Former/original name: A.P. Lowell House
Built: circa 1881
Builder/architect: attributed to A.P. Lowell
Appearing on the 1890 map of Burlington1 this was one of the first houses on Mansfield Avenue, built as a residence for Albert P. Lowell – a carpenter and joiner – and his family.2 In 1909 Lowell sold it to UVM math professor Archibald Daniels, who was dubbed the "original absent-minded professor."3 Despite this moniker, Daniels was reportedly a famed mathematician whose tenure at UVM lasted 29 years and whose name appeared in the Who's Who in America.4 He died in this house in July 1918 at the age of 69.5
The house then passed to John O'Neill, who sold it in 1919 to Frank Aubery Dresser.6 Dresser achieved national recognition for his advancements in leg braces and supports for those crippled by polio.7 Dresser and his wife, Effie, opened their home up as a boarding house to female students.8 Frank died in 1939 and the following year, UVM acquired the home from his widow and converted it into "Dresser Cottage" - a cooperative dormitory.9 Effie remained in the home as house mother until 1944, when UVM closed the Dresser Cottage and turned offered it to incoming economics professor George H. Hand.10 In 1946 another economics professor, Philip Lohman was listed as living in here. (Effie apparently moved to a new position as in-house director of Sanders Hall, a women's dormitory on College Street.)11
Lohman's tenure at UVM lasted 18 years, and his family is last listed at 49 Mansfield in 1965; in 1967 the house was home to writer/consultant Donald G. Sanders; then in 1973 the house passed to Susan Whitebook,12 professor of French at UVM, who (in 2004, and now retired) is still listed at this address.13
Compiled by Liisa Reimann, Fall 2004
1. G. M. Hopkins, C.E., Map of the City of Burlington, Vermont,
From official Records, Private Plans and Actual Surveys (Philadelphia:
Hopkins, 1890).
2. Blow, David, Historic Guide to Burlington Neighborhoods, VII (Chittenden
County Historical Society, 1997), 62-64.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13. Verizon Corporation, Burlington-Middlebury Area Superpages, July
2004 (Verizon Corporation), 380.