'''FORM B − BUILDING'''
Massachusetts Historical Commission
Massachusetts Archives Building
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Photograph
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'''Locus Map''' (''North is up'')
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| '''Recorded by: Jennifer B. Doherty''' |
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| '''Organization: Medford Historical Commission''' |
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| '''Date:''' ''March, 2015'' |
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Assessor’s Number USGS Quad Area(s) Form Number
{| | L – 08 – 30 | | Boston North | | M | | MDF.379 |}
NRDIS (4/21/1975); LHD (2/15/1985)
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| '''Town/City:''' Medford |
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| '''Place:''' Medford Square [[Category:Medford Square]] |
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| '''Address:''' 20 Hillside Avenue |
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| '''Historic Name:''' Hervey - Seaburg House |
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| '''Uses:''' '''Present: Single-family Residential [[Category:Single-family Residential]]''' |
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'''Original: Single-family Residential [[Category:Single-family Residential]]'''|- | '''Date of''' '''Construction:''' 1889-1898 |- | '''Source:''' Maps |- | '''Style/Form:''' Queene Anne [[Category:Shingle Style/Queen Anne]] end house |- | '''Architect/Builder:''' John W. Russell, architect |- | '''Exterior Material:''' |- |
'''Foundation: Cut stone'''|- |
'''Wall/Trim: Painted wood shingle'''|- |
'''Roof: Asphalt [[Category:Roof:Asphalt]] shingle'''|- | '''Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:''' None |- | '''Major Alterations:''' Unknown |- | '''Condition:''' Excellent |- | '''Moved: no''' '''yes''' '''Date:''' |- | '''Acreage:''' 0.08 A |- | '''Setting: In a densely-settled neighborhood of large, contemporaneous Colonial Revival [[Category:Colonial Revival]] and Queene Anne [[Category:Shingle Style/Queen Anne]] single-family houses. The neighborhood’s steep hillside location provides views down into Medford and Boston.''' |}
Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
''If checked, you must attach a completed National Register Criteria Statement form.''
'''''Use as much space as necessary to complete the following entries, allowing text to flow onto additional continuation sheets.'''''
'''ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION:'''
''Describe architectural features. Evaluate the characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within the community.''
''The Nels H. Seaburg House is aesthetically similar to the contemporaneous house to its immediate south, 16 Hillside Avenue (MDF.281). But unlike its neighbor, the Seaburg House is a large two-and-a-half story end house, a very popular house form usually employing a variation of the side-passage plan. The Seaburg House is a simplified example of the half-timbered Queene Anne [[Category:Shingle Style/Queen Anne]] style, with detailing reminiscent of the related Tudor style. The house sits on a cut stone foundation, is covered in painted wood shingles, and has an asphalt shingle roof.''
''The Seaburg house has a single-story porch with a flat roof across the main façade. The porch is supported by simple, thick, square columns, and has a square railing and balusters. The main entry of the house is in the right bay of the main façade; to the left is a single-story polygonal bay. A second polygonal bay is centered on the south elevation; in this case two stories tall and capped by a gable roof. On the north elevation, a window between stories suggests the location of a set of stairs. The windows on the house are original sash protected by storm windows. Most are eight-over-two sash, although eight-over one and six-over-one are also visible. Two of the sash on the north elevation in an attic shed dormer are fixed, with decorative diamond panes. As noted above, the house has half-timbering in the main gable end, which overhangs the main façade, and in the gable that covers the polygonal bay on the south elevation. The main gable is supported on either end by plain thick, curved brackets. The main façade treatment is identical to that found on the house to the south at 16 Hillside Avenue.''
''Sited on the west side of Hillside Avenue, the Seaburg House faces southeast across the street. It is on a small lot, and unlike several of the other houses in the neighborhood, does not have a garage or a driveway on the property.''
'''HISTORICAL NARRATIVE'''
''Discuss the history of the building. Explain its associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community.''
''The subject property is located within the original boundaries of the estate of Thatcher Magoun (1775-1856), the well-documented ship builder and Boston shipping merchant, as it appeared in 1855.''See: Glenn A. Knoblock, ''The American Clipper Ship, 1845-1920'' (McFarland & Company, 2014) pp. 299-300; Fred H.C. Wooley, “Old Ship Street: Some of its Houses, Ships and Characters,” ''Medford Historical Register, Vol. 4'' (Medford Historical Society, 1901); Samuel Elliot Morrison, ''The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860'' (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1921) pp. 102-103. ''By 1875 Hillside Avenue had been constructed to serve a subdivision located on the south slope of Pasture Hill that remained in the ownership of Thatcher Magoun, Jr. (1808-1883), a business partner of his father, and his sister, Mrs. Martha Bradshaw Magoun Adams (1812-1885). The subdivision was slow to develop, however. No buildings had been constructed on Hillside Avenue as late as 1889, by which time the former Magoun land west of the avenue had been sold to Frank Hervey (1838 – Feb. 10, 1918).''
''Frank Hervey was a prominent local merchant and proprietor of the Boston Branch grocery at 11 Main Street between 1890 until at least 1916, he later brought his nephew, Edgar J. Hervey, who took over management and changed the name to Edgar J. Hervey Co. upon his uncle’s retirement. Frank Hervey was also a veteran of the Civil War.''Enlisted in Company F, Mass. 5th Infantry Regiment on 23 Sep., 1862, mustered out Jul. 2, 1863: Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the Civil War, Mass. GAR Journal of the Annual Encampment. ''As early as 1890 Frank Hervey resided at 4 Hillside Avenue, today 26 Hillside Avenue (MDF.381). By 1898 Hervey had constructed two other houses on his property at numbers 16 and 20.''
''Deeds show that Frank Hervey’s nephew Edgar J. owned the Nels H. Seaburg House during the early part of the 20th century. However directories and census records indicate that Edgar rented out the house, as a number of different residents are listed at the address, and Edgar lived elsewhere in the neighborhood. The 1900 census shows Charles B. Buss, a banker, at the address along with his wife, adult son and daughter, and a Canadian servant. The house does not appear to have been enumerated in the 1910 census. The 1920 census lists Gurden E. Fuller, his wife, son, and a lodger at the address. Fuller was a tailor, and their lodger, Arthur W. Johnson, was a teacher at the high school. The Fullers later moved elsewhere in the neighborhood.''
''Nels Henry Seaburg (21 August 1894 – 22 July 1955) and his family occupied the house for the middle part of the 20th century.''Birth and death dates from Seaburg’s Mason membership card. ''Seaburg purchased the house from Edgar J. Hervey in 1922, a year after his marriage to Eva S. (d. 1959). Seaburg is listed in directories from the 1930s and 1940s as a clerk and an office manager working in Boston. In addition to the family house on Hillside Avenue, the Seaburgs also had a summer residence in Gloucester, as evidenced by directories from there in the 1930s. The Seaburgs are shown on the 1930 and 1940 census at their house on Hillside Avenue, along with their children, Carl G. and twins Nancy E. and Alan L. Although Mr. and Mrs. Seaburg died in the 1950s, the Seaburg children held on to the family house for a few years before selling it in 1965 to new owners.''
''The Nels H. Seaburg House is part of the Hillside Avenue Historic District [[Category:Hillside Avenue Historic District]], which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on April 21, 1975 and which was made a local historic district on February 15, 1985.''
''John W. Russell, probable architect''
''A 1970s area form of the Hillside Avenue Historic District [[Category:Hillside Avenue Historic District]] identifies John W. Russell as the architect of both 16 and 20 Hillside Avenue, both similar architecturally and both constructed for Frank Hervey, suggesting Russell designed all three. Directories from the time show that Russell lived in Medford and had an office on Tremont Street in Boston. John W. Russell (b. c. 1852) resided in a boarding house at 68 Ashland Street between 1890 and 1930. He maintained offices in Boston at 5 Pemberton Square during the 1890s and 110 Tremont Street between 1920 and 1930. Although little is known regarding Russell’s training, his partner between 1905 and 1927, Henry Preston Clark (1853-1927) was educated at M.I.T. and the Academy des Beaux Arts in Paris, the pinnacle of architectural training worldwide during the late-19th century. The firm received commissions for a number of high-profile buildings and residences in the region, including the Public Library of Hyde Park at 35 Harvard Avenue, Boston (BOS.10957), 15 Channing Place, Cambridge (1899), the W.C. English House (1912), the Teresa A. Crowley House (1909, 86 Dean Road, BKL.1533) and the Hermann F. Clarke House (1916, 420 Warren Street, BKL.1276), the last three in Brookline.''BOS.10957
'''BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES'''
''Maps''
1889 Geo. H. Walker & Co. ''Atlas of Middlesex County, Massachusetts.''
1898 Geo. W. Stadly & Co. ''Atlas of the City of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.''
''Published Sources''
''1900, 1920, 1930, 1940 federal census.''
''Gloucester house directories from the 1930s.''
''Medford City Directories, 1930, 1936, 1938.''
''Unpublished Sources''
''Middlesex South Registry of Deeds Book 4519, Page 511; 10814, 44; 12007, 587.''
[[File:media/image3.png|573x381px]]
''The main façade and north elevation of the Nels H. Seaburg House''