photograph was found, and what it says about where the house was probably located:
|
Long-gone Octagons A big housing fad of the nineteenth century was the octagon house. The peak years for this type of construction were about 1846 to 1865. In 1855, the Woonsocket Patriot sent a reporter to Hopedale to do an article about the Community. One of the things that he noted was that, "Of dwelling-houses there are forty-one, including three concrete octagons." Octagons didn't have a very good survival rate and as we know, none of the three have survived. I knew that one of them had been on Prospect Street, but it took a while to find out where the other two had been located. I found the second on the "picture map" that had been originally printed in 1888. (Copies are for sale at the Bancroft Library.) That one was on Dutcher Street, just south of the apartment house across from the fire station. It was evidently razed a short time after the map was drawn. It's not on an undated map that was made some time before 1898, and the National Register Nomination gives the date for the house that's on the site now (home of Craig and Joanne Travers) as c. 1890. A few weeks ago Elaine and I were asked to go to Memorial School to help identify locations in some of the old Hopedale pictures they have. There, in one of the pictures, was the third octagon house I had been wondering about for some time. The view shows the General Draper house (now the site of the high school) on the right, the original Unitarian Church, (on the site of the present Unitarian Church, built in 1898) in the middle, and the octagon house on the left. The picture was taken from the south and it looks at though the octagon was a bit north of where the Griffin-Dennett Apartments are now. The only surviving octagon house I know of in the area is on Fruit Street in Milford. I remember one on Maple Avenue in South Grafton, but that disappeared about twenty years ago. Hopedale does have a newer octagon building; the Father Riley Center at Sacred Heart Church. |
Source: Dan Malloy.
Entered: May, 2005.
Updated: July, 2005.
Photograph - front.
Photograph - left front.
Sources: R. Kline. Dan Malloy supplies information and the photographs.
Entered: September, 2002.
Updated: March, 2005.
Updated: September, 2007.
Source: Evan Lattimore.
Entered: April, 2002.
Source: R. V. Kline
Entered: April, 2002.
Source: R .Kline
Entered: September, 2002.
Source: List of octagon houses, Wikipedia.
Entered: June, 2008.