red rail farm historic area, lincoln, massachusetts

RED RAIL FARM HISTORIC AREA

Prepared for theLINCOLN HISTORICAL COMMISSION & MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION

Red Rail Farm Historic Area

Location: Farmsteads and estate buildings in the southwest part of Lincoln,Massachusetts; roads involved are Old Concord Road and Red Rail Farm

Period of Development: 1740s-2003Significance: Agriculture; Architecture; Community Planning; ExplorationSettlement – Archaeology, Historic; Conservation; Literature; Recreation;TransportationArchitects: Frederick Law Olmsted; Henry Sargent Hunnewell; John QuincyAdamsMassachusetts Historical Commission: For guidance on the use of thesefiles as well as access to additional files on historic properties in Lincoln andMassachusetts–including more detailed individual inventory forms on each ofthe buildings located within the Lewis Street Area–go to: http://mhc-macris.net/

RED RAIL FARM HISTORIC AREA: INVENTORY FORM A

Lincoln, Massachusetts

John C. MacLean

[email protected]

2012

Follow Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey Manual instructions for completing this form.

FORM A - AREA

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSIONMASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARDBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

Photograph

Olmsted-designed Red Rail Farm drive, lookingtowards Adams Tenement

Assessor’s Sheets USGS Quad Area Letter Form Numbers in Area

57 and 61 Maynard N M, 5, 6,270-72

Town: Lincoln

Place (neighborhood or village):Red Rail Farm Neighborhood

Name of Area: Red Rail Farm Area

Present Use: residential and farm

Construction Dates or Period: 1740s-1912

Overall Condition: good

Major Intrusions and Alterations: 2003 house added inlot 57 2 4

Acreage: 29.19 acres

Recorded by: John C. MacLean

Organization: Lincoln Historical Commission

Date (month/year): 1/2008; rev. 11/2012

Topographic or Assessor's Map _X__ see continuation sheet

INVENTORY FORM A CONTINUATION SHEET TOWN: LINCOLN AREA: RED RAIL FARM AREA

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Area Letter Form Nos.220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARD, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

Continuation sheet 1

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_X__Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.

Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTIONDescribe architectural, structural and landscape features and evaluate in terms of other areas within the community.The properties within the Red Rail Farm Area are located on the public Old Concord Road and private Red Rail Farm Road in thewest part of Lincoln, located within what was originally part of Concord. Old Concord Road is currently dead-ended at its northernend, but it was initially part of the colonial road from Concord to what was originally Sudbury (now Wayland), two townsestablished in the 1630s. Efforts to straighten the main roadway in 1836 (known as “Concord Road” within Lincoln, and alsoknown as Route 126) resulted in the creation of Old Concord Road as a side street. In 1844 the Fitchburg Railroad wasconstructed, and it lies along the northeast boundary of the Red Rail Farm area. Red Rail Farm Road (parcel 57 2 10) began asan estate drive in circa 1889-90; the drive was based upon designs by Frederick Law Olmsted, the leading landscape architect ofthe period. Conservation lands surround the area to the north (across the railroad tracks) and to the west, while a twentieth-century subdivision lies to the south.

The Jacob Baker House and the Frederick Augustus Hayden House (or Billing-Hayden House) reflect farmsteads that stoodacross the road from each other since the eighteenth century. The Baker property was developed as an estate in the late 1880s,and the other buildings within the Area are former estate structures that are centered around an open conservation meadow(parcel 57 2 1), which is lined by a red rail fence.

Set back from the roadway and dating to the 1740s, the two-story Colonial-style Jacob Baker House [LIN.5] appears to havestarted as a one-and-a-half story structure with lean-to. Built around a large central chimney that is in front of the ridgepole andslightly offset from center, the generally symmetrical, clapboarded front façade features a protruding front entryway, with windowson the sides of the entryway. The southerly facing house has an ‘L’ extension to the northeast.

With the Baker farm on the west side of the old road (Old Concord Road), the Frederick Augustus Hayden House (also known asthe Billing-Hayden House; LIN.6) stands on the east side of the road, slightly to the northeast of the Baker house. Two chimneysof differing dimensions are set behind the ridgepole of the Federal-style house, which otherwise has a symmetrical, clapboardedfront façade. The prominent central doorway has side lights, with pilasters supporting a flat cornice surmounted by a half-ellipse.While the front of the house dates to circa 1832-35, a rear wing on the northeast has been thought to predate that construction,while there is other recent construction on the back of the house. North of the house, and close to the road is a New Englandbarn that was built circa 1832-35. Primarily clapboarded, but with some shingles on the upper section of the gabled end facingthe house; it has an extension to its east.

Red Rail Farm Road leads up to the Burnham-Adams Barn and Stable Complex (Parcel 57 2 4; LIN.M), with that drive and thebarn and stable designed and constructed as part of a country estate in 1889-91, with the east side of the Barn and Stablecomplex fronting on the roadway. At the northern end of this complex is the two-story barn, with its ridge running east to west. Aone-story attached garage extends out from the southwest side of the barn. A one-story woodshed open on the east and westsides extends south from the southern side of this garage area and attaches to the northwest corner of the Stable. Theelongated, two-story, 62-foot-long Stable then extends to the south, with its ridge running north to south. Slightly separated from itis an elongated one-story cottage that was originally the hen house, with its ridge also running north to south.

Topped by a cove-roofed cupola and weathervane, the gabled roof of the New England style barn has its gabled ends facing tothe east and west. On all four sides, the upper level of the barn projects out from the lower level, with the base of the projectionflared out. Clapboards clad the front or east façade, along with the north and south façades, while the west façade has shingleson the upper portion of the building and clapboards below.

With the gabled ends of the clapboarded Stable facing to the north and south, the elongated east façade has two hip-roofedcupolas. A gable projects from the center of the east façade, above a second-story hayloft door, which is directly above a first-




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story door. Sixteen small, individual square windows extend along the east side of the Stable, while the south half of the façadehas four half-doors above the stalls, and there is an additional single pair of windows north of the center door. Facing towards thebarn, the simple north end of the Stable has a loft door surmounting the central barn-door entrance.

South of the Stable is the long, plain hen house that was converted into a residence in 1970. A circa 2003 two-and-a-half storyhouse construction at its southern end repeats the flared projection of the second level that was used on the barn, creating anoverall harmony with the earlier construction.

North of the barn complex is the Adams Garage, built for Charles Francis Adams, Jr., circa 1911-12 (Parcel 57 2 5; Parcel 57 214 is also associated with this building, but the latter carries a conservation restriction; LIN.270). The one-story brick building witha gambrel-hipped roof has two brick-arched openings that were originally car bays and are now enclosed with clapboarding and aseries of casement windows. An arched doorway set to their left has a stained-glass window above the door. Added whenarchitect and owner John Quincy Adams converted the garage to a residence in the 1940s, a rear brick extension is set at anangle to the front of the house.

Northeast of this complex is the Adams Tenement (LIN.271), originally built for Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in 1901 as a two-family residence for workers on his estate. Initially a Tudor-Revival designed by Boston architect Philip Barthold Howard (1870-1910) and built by Lincoln contractor R. D. Donaldson, its original shape has been retained but its fenestration and timber framingwere modified when architect John Quincy Adams altered it for his residence. A central chimney and two end chimneys top adeep-pitched roof on the two-story structure. At the center, the roof is broken by a double-gabled section that protrudes forward,while hip-gabled dormers extend out to either side. The structure now has clapboard siding, and elongated single-pane windowsthat reflect the earlier half-timber appearance.

At the end of Old Concord Road, the Adams Brick Tenement (LIN.272) was built in 1902 as a multi-family residence for otherworkers on the Adams’ estate, also designed by architect Philip Barthold Howard and built by Lincoln contractor R. D. Donaldson.Visually in three sections, with the roof of the center section raised slightly higher than the two end sections, the house has threemassive, coved chimneys atop its deep-pitched roof. On the south side, the roof of the center section is broken by double-gabledwindows, while the two end sections have a pair of shed dormers. Earlier fenestration on the house has been replaced by large-paned windows and sliding-doors on the first floor, which is fronted by a terrace. The north side of the house features threegabled projections and the repetition of shed dormers for the second-floor windows.

The 1904 Boston Architectural Club Exhibition included drawings by Boston architect Phillip B. Howard for “Cottages at Lincoln,Massachusetts, for Charles F. Adams, Esq.” The “cottages” would have been the 1901 Adams Tenement (LIN.271) and the 1902Adams Brick Tenement (LIN.272) that had been constructed for workers on the Adams estate. Architect Philip Barthold Howard(1870-1910) had graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1893. He was living at Brookline in 1898 and at Charles RiverVillage in Needham when he died twelve years later. His architectural office was at 45 Kilby Street in Boston in 1904; Harvardclassmate Charles Kimball Cummings also had his architectural office at 45 Kilby Street at that time. By the beginning of 1907the two men would join together to form the architectural firm of C. K. Cummings & P. B. Howard with offices at 144 CongressStreet in Boston. Identified projects by Howard include work on the earlier Crane-Gunderson House in Brookline (BKL.1101),while Cummings and Howard projects included designing the DeMerritte House in Brookline (BKL.2068) and modifications toDover’s Second Congregational Church (DOV.84). At some point in his career, Howard was also in partnership with FrankManton Wakefield (1863-1913), a graduate of MIT who had also worked at McKim, Mead, and White.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVEExplain historical development of the area. Discuss how this relates to the historical development of the community.Representative of Concord’s and (after it was incorporated in 1754) Lincoln’s long farming heritage, the Baker and Billingfarmsteads each dated back to the eighteenth century, with the families related as Jacob Baker’s wife had been a Billing. Otherhouses in this section of town were also owned by members of the Billing family, and by Baker descendants. The propertiescontinued to be farmed by their owners, with the Baker farm remaining in the original family until the late 1880s, and a Bakercontinuing to live in the house into the twentieth century. The Billing farm was sold out of the family in 1832 to Frederick AugustusHayden, who built the front of the house. Like the Bakers and Billings, however, he way from a family closely connected to thissection of town, as three houses in the area were owned by Haydens in the mid-eighteenth century. (In the 1870s, an owner ofthis house became the first in Lincoln to try to create a subdivision, as he prepared plans to divide the farm into small houselots.The plan was unsuccessful, however, and only two houses were constructed near the nearby train stop.)




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The Baker family had an especially significant role in the events of April 19, 1775, as Jacob and a number of his children tookpart in the events of that historic day. Son Amos Baker, who continued to live in the Jacob Baker House as an adult, wouldeventually live to be the last living survivor of the Concord battle on April Nineteenth. He wrote an important account of the battle,reporting that his brother Nathaniel Baker (who then also lived in this house) had received the alarm from Dr. Samuel Prescott(who was spreading the alarm with Revere and Dawes), and subsequently Nathaniel helped to spread the alarm in Lincoln. Thehouse was well represented later that day, as Amos wrote that: “My father and my four brothers, Jacob, Nathaniel, James andSamuel, and my brother-in-law, Daniel Hosmer, were in arms at the North Bridge.”

Located near Walden Pond, and situated along Fairhaven Bay, the Baker Farm also received notoriety in the nineteenth centurywhen Henry David Thoreau frequented the property. Referring to this farmstead, Thoreau wrote about his visits here in Walden,naming one of the chapters in the book “The Baker Farm.” The Red Rail Farm area falls within Walden Woods, and thepreserved Baker farmland as well as the Jacob Baker House and the Frederick Augustus Hayden House and barn (which allstood here in Thoreau’s time) are all contributing properties to historic Walden Woods and the interpretation of Thoreau.After selling the property in 1888, James Baker, the last of that family, continued to live on what became the Burnham-Adamsestate in the Jacob Baker House as the farmer for both the Burnham and Adams families. Acquiring the Baker farm along with anadjoining strip of land from the owner of the Frederick Augustus Hayden House, capitalist William Appleton Burnham (1852-1922), a native of Brookline, hired Brookline’s Frederick Law Olmsted to plan his estate, and Wellesley architect Henry SargentHunnewell (1856-1914) to design his 1889-90 brick house. It is not unlikely that Hunnewell also would have designed the barnand stable, both of which appear in footprint on a drawing marked “Received 8th Oct. 1889” which is among the Olmsted papers,as is a “Prelim study for location of stable and approaches thereto” dated “Aug 22 1889.” That approach or drive became what isnow Red Rail Farm Road.

This area is a significant part of a country-estate landscape designed by America’s preeminent landscape architect, FrederickLaw Olmsted (1822-1903), the designer of New York’s Central Park, the Emerald Necklace around Boston, and many otherimportant public and private projects. Set back from the road and approached by a curving drive through farmland, the stable andbarn provided and agricultural setting within the Olmsted design. In Olmsted’s design, to its south was a more wooded,meandering entrance to the main house, while this second drive if fully developed would offer a more agrarian approach. At thetime it was developed, the Burnham estate was the most substantial estate within Lincoln. It soon passed to Charles FrancisAdams, Jr., the grandson and great-grandson of Presidents, and for a century it became a center for farming and relatedactivities under multiple generations of the Adams family.

Original owner William Appleton Burnham (1852-1922) had earlier rented the Codman House in Lincoln, but when he was unableto purchase that house, he acquired the Baker property for his country estate. The son of a Brookline and Boston merchant whohad married the daughter of an American banker based in Paris, Burnham had received a large inheritance which he used on theLincoln estate. After using the property for two summers, the Burnhams found that they did not care for the country estate butpreferred living in Boston, while the Panic of 1893 greatly diminished his finances, and the Lincoln estate was sold.

In 1893 the property was acquired by Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (1835-1915), a wealthy railroad owner who had been Presidentof the Union Pacific Railroad, who was also an active investor in western real estate. Adams was the grandson and great-grandson of Presidents, the son of an Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, and brother to the noted writers, Brooks andHenry Adams. C. F. Adams also wrote on historical topics, including a 1904 account on the history of the Town of Lincoln. Hewas President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, while locally he was a Trustee of the Lincoln Public Library.

He had been living on President’s Hill in Quincy, Massachusetts, but finding that Quincy was becoming too developed for histaste, he acquired the Lincoln property and moved there in 1894. At that time, Adams was also serving as the first chair of theMassachusetts Parks and Public Reservations committee, during which time, he later wrote, “I was largely instrumental in savingto the people of Massachusetts the Blue Hills and the Middlesex Fells” [Adams. An Autobiography, p. 185]. This interest carriedover into his work on the Lincoln estate, as he took an active interest in planting trees on the property, as well as maintaining itsactive agricultural traditions by maintaining the active working farm under the guidance of farmer James Baker and teamster DanRyan, who continued to wok on the estate until 1953, running the stable operations. Adams added to the farm compound withworker tenements built in 1901 and 1902, as well as a 1914 garage just north of the barn. While Burnham had called the estatePleasant Meadow (a name used by Thoreau), Adams called it Birnam Woods. As had been true under Burnham, many of the




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Lincoln estates of this period were summer residences, but Adams was a year-round resident, commuting to Boston by train fromthe Baker Bridge Station near his estate.

After Adams died in 1915, the estate remained under his widow, Mary H. (Ogden) Adams (1843-1935). Their son, businessmanJohn Adams (1875-1959) had returned to the estate and moving into the Jacob Baker House, and he oversaw the farmoperations. In 1939 John’s son, architect John Quincy Adams (1907-2003) and his wife Lucy Dodge (Rice) Adams, acquiredmuch of the estate, including the barn and stable, and he oversaw the continuing operation of the farm. Quincy Adams was botha Modernist architect who designed many homes in Lincoln, and a leader in Lincoln’s extensive conservation effort, serving formany years on the Lincoln Conservation Commission and masterminding the town’s conservation plan. Those interests werereflected in his treatment of the Adams estate, as he developed part of the estate (in the area around the former site of theBurnham-Adams House), designing many of the houses himself, but he also retained and sought to protect the farm compound,selling much of the surrounding lands to the town for conservation and placing other parcels in conservation.

Lots in the area consist of:57 2 1 0 Old Concord Road 12.50 acres conservation meadow57 2 2 26 Old Concord Road 3.09 acres Jacob Baker House57 2 4 22 Red Rail Farm 1.50 acres Burnham-Adams barn and stable57 2 5 26 Red Rail Farm 0.80 acres Adams Garage57 2 6 25 Red Rail Farm 1.56 acres Adams Tenement57 2 10 0 Red Rail Farm 2.02 acres Red Rail Farm roadway (Olmsted design)57 2 14 0 Red Rail Farm 0.83 acres conservation restricted57 3 0 50 Old Concord Road 5.00 acres Adams Brick Tenement61 4 0 37 Old Concord Road 1.89 acres Frederick Augustus Hayden House (Billing-Hayden House)

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCESAdams, Charles Francis. Charles Francis Adams, 1835-1915; An Autobiography. Boston: 1916.Boston Architectural Club Exhibition, 1904. Boston: 1904. (Howard listed on p. 36).Harvard College, Class of 1893: Address List and Bulletin, March 1907. Cambridge, MA, 1907.Harvard College, Class of 1893: Secretary’s Report, No. 1. Cambridge, MA, 1898.Kirkland, Edward Chase. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 1835-1915; The Patrician At Bay. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 1965.Lincoln Assessors’ RecordsLincoln Historical Society. Images of America: Lincoln. Charleston, South Carolina: 2003.MacLean, John C. A Rich Harvest: The History, Buildings, and People of Lincoln, Massachusetts. Lincoln, Massachusetts: 1988.Martin, Margaret M. “Notes from C. F. Adam’s Copybook and other papers,” Lincoln Public Library Historical Vault Collection(copybook in private collection).Burnham Estate Plans, Frederick Law Olmsted Papers (Brookline, Massachusetts).Ragan, Ruth Moulton. Voiceprints of Lincoln: Memories of an Old Massachusetts Town and Its Unique Response to IndustrialAmerica. Lincoln, Massachusetts: 1991.




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Jacob Baker House, c. 1747-49

Frederick Augustus Hayden House, c. 1832-35




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Burnham-Adams Stable at right, with 2003 house at left

Adams Tenement at left, view at right on Red Rail Farm Road to Burnham-Adams Barn




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View from near Old Concord Road looking across central conservation field at tree-lined Red Rail Farm Road, with AdamsTenement at right

View of Adams Brick Tenement from central conservation field




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Walden Pond

Railroad ConcordRoad(Route 126)

RedRailFarmRoad

Old Concord Road

Red Rail Farm Area and part of Walden Woods




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Frederick Law Olmsted papers: 1890 design for the entrance to the Burnham estate showing the Jacob Baker House (the wingshown on the back of the house is not the current back wing).




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Frederick Law Olmsted papers: Olmsted 1889 drawing showing proposed barn and stable




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RED RAILFARM RD

OLDCONCORDRD

Adams Garage, 1911-12

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL COMMISSION Community Property AddressMASSACHUSETTS ARCHIVES BUILDING LINCOLN220 MORRISSEY BOULEVARDBOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02125

Area(s) Form No.

National Register of Historic Places Criteria Statement Form

Check all that apply:

Individually eligible Eligible only in a historic district

Contributing to a potential historic district Potential historic district

Criteria: A B C D

Criteria Considerations: A B C D E F G

Statement of Significance by_____John C. MacLean____ ___________________The criteria that are checked in the above sections must be justified here.

The Red Rail Farm Area contains contributing properties dating from the 1740s to 1912, reflective of development from twoneighboring farms to the creation of a country estate at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.Oldest is the Jacob Baker House, built circa 1747-49, it has passed through two core stages in its early history. First, it was a familyfarm that remained in the Baker family from its time of construction until 1888, serving for a number of those years as a two-familyhome for two Baker brothers and their families. Secondly, it was part of a country estate, occupied first by the estate farmer (one of theBakers) and later by a descendent of the Adams presidents during part of the period that family owned the estate. During the Bakeroccupancy, that family participated in an historic event when six members of this household took part in the battle at the Old NorthBridge in Concord, and in the later conflicts of that day, on April 19, 1775, when the American Revolution began; one of them, AmosBaker, remained in the house all of his life, and he was the last survivor of the Concord Fight when he died in 1850. This property wasalso connected to Henry David Thoreau, who visited the Baker property when he lived at nearby Walden Pond, and he named one ofthe chapters in Walden “Baker Farm,” symbolically transforming the farm associated with this house into the heart and spirit ofAmerica’s literary and environmental history, with the Jacob Baker House also an important contributing feature of Thoreau’s historicWalden woods and its ongoing interpretation and relevancy. Beginning in 1888 the Baker farm was transformed into a country estatefor Boston capitalist William A. Burnham, who hired the preeminent landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, to design thelandscape for the property, with his designs including landscaping plans for the Jacob Baker House; this was the only comprehensiveOlmsted design in Lincoln. In 1893 Charles Francis Adams, Jr., railroad magnate and grandson and great-grandson of the presidents,acquired the estate, and the Jacob Baker House became a contributing part of an important complex of farm buildings as well ashousing for his employees (LIN.N; LIN.M; LIN.270; LIN.271; LIN.272). Complementing the Baker property across the street is the1830’s Frederick Augustus Hayden House and barn, which were built on an earlier Billing farm that dates back to the eighteenthcentury (Jacob Baker’s wife had been a Billing). Each reflecting in their own way the evolution from the community’s early farminghistory, the Baker and Hayden houses and their associated lands have stood across from each other for over 170 years.

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red rail farm historic area, lincoln, massachusetts

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