Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

140 Billings Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Tne Atlantic neighborhood in North Quincy is bordered by the Neponset River to the North and Quincy Bay to the East. It was once part of Dorchester and with the Old North Precinct that had split off from Braintree, became part of the Town of Quincy in 1792. The Jockey Club of Boston set up the first mile track course in the state in 1812 in a section of Atlantic known as Billings Plains and less than one hundred years later the track was filled in with new homes. Like its neighbors, Montclair and Wollaston, most of the community of Atlantic was built in the first third of the 20th century. From colonial times until the Civil War North Quincy was referred to as "The Farms" and it was the large Newbury, Wilson, Billings' and Glover farms that were split up for residences by real estate developers David H. MacKay, Henry Hunt, Maurice E. Kilpatrick, John E. Poland, Henry J. Grass and Charles M. Conant, Henry Blackwell, and Walter Webb. The development process was greatly accelerated by the Old Colony Railroad which began operations in 1845, eventually establishing stations in Atlantic, Norfolk Downs (the southern section of Atlantic), and Wollaston as well as by the advent of Quincy's extensive street railway system.

Billings Street, which runs through the center of Atlantic, is named in honor of the two prominent farming families of that name. Number 140 Billings Street was probably built by a James E. Curtin. a "wharfinger" in South Boston. The next owner in 1896 was Frank Jenkins, a prominent realtor in the area. In 1927. Oscar Hill, an insurance man, was in possession of the property.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Building Permit, 1926 (alterations).
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
H. Hobart Holly, ed. Quincy: 350 Years, 1974, p. 4.
William S. Pattee. A History of Old Braintree and Quincy, 1878, p. 55.
John Ramsdell. "Historic North Quincy". ["Written about 1934"]. Typed manuscript at Quincy Historical Society.
Daniel Munro Wilson. Three Hundred Years of Quincy 1625-1925. 1925, p. 280-281.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Once this residence receives a coat of an appropriate color paint, it will be one of the finest elample of a simple Queen Anne house of the 1880s in Quincy. Set on a typical Quincy granite foundation, it has the compact massing of an early version of the style, reflecting past modes. Architectural ornamention is focused on the entrance porch, the gable pierced work decoration of the top of the gables and the stringcourse made of pendant shaped shingles. The walls are articulated by means of the overhang of the gables over the second floor and the stringcourse over the ground floor and the use of shaped shingles on the gable walls and the stringcourse. The pedimented portico is supported by typical Queen Anne turned posts with spandrels filled with trefoils. It is a fine and picturesque component of the Billings Street streetscape.

Back