Edgartown Village Historic District

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Edgartown Village Historic District
National Register of Historic Places
Historic District
The Old Whaling Church in Edgartown

The Old Whaling Church in Edgartown

Edgartown Village Historic District, Massachusetts
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Edgartown , Massachusetts , United States
Coordinates 41 ° 23 '25 "  N , 70 ° 30' 45"  W Coordinates: 41 ° 23 '25 "  N , 70 ° 30' 45"  W.
surface 150  acres (60.7  ha )
NRHP number [1] 83003967
Data
The NRHP added December 9, 1983
Declared as  HD December 9, 1983

The Edgartown Village Historic District (also Downtown Edgartown ) is a 150 acres (approx. 60 ha) historic district in Edgartown in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . The area includes around 500 individual structures and was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Edgartown

The Edgartown Village Historic District is located in the center of the city of Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard , which is about 5  mi (8  km ) off the southeast coast of Massachusetts. Edgartown itself occupies an area of ​​29.77  mi² (77.1  km² ) on the southeastern edge of the island and is populated by around 3000 people all year round. In the summer months the population increases to up to 15,000 people.

The historic center is on the west side of the city's harbor and occupies a total of around 150 acres (60.7 hectares). It comprises around 500 buildings, most of which were constructed of wood in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; 77, however, date from after 1933. The Historic District is bounded by Water Street (North and South) and Pease's Point Way (North and South). Within these boundaries, the inner streets run either parallel to or at right angles to Water Street and thus form a largely linear pattern, the origin of which goes back to the property boundaries in the 1650s and thus before the city was founded.

The wooden houses in the district, mostly painted white, are relatively close together and are mostly surrounded by white fences. The narrow streets are lined with trees - mainly elm , linden and hazelnut . There are only five brick buildings. Due to the small size of the district, there are public, private and commercial properties and houses, but no industrial buildings.

Due to the relatively remote location (the place is on an island off the mainland, which was cut off from developments in the rest of the state and also self-governing as a county - Dukes County -) the local architecture is rather conservative and idiosyncratic , which is mainly expressed in the decoration of the buildings and in the retention of local construction methods, although these have not been used in the rest of the state for 20 years. In the historic district, the Federal and Greek Revival architectural styles predominate , but the Italianate , Second Empire , Queen-Anne , Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts styles were also important for the development of the city center.

The city center was historically significant in two periods: In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the city was the center of the whaling industry, and from the late 19th century to the present day, the town has become a popular destination for summer tourists . Therefore, all houses that were built before 1933, regardless of their type of use, were entered as contributing property in the NRHP. The only exceptions are those that have been structurally altered over time in such a way that their original appearance is no longer recognizable; these were entered as so-called foreign bodies ( intrusion ). This classification was also given to all buildings with a construction date later than 1933, regardless of their appearance.

Early settlement

Edgartown is the largest and oldest settlement on the island. The city in the Great Harbor region was founded in 1641 by missionary Thomas Mayhew and was the only parish on Martha's Vineyard for 30 years, until 1671 Takemmy , now West Tisbury , was planted in the center of the island. In the 17th and 18th centuries, other smaller villages followed, but like West Tisbury they did not reach the size and importance of Edgartown until the early 20th century. The first houses were built east of what is now Pease's Point Way.

The Great Harbor region was up to that date by the Algonquian - Native Americans inhabited and despite the since 1641 lasting English settlement until 1671 in Fort James entered as Edgartown, as the island from 1671 to 1682 the State New York was one before the Massachusetts Bay Colony was affiliated. The city's name goes back to Edgar, the fourth son of the then Duke of York , who died at the age of four.

The city limits remained almost unchanged from 1671 to 1880. In 1880 the north-western part of the city received its own city rights as Cottage City , from which in 1907 today's Oak Bluffs emerged . Edgartown has been the seat of the provincial government of Dukes County since 1671 . The number of inhabitants fluctuated with the economic development of the region, as the following table shows.

Population development in Edgartown until 1900
year population comment
1653 75
1694 200
1757 900
1820 1400
1860 2200 Peak of the whaling industry
1900 1200 Spin-off from Oak Bluffs

With the transformation of the city from whaling to the tourism industry, the number of inhabitants increased again at the beginning of the 20th century until they reached their current level of around 4000 inhabitants (as of 2010).

Development of the streets

As the first street, Main Street was laid out at right angles to the harbor area in 1641, but was not officially surveyed until 1773. The Pease's Point Way followed in 1650 and the Planting Field Way in 1653, which led from the junction between the other two streets at the north end of Main Street towards the fields northwest of town. Mob Street, which no longer exists today, was laid out in 1762 and at its southwest end it flowed into South Water Street. Also at the beginning of the settlement, the Meeting House Way was built, which led from Water Street to the eponymous meeting house , where the city's cemetery is now located. The street is known today as Cooke Street. The North and South Water Streets, where many ship captains built their houses, are particularly important for the historical development of Edgartown. The former Pilgrim's Alley leads from South Water Street to Pease's Point Way and is now called High Street.

economy

1750 to 1860: whaling

The historical importance of the city in the 19th century is mainly due to the economic success of whaling and to a lesser extent to other activities related to seafaring. From the mid-17th to the mid-19th centuries, Edgartown was the island's industrial center, where the whales caught were processed. Fishing in general, the production of fishing by-products from herring and shellfish, and salt production through seawater desalination were also of economic importance .

The town's surrounding farms - mostly north and south of the historic center - and the nearby agricultural communities of West Tisbury , Chilmark and Aquinnah provided Edgartown with food until the late 18th century. Of all industries, agriculture was hardest hit by the American Revolutionary War . In 1778, Charles Gray led a British attack on the island that resulted in the destruction of almost all farm animals and crops . This led to a depression from which local agriculture only slowly recovered after the war. For this reason, the population of the island also fell noticeably during the war and only rose again with the rise of whaling as the main industry in the early 19th century.

Whaling was practiced on Martha's Vineyard by the local Indians even before British colonization began. When the first settlers arrived in the 1640s, the Indians taught them how to use harpoons , and shortly afterwards they began developing more sophisticated whaling methods. At that time, whales were abundant and either dragged ashore near the coast or harpooned in shallow water. Tran was produced in Edgartown on a small scale as early as 1669 for local use as fuel for candles and for heating homes.

In the 1720s, whaling in shallow water and offshore was already widespread until it was expanded to deeper waters in the 1770s. This was initially limited to the northeast coast, but was extended to southern waters as the bowhead whale population declined . The fishing trips took correspondingly more time and regularly lasted around two weeks; in the 1840s, however, Arctic expeditions lasting five years were also carried out.

Whaling grew steadily in importance, but also suffered from the consequences of the War of Independence. In the 19th century, however, this branch of the economy experienced a strong boom with its strongest form between 1820 and 1865 and brought Edgartown great prosperity. Between 1835 and 1845 alone 110 captains of whaling ships lived in the city. Herman Melville was inspired to write his novel Moby Dick during his voyages with Captain Valentine Pease .

The largest company that indirectly profited from the whale catches was Dr. Daniel Fisher & Company on the corner of Pine and Main Streets. As a contractor for the lighthouses across Massachusetts, the company became the city's largest employer in the 1850s. The opulent villa of the company owner on Main Street is still impressive today.

Other industries, but far less important, were cooper , pulley manufacturers and shipbuilders . Trade with the West Indies and New England also contributed to the rapid development of the city , so that in the mid-19th century, whaling and the manufacture of products from beards and other by-products ranked third in the economic importance of Massachusetts after shoes and cotton .

During this period New Bedford was home to the world's largest whaling fleet, followed by Nantucket in Massachusetts and smaller ports such as Edgartown and Provincetown . At the height of commercial whaling around 1855, Bristol County (New Bedford and Fairhaven ) had 388 fishing vessels and 8,821 seafarers, Nantucket had 44 vessels and 1106 crew members, and Dukes County (Edgartown) had 12 vessels with 360 seafarers. Just ten years later, those numbers dropped to 193 ships with 2,843 employees in Bristol County and seven ships each with fewer than 200 sailors in Nantucket and Dukes Counties. Some companies moved their operations from Nantucket to Edgartown because the larger vessels used for longer fishing trips had difficulty in passing the sandbanks at the port entrance.

A variety of factors led to the decline of the whaling industry, and not just in Massachusetts. The main reason was the decline in whale populations, including in arctic waters, but the discovery of petroleum in 1859 in Pennsylvania as an inexpensive substitute for whale oil also contributed significantly. Other factors were the general decline in demand for whale products and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

1860 until today: tourism

With the decline of the whaling industry, Martha's Vineyard became increasingly popular as a summer getaway . As early as 1835 there were the first Methodist camps in the rural western part of Edgartown, which together with summer vacationers became so numerous by 1880 that the western part of the city split off as Cottage City ( Oak Bluffs since 1907 ).

Tourism did not reach Edgartown itself until around 1880, when numerous summer houses were built in the Starbuck's Neck area - named after the settler Samuel Starbuck, who bought the property in the 18th century. The builders were, on the one hand, the investors in building Cottage City, and on the other, wealthy families from Boston and New York . Today the cottage area extends from Lovewell House on North Water Street to Fuller Street in the east. The Harbor View Hotel, located directly on the harbor, was the first major hotel to be built in the historic district during this period. From the late 1920s to the early 1940s, many colonial revival style bungalows and buildings were erected to fill in the vacant lots between the older buildings. With the increase in building density, construction activities declined and were replaced by restoration of older buildings. Due to the financial strength of their owners, the houses and thus also the city of Edgartown itself have largely retained their 19th century character through ongoing, careful and accurate restorations.

Public buildings

There are six government-owned buildings within the district. The oldest is the Town Hall Edgartown Town Hall, a former, designed by Frederick Baylis Methodist Church built in 1828. It was originally in the Federal style built, but rebuilt in mid 19th century as part of the conversion to the town hall. In the 20th century, the first floor was rebuilt in the style of the Colonial Revival . Opposite City Hall is the Dukes County Courthouse. It was also designed by Frederick Baylis and built in 1859. The house has two floors and features elements of both Greek Revival and Italianate styles . The county jail was built in the Italianate style in the 1860s. The neo-renaissance style public library dates from the beginning of the 20th century. The other two buildings are the former fire station and today's police station from the early 20th century and the Edgartown Harbor Light .

There are still four school buildings from the 19th century in the district, but they are used for other purposes today. The Thaxter Academy, built in 1825, was built in the Federal Style, while the Davis Academy has a mix of the Federal and Greek Revival architectural styles. The former North Public Schools and South Public School were built in 1850 with elements of the Greek Revival and Italianate styles. The privately owned public buildings include six church buildings and the associated meetinghouses . These are shown in detail in the following table.

Church building in the historic district
Surname Construction year material architect Architectural style comment
Federated Church 1828 Wood Frederick Baylis Federal style , Adam style details After sample books of Asher Benjamin designed building.
Baptist Church 1839 Wood Frederick Baylis Greek Revival Temple-like entrance area with four columns in a Doric order .
Whaling Church 1842 Wood Frederick Baylis Greek Revival Temple-like entrance area with six columns in a Doric order.
St. Andrew's Episcopal Church 1899 stone Gothic revival Leaded glass window designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany .
St. Elizabeth's Roman Catholic Church 1933-1934 Wood Mission Revival
Parish hall Wood Victorian Used by the St. Elizabeth Ward and located on the corner of Pease's Point Way South and High Street.

Commercial building

Most of the properties in the commercial area in central Edgartown are former homes, some of which date back to the 19th century and are now used by commercial operations. However, there are no industrial buildings there.

Most of the buildings are made of wood and are free-standing, but at the same time they are built close together, giving the impression of row houses . From the 1830s, three houses in the Federal Style or in the Gothic Revival style have been preserved: the Gothic Hall, the former customs house and an unnamed building with a richly decorated carnies . One-story construction with gable facades and partly with artfully decorated, but simulated fronts, as can be seen, for example, in the Gouldey Office or in the Edgartown National Bank building from 1855, is characteristic of commercial properties of this time.

Commercial buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries used the same materials and were comparable in size to older buildings of this type, but had new decorative details. The house on the corner of Winter and North Water Street is the best preserved example of this , with its facade in Queen Anne style - supplemented by elements of arts and crafts . Completely new in this period were guest houses and hotels, of which the Harbor View Hotel on North Water Street, built around 1895 in Queen Anne style and still in existence today, was the largest.

Other buildings

Four museums can be visited within the district : the Bliss House on North Water Street (operated by Historic New England ), the Thomas Cooke House on Cooke Street (operated by the Dukes County Historical Society), the Vincent House between the Main Street and Pease's Point Way North (operated by the Martha's Vineyard Historic Preservation Society) and the Whaling Church, which was also restored in 1981 by the Martha's Vineyard Historic Preservation Society. With the exception of the museums mentioned, conservation measures in Edgartown are practically exclusively carried out by private individuals.

Streets and streets registered in the NRHP

The entry in the NRHP includes around 500 buildings that are divided into a large number of streets. The following table provides an overview of these.

Street Occupied area Number of buildings Architectural styles Special buildings source
Church Street 75,716  ft² (approx. 7,000  m² ) 7th Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Gothic Revival Police station
Cooke Street 256,789 ft² (approx. 23,900 m²) 26th Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Italianate , Queen-Anne , Contemporary Edgartown Yacht Club
Cottage Street 180,334 ft² (approx. 16,800 m²) 15th Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Gothic Revival , Victorian , Contemporary
Daggett Street 32,630 ft² (approx. 3,000 m²) 1 Colonial Revival
Davis Lane 91,788 ft² (approx. 8,500 m²) 8th Greek Revival , Federal Style , Shingle Style , Victorian , Contemporary
Dock Street 140,632 ft² (approx. 13,100 m²) 16 Colonial Revival , Federal Style , Contemporary Edgartown Yacht Club
Fuller Street 579,386 ft² (approx. 53,800 m²) 27 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Shingle Style , Victorian
Gaines Way 135,556 ft² (approx. 12,600 m²) 2 Arts and Crafts , Colonial Revival , Queen-Anne
Green Avenue 31,077 ft² (approx. 2,900 m²) 4th Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Contemporary , Victorian
High street 68,198 ft² (approx. 6,300 m²) 8th Arts and Crafts , Colonial Revival , Contemporary , Victorian
Kelley Street 26,902 ft² (approx. 2,500 m²) 2 Colonial Revival , Greek Revival , Contemporary
Main Street 812,250 ft² (approx. 75,500 m²) 60 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Mission Revival , Gothic Revival , Federal Style , Queen-Anne , Victorian , Contemporary Church Old Whaling Church , Town Hall (former. Methodist Church ), Court of Dukes County, prison Dukes County
Mayhew Lane 17,620 ft² (approx. 1,600 m²) 2 Contemporary
Mill Street 4,768 ft² (approx. 440 m²) 1 Greek Revival
Morse Street 204,801 ft² (approx. 19,000 m²) 22nd Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Victorian , Contemporary
North Summer Street 180,497 ft² (approx 16,800 m²) 20th Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Gothic Revival , Colonial Revival , Federal Style , Shingle Style , Contemporary
North Water Street 1,168,591 ft² (approx. 108,600 m²) 66 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Federal Style , Shingle Style , Queen-Anne , Italianate , Victorian , Georgian , Contemporary Edgartown Harbor Light , Public Library
Norton Street 73,705 ft² (approx. 6,800 m²) 11 Greek Revival , Victorian , Contemporary
Oliver Street 65,204 ft² (approx. 6,100 m²) 3 Greek Revival , Victorian
Pease's Point Way (North) 610,524 ft² (approx. 56,700 m²) 25th Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Gothic Revival , Colonial Revival , Queen-Anne , Victorian , Contemporary
Pease's Point Way (South) 551,440 ft² (approx. 51,200 m²) 15th Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Italianate , Second Empire , Victorian , Contemporary graveyard
Pent Lane 19,109 ft² (approx. 1,800 m²) 4th Greek Revival , Contemporary
Pierce Lane 12,150 ft² (approx. 1,100 m²) 1 Greek Revival
Planting Field Way 33,708 ft² (approx. 3,100 m²) 3 Greek Revival
School Street 268,991 ft² (approx. 25,000 m²) 28 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Federal Style , Italianate , Egyptian Revival , Queen-Anne , Georgian , Victorian , Contemporary
Simpson's Lane 79,290 ft² (approx. 7,400 m²) 10 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Federal Style , Contemporary
Sheriff's Lane 12,236 ft² (approx. 1,100 m²) 1 Contemporary
South Summer Street 301,344 ft² (approx. 28,000 m²) 32 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Gothic Revival , Federal Style , Italianate , Queen-Anne , Second Empire , Georgian , Victorian , Contemporary
South Water Street 649,640 ft² (approx. 60,400 m²) 48 Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Federal Style , Shingle-Style , Italianate , Queen-Anne , Georgian , Victorian , Contemporary
Starbuck Neck Road 320,918 ft² (approx. 29,800 m²) 6th Arts and Crafts , Colonial Revival , Shingle-Style , Queen-Anne
Thayer Street 43,400 ft² (approx. 4,000 m²) 2 Greek Revival , Colonial Revival , Contemporary
Tilton Way 37,579 ft² (approx. 3,500 m²) 5 Contemporary
West Tisbury Road 56,628 ft² (approx. 5,300 m²) 1 Contemporary
Winter Street 56,628 ft² (approx. 5,300 m²) 10 Arts and Crafts , Greek Revival , Federal Style , Victorian ,

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved April 15, 2008.
  2. ↑ a b c cf. Fitch et al., P. 2.
  3. ↑ a b cf. Fitch et al., P. 3.
  4. ↑ a b cf. Fitch et al., P. 13.
  5. ↑ a b c cf. Fitch et al., P. 14.
  6. ↑ a b c cf. Fitch et al., P. 15.
  7. ↑ a b c d cf. Fitch et al., P. 16.
  8. ↑ a b c cf. Fitch et al., P. 17.
  9. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 18.
  10. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 9.
  11. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 10.
  12. ↑ a b c cf. Fitch et al., P. 11.
  13. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 12.
  14. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 22.
  15. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 23-25.
  16. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 26 f.
  17. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 28.
  18. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 29.
  19. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 30 f.
  20. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 32-35.
  21. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 36.
  22. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 37.
  23. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 38.
  24. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 39.
  25. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 40-45.
  26. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 46.
  27. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 47.
  28. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 48-50.
  29. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 51 f.
  30. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 53-59.
  31. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 60.
  32. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 61.
  33. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 62-64.
  34. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 65 f.
  35. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 67.
  36. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 68.
  37. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 69.
  38. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 70-72.
  39. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 73 f.
  40. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 75.
  41. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 76-79.
  42. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., Pp. 80-84.
  43. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 85.
  44. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 86.
  45. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 87.
  46. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 88.
  47. ↑ cf. Fitch et al., P. 89.

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