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University Green Area Heritage Study

Historic Burlington Research Project - HP 206

Historic Preservation Program - University of Vermont
About the project
List of buildings and objects
About the University Green
About buildings on:
University Place
Main Street
South Prospect Street
South Williams Street
Pearl Street
Colchester Avenue
College Street

Area map
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Moore-Woodbury House
416 Pearl Street

View of Moore-Woodbury House looking north-west. Image by Rachel J. Peterson

The home at 416 Pearl Street, also known as the Moore-Woodbury House, is a two-and-a-half story, brick building with a large veranda on the west elevation.  However, a Birds-Eye View map from 1877 shows the structure as a 2 story building with a hipped roof giving evidence of considerable additions.  A Hopkins map from 1890 shows the house with an addition to the north elevation.(1) The veranda was added by 1906, as it appears on Sandborn Insurance Maps from that year.(2)  By 1926, a porch was also added to the north end.(3)

The history of the residents of the Moore-Woodbury house also has a varied past.  It was originally built in 1813, just after the war concluded, by George Moore, a local merchant.(4)  In 1841, Moore died leaving the property to his some, Horace Loomis Moore.(5)  It was then sold to Urban A. Woodbury.  He would later become the mayor of Burlington and eventually the Governor of Vermont.  Woodbury updated the home to include more Victorian style features.(6)  Due to Woodbury’s high social status, the home regularly saw important visitors.  A plaque on the front door states that it even received three different presidents, William McKinley in 1897, William Taft in 1900, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1902.(7)  Woodbury left the home in the care of Peter E Durham, caretaker from 1916-1921, but it was sold to Mrs. Pauline Woodbury in 1917.(8)  She owned it through 1933.(9) It sat vacant for the years of 1934 and 1935 and then, like most of the buildings surrounding the University, it was converted into rental units.(10)

It saw many different kinds of people: salesmen, University of Vermont affiliates, health professionals, etc…(11) Beginning in the 1960s, the vast majority of tenants were students or teachers at the University of Vermont.(12) Currently, the home is in a sorry state.  Years of renting have left it in disrepair – certainly not a state befitting its former grandeur.

Text by Rachel J Peterson

(1)Hopkins Map, Burlington, Vermont, 1890. 
(2)Sanborn Insurance Map, Burlington, VT. 1906, Sheet 33.
(3)Sanborn Insurance Map, Burlington, VT. 1926, Sheet 30.
(4)Look Around Burlington Vermont. (Burlington, VT: Chittenden County Historical Society, 1972), 5.
(5)Ibid.
(6)Ibid.
(7)Ibid.
(8)Burlington and Winooski Vermont Directory, (H.A. Manning Co., 1916); Burlington and Winooski Vermont Directory, (H.A. Manning Co., 1917); Burlington and Winooski Vermont Directory, (Springfield, MA: H.A. Manning Co. , 1921)
(9)Manning's Burlington, Winooski and Essex Junction Vermont Directory, (Springfield, MA: H.A. Manning Company, 1933).
(10)Manning's Burlington, Winooski, and Essex Junction Vermont Directory, (Springfield, MA: H.A. Manning Co., 1934)
(11)Manning's Burlington, Winooski, and Essex Junction Vermont Directory, (H.A. Manning Co., 1944)
(12)Manning's Burlington, Winooski, and Essex Junction Vermont Directory, (H.A. Manning Co., 1961)