Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

270 adams Street

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
Number 270 Adams Street is included for technical reasons in the Hospital/President's/Cranch Hill neighborhood but it actually relates more to the history of Adams Street. All of Adams Street was a section of the old Boston-Plymouth Highway and a primary settlement area in the early days. Along this road were the primary 1634 land grants after the Mount Wollaston area became part of Boston. These grants were given on the basis of four acres per head in the family to encourage settlement.

The property at 270 Adams Street came into the possession of the Baxter family in 1785. This was the Captain Joseph Baxter who died in 1820 at the age of 89 and was buried in Hancock Cemetery. Joseph Baxter then conveyed the property to his son James in 1816 who in turn passed it down to James Jr. in 1859. It seems likely that James Jr., for whom no profession is listed in city directories, built the present 'house. In the late 1880's the property was purchased by the well-known Theophilus King. Both Theophilus and his son Delcevare were bankers, both in Boston and in Quincy. They are particularly associated with the Granite Trust Company (Quincy) and provided extraordinary leadership to the bank during World War I and World War II. Both are buried by a symbolic granite sphere at Mount Wollaston Cemetery. The King family retained 270 Adams Street until after 1930.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
Building Permits, alterations.
H. Hobart Holly, Quincy Historical Society.
William S. Pattee. History of Old Braintree and Quincy. 1878. p. 127.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The residence at 270 Adams Street is the best example of a high style Italianate house in the city of Quincy. It is presently in fair condition, and has had added to it a small additions in the rear. Were these to be rebuilt more sympathetically to the house and were the overgrown planting to be pruned drastically, this house could be considered for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. The whole vocabulary of the style is present in this fine house. The dominating element on the facade is the archetypal square Italianate tower with a slow pitch hip roof with double brackets interspaced with modillions under the eaves and three long narrow arched windows set within an embrassure. The side elevation, facing Sturdevant Road is a Queen Anne type of octagonal tower integrated within the ridge roof. It could have been interpolated later, but it seems to be original to the house. On that same wall are Itahanate windows complete with their canopies, such as those illustrated in Andrew Jackson Downing's 1850 The Architecture of Country Houses, Design XXVIII. - A Villa in the Italian Style. This beautiful villa, the residence of Edward King, Esq. of Newport, Rhode Island, was constructed in 1845, from the designs of Mr. Upjohn of New York. The double windowed dormers have gables filled with a decorated rondel. The fenestration is irregular, consisting of various types of Italianate windows illustrated in pattern books of the period, double arched windows, single arched windows and others, all with drip moldings. The facade is composed of an entry with a projecting hood supported by decorated triangular brackets, the tower, a recessed wing and a right section with a rounded corner filled with a band of long narrow windows which could be of the same vintage as the hexagonal tower. It is an impressive and interesting residence; one which has retained its architectural integrity and all of the architectural ornamention of the period. It would benefit from further research.

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