455 - 480 North Avenue, photograph by Louis McAllister, 1931

GPS reading: 18T 0640806, UTM 4928153

This photograph shows the view from the center of North Avenue looking north; the Lake View Cemetery property is on the left. Lake View Cemetery was developed in the late 1860s in response to a shortage of space at the City’s other burial grounds. Lake View was part of a nation-wide trend toward more park-like cemeteries.[1] The architect, E.C. Ryer was hired to design the cemetery, a design that came to include numerous winding paths, lawns and scenic views.[2] Soon after its dedication in 1871, the cemetery became the most prestigious burial place in the city.[3]

The house visible on the left, 455 North Avenue, was built in 1872, just a year after the dedication of Lake View Cemetery, to serve as a residence for the cemetery sexton. Burlington’s Annual Report for 1871 shows that E.C. Ryer, the architect who laid out the cemetery, was paid $55 to draw up plans for the house (and barn). This gable-front Gothic Revival house has a cruciform plan. Details include decorative barge boards and oculus windows in the gables. The Historic Sites and Structures survey for this property states that the house was built in 1860 and moved sometime around1925, but a request for funding to build the house appears in Burlington’s Annual Report for 1872 and, while summaries of work done on the house appear in Annual Reports for ensuing years, there is no mention of moving the house in any Annual Report from 1921 through 1930. The iron fence was installed along the property in 1908.[4] When this photograph was taken, Walter R. Clayland, superintendent of cemeteries lived at this address.[5]

On the right is a row of four single-family houses. The closest, 468 North Avenue was built in or around 1879.[6] It appears on the 1890 Hopkins map associated with the name Charles Chritchlow and it is Chritchlow who seems to have been the first resident here.[7] The house is a two-story, gable-front structure with molded cornices and gable returns. In 1931, when McAllister took these photographs, a widow, Mrs. Hazel A. McGrath, lived at this address.

Just beyond 468, is 472 North Avenue, a 1 ½-story gable-front house. This home appears on the 1890 Hopkins map of Burlington, but has no name associated with it. The year the photograph was taken, Mrs. Margaret Moylen, a widow, was in residence there.[8]

Both 476 and 480 North Avenue seem to have been built in 1922 or early 1923. These gable-front and wing plan houses were built as mirror images of each other. The house at 476, has a side entry porch on the south side, 480 has a similar porch on the north side. In 1931 a retiree named Joseph Terry lived at 476 and Patrick H. McGuire, a bricklayer, lived at 480.[9]

[1] Douglas S. Terpstra, Howard Mortuary Chapel nomination for the National Register of Historic Places, 1998, section 8, 3-5.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] City of Burlington, Annual Report of the City of Burlington, Vermont: for the Year Ending 1908, 133.

[5] Burlington City Directory, 1931.

[6] Amanda Ciampolillo, North Avenue, Burlington 1890 website, www.uvm.edu/%&Ehp206/2004-1890/burlington1890/website/aciampol/northavenue.

[7] Burlington City Directory, 1879.

[8] Burlington City Directory, 1931.

[9] Ibid.

455 - 480 North Avenue, photograph by T. N. Martin, 2005

GPS reading: 18T 0640806, UTM 4928153

All the buildings visible in McAllister’s photograph still stand today, even the driveways appear to be in the same locations. The power poles are still on the same side of the road and are not dissimilar in height to those appearing in McAllister’s image. The iron fence running along the cemetery property is intact, but the tall canopy of the elms is gone. In its place, shorter, broadly branching trees block the view of the houses along this stretch of North Avenue.

The individual houses have undergone significant change since the McAllister image was made. The house at 468 is still sheathed with clapboards, but the front half of the side porch has been enclosed and false shutters have been added at the windows. Its neighbor to the north, 472, has been sided, but retains its slate roof. The original wood porch posts and railing at this house have been replaced with iron and latticework. Just beyond 472, 476 North Avenue, has had its clapboards replaced with siding as has its mirror image at 480 North Avenue. The house at 476 has also had all its original windows replaced and its screened-in side porch completely enclosed.