Gay - Leavitt House
120 Main St
1872
Architectural Style
Italianate
Significance
Architecture
Use Type
Single Family Dwelling House
Neighborhood
Bridgewater Town Center
Massachusetts Historical Commission Report
Architectural Significance
#120 Main Street is one of Bridgewater's best preserved examples of an early 1870s Italianate house. This well-detailed house possesses an irregular plan—projecting from its walls are polygonal bays with narrow windows and bracketed cornices. To the rear is a 2-story ell which is linked with a similarly rendered Italianate stable. Particularly noteworthy is the main facade's veranda with champfered posts, curvilinear bracing and brackets with Gothicized tracery. Windows are fully enframed and cornice headed. This house has a gable roof with return eaves and brackets.
Historical Significance
#120 Main Street was apparently built as a retirement home for Rev. Ebenezer Gay (see p. 220 Highlights of History, Bridgewater, MA, 1976, Mrs. E.B. Hull's account of 19th c. Bridgewater). Born in Walpole, October 11, 1792, Rev. Gay graduated from Harvard in 1814. He was the first minister of the Trinitarian Church at Scotland, Bridgewater (1823-1842). After 1842 he preached in various Bridgewater churches on a temporary basis. In later years he was active in local educational concerns. He was a member of the school board and a trustee of Bridgewater Academy. He moved to Tomkins Cove, New York in 1876. By 1879, #120 was owned by Calvin Leavitt, a farmer. In 1890 Calvin's widow, Sarah, John and David W. Leavitt (farmers) are listed here. By 1900 George Hunt, physician, owned this house.