Bridgewater Iron Mfg. Company Worker Housing
120 Oak St
1850
Architectural Style
Italianate, Queen Anne
Significance
Architecture, Industry
Use Type
Single Family Dwelling House, Workers Housing
Neighborhood
Bridgewater Industrial/Transportation Corridor
Massachusetts Historical Commission Report
Architectural Significance
Although 120 Oak St. appears to be a late 19th century Italianate/Queen Anne cottage, maps indicate a building on this property as early as 1830.
Historical Significance
Together with unspoiled pre-1900 landscape features, this property provides a glimpse of a 19th century Bridgewater iron worker's homestead. Its land is hemmed in between the Old Colony R.R. tracks and the meandering path of the Town River. To the immediate west of this property is the picturesque stone Oak St. bridge. In 1830 a house on this site belonged to an I. Fish. During the 1850s the house on this lot was owned by Lazell, Perkins and Co. This house was probably built during this company's 1846-1860 expansion. The coming-of the Old Colony R.R. to Bridgewater in 1846 linked Bridgewater industries more closely with outside markets—by the 1850s Lazell Perkins employed 250 hands and annually produced 50,000 casks and 3,000-4,000 tons of machinery, plates etc. By the 1870s this house was owned by L&P's successor firm—The Bridgewater Iron Mfg. Co. During the early 1900s Patrick A. Reynolds, engineer at the Bridgewater Water Co. lived here.