Hastings - Barstow House
120 Pleasant St
1860
Architectural Style
Italianate
Significance
Architecture
Use Type
Single Family Dwelling House
Neighborhood
Bridgewater Town Center
Massachusetts Historical Commission Report
Architectural Significance
This sprawling Italianate residence is one of the largest mid-19th c. residences in Bridgewater. Presently covered with wood shingles and enclosed by a gable roof, its Pleasant Street elevation is composed of a north wing, angled mid-section (originally crowned by a louvred cupola), 2-bay end wall gable with a polygonal bay and a north wing. An encircling entrance veranda appears at the southeast corner. Although this house's Italianate stable is no longer extant, it does retain Victorian landscape features, including an eliptical driveway and granite fence posts.
Historical Significance
This house was apparently built c. 1850 for R.L. Hastings (presumably a farmer) and was probably enlarged c. 1865 by Captain Edwin W. Barstow. For 30 years, Capt. Barstow was a well known ship master and merchant who was based in New York City. He commanded the ship "Bridgewater" and was early in life acquainted with Bridgewater. Barstow's house was a local landmark—a drawing of the house appears on one of the border panels of O.H. Bailey's Bird's-eye view map of Bridgewater (1887). Capt. Barstow died in Bridgewater on May 16, 1877. By the 1890's Fred L. Emerson, superintendant of the W.H. McElwain Co., lived here. Founded in 1894 and located on Perkins Ave., the McElwain Co. was a shoe manufacturing concern—it was the predecessor firm of the Thom McAnn Shoe Co. in Manchester, N.H. The 1903 Atlas indicates that a large greenhouse was located to the rear of this house.