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186 South Willard Street 1850   By Eric L. Martin

Built in 1850 by Lemuel W. Page, a partner in the dry goods mercantile firm of Page & Best, this Greek Revival style house occupies land that Henry Leavenworth subdivided from the Grasse Mount property between 1845 and 1853. On March 16, 1859, Page sold it for $2,600 to Judge Davis Rich of Shoreham, who gave the house to his daughter, Lucina Dewey, wife of Archibald S. Dewey, a local merchant. In May of the same year John Dewey, the famous philosopher, was born here (1). Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Archibald S. Dewey, then fifty years old, joined the army in September 1861, and the family moved out (2). In 1869 George G. Benedict purchased the home and sold it ten years later to Charles F. Wheeler, proprietor of a clothing store on Church Street (3). Upon Wheeler's death in 1898, ownership of the property passed to his three children, Mary, Margaret, and Frank Wheeler; the house was alternately vacant and occupied by renters until Mary Wheeler moved into the house in 1903 (4). She and her new husband, Kenneth Hosmer, lived here in 1907, before moving to Fitchberg, Massachusetts, the next year (5). In 1912 H. Nelson and Bertha Wells Jackson, who lived up the street at 158 South Willard Street, purchased the property for $5,400 (6). The Jacksons used this as a rental property until selling it to Dr. Hiram and Doris Upton in 1942 (7). Following Dr. Upton's death, his widow sold the house to another physician, Dr. H. Carmer and Elizabeth S. Van Buren in 1965 for $35,000; the current owners, Paul G. and Nancy S. Cotton, purchased the property in 1995 for $320,000 (8). In contrast to most other structures documented herein, this house continues to be a single family, owner occupied residence.