Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

30 Chestnut Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Number 30 Chestnut Street is the fourth section of a block of five town houses built by William Lyman Faxon in 1874. Besides being active in Quincy real estate, Lyman was a surgeon in the 32nd Massachusetts Volunteers in the Civil War and the first Superintendent of the National Sailors Home in Wollaston. The 1876, 1888, and 1897 Atlases of the City of Quincy show William L. Faxon as owner of the entire town house block on Sea Street, which was until the 1870's an earlier name for Chestnut Street. Lucy Faxon Washburn, the sister of William L. Faxon, was listed as owner of the same block in 1907. By 1923 the block had been divided into five separate ownerships. In 1986 only the central three sections remain; the town houses at 24 and 32 Chestnut Streets have been demolished.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Atlas of Norfolk County, Mass., 1876.
Atlas of the City of Quincy, 1897.
Atlas of the City of Quincy, 1907.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
Quincy City Directories, 1915, 1930.
"Sprague Genealogy of Old Braintree Families". Microfilm at Quincy Historical Society.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
In 1874 a five section block of Italianate town houses was built; it was a fine example of urban housing which had solved the problem of space with narrow elegant facades endowed with architectural unity as they were joined and unified by the same cornice line supported by double brackets. Another unifying element was the symmetrical fenestration composed of rectangular windows capped by heavy projecting segmental arched brick lintels with brick bracket stops ( often illustrated in pattern books, such as in the 1873 Two Pattern Books by A. J. Bicknell and W. T. Comstock, republished in Victorian Architecture, edited by J. Maass, 1975, plate 10 "Designs for Windows") and the similar facade treatment of a recessed brick plane framed by stepped brick rows. 30 Chestnut Street is the only segment of this three unit block (two have been demolished) to have retained its original facade and not have it defaced by additions. The side entrance has the same hood treatment as the windows. It is a fine component of the Quincy Center Local Historic District

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