William Rotch, Jr. House

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West view of the house (2008)

The William Rotch, Jr. House , now the Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum, is a National Historic Landmark (NHL) at 396 County Street in New Bedford , Massachusetts . The three families whose names are associated with the house all had close ties to the whaling past that dominated the town in the 19th century. For this reason, the house is also part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park .

Richard Upjohn built the Greek Revival house for William Rotch, Jr. in 1834 on property in New Bedford that Rotch inherited from his father. It was the first house Upjohn built at the start of a long career. Rotch had also commissioned a garden behind the house, which, however, was significantly changed by the later owners. The property remained privately owned until 1981, when a group of local conservationists bought it and then opened it to the public as a historical museum. It became an NHL in 2005 and thus entered the National Register of Historic Places . The museum teaches visitors not only about whaling, but also about the environment and includes the garden. There are integrated programs for the local schools.

estate

The house is on a block in New Bedford and bordered by County, Madison, Joli Gonsalves, and Seventh Streets. The property is one acre and forms the center of the County Street Historic District , which is home to a number of 19th century homes for affluent residents. The two-story, yellow building is a three to five yokes comprehensive building with a front porch and a balcony with balustrade at both ends. There are several tall chimneys on the roof . Inside, most of the original doors are mahogany and its veneer of walnut survived -Holz. The corner stones and bases of the house have elliptical shaped profiles of the type commonly used in Greek Revival houses. The window bars have a flanged leaf profile and the tiled ceiling cornices and medallions are also provided with finely drawn ornaments .

The garden

A round driveway leads to the house, which is set back about 14 m from the street and thus enables the outbuildings. The garden brings together elements from all three of its private owners: a formal boxwood garden with tall dragon root , a boxwood pattern garden, cut plant garden, and a woodland walkway with a 19th-century latticework pergola .

history

Joseph Rotch, Williams' grandfather, was one of the first settlers in New Bedford when New Bedford began to emerge in the 1760s. Together with Joseph Russell, he had recognized that the city was conveniently located to become a whaling center that could also replace the then center of the whaling industry in the New World in Nantucket . In contrast to the island, the port of New Bedford was deep enough that ocean-going ships could sail directly to the port and have their cargo unloaded.

Despite some setbacks during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 , the city's whaling fleet grew and caught up with Nantucket's by the late 1820s. Ship captains and owners grew wealthy and built houses in the County Street area. "Nowhere in all of America," wrote Herman Melville in his book Moby Dick , "can you find more patrician houses, the parks and gardens are more opulent than in New Bedford" The Rotches, who practiced vertical integration and at every stage of the whaling and processing process Had a share became very wealthy.

Joseph's son, William Rotch, died in 1828, leaving his own son, William Jr., the land on which the present house was built. Three years later, the inheritance was formally transferred to the younger man, who at the time was already respected in the city's bourgeois life because he was involved in the establishment of banks and schools. He hired young English immigrant Richard Upjohn to build a house on the property and instructed him to be more modest and more cautious about construction than the neighbors, even though he was the third richest man in town after his late father and brother-in-law. As one of the founders of the New Bedford Horticultural Society , he started the model garden at the back of the property.

In 1851 New Bedford had replaced Nantucket as the center of American whaling. That year Edward Coffin Jones, who moved to New Bedford from Nantucket and became a successful shipowner, bought the house for $ 17,000 . The Jones family expanded the garden and built the pergola. One of the daughters, Amelia Hickling Jones, lived here for the next 85 years and became one of the greatest benefactors in New Bedford City as it gradually shifted from whaling to the textile industry. Hickling Jones had no heirs and so the property was offered for sale after her death in 1935.

Mark Duff, a descendant of one of New Bedford's whaling dynasties, who moved to other businesses in time, bought the house in 1936. Under the direction of landscape designer Mrs. John Coolidge, the Duffs redesigned the garden and planted more than 7,000 tulip bulbs . They also added the walkways and the ornamental plant borders.

The Duffs decided to sell the property in 1981. It was then purchased by the Waterfront Area Historic LEague (WHALE), a local heritage conservation group that played a major role in the restoration and establishment of the nearby New Bedford Historic District . WHALE's goal was to protect the house from commercial development and to turn it into a museum together with the garden. The museum opened in 1983. In 1996, it became the only urban property outside of the New Bedford Historic District to be included in the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park , and in February 2006 the house and garden themselves were listed as a National Historic Landmark. The house is significant because it is part of the city's legacy of whaling, because it is a standout example of the Greek Revival, and because it is the first Upjohn-built house.

See also

Web links

Commons : William Rotch, Jr. House  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Rotch, William, Jr. House ( English ) In: National Historic Landmark summary listing . National Park Service. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
  2. ↑ National Register Information System ( English ) In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. Retrieved October 16, 2015.
  3. ↑ Kathryn Grover, Derek J. Santos, Carolyn Pitts and Patty Henry: National Historic Landmark Nomination: Rotch, William Jr., House / Rotch-Jones-Duff House ( English , PDF; 907 kB) National Park Service. January 3, 2004. Retrieved March 8, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b c "The House" ( English ) Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
  5. ↑ a b c d The Gardens ( English ) Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
  6. ^ Melville, Herman , Moby-Dick , chapter 6 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e The Families ( English ) Rotch-Jones-Duff House and Garden Museum. Archived from the original on July 20, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2008.
  8. ↑ Pamela Marean: Shedding light on William Rotch Jr . In: The Standard-Times , Ottaway Community Newspapers , July 20, 2008. Retrieved September 1, 2008. " By 1828 he was one of the three wealthiest men in the city - with the other two being his father and brother-in- law . " 
  9. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 12, 2019.

Coordinates: 41 ° 37 ′ 49 ″  N , 70 ° 55 ′ 42 ″  W.