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NATIONAL REGISTER CRITERIA STATEMENT (if applicable) <br /> The Aaron Parker Richardson House has integrity of location, design, materials, <br /> and feeling . under Criterion C, the house has distinctive characteristics of <br /> form and construction reflective of mid-nineteenth century vernacular building <br /> practices in Lexington. The house is an example of the side hall , double- <br /> parlor plan - a plan type which appeared relatively belatedly in Lexington, <br /> where the two-cell , lobby-entry house predominated until the 1830s. <br /> Only a small number of structures of this plan type and associated simple (Cont . ) <br /> ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE Describe important architectural features and evaluate in terms of <br /> other buildings within the community. <br /> The Aaron P. Richardson House is a two and one-half story, side hall plan <br /> house with gable end toward the street . The Richardson House is a vernacular <br /> building with massing and trim influenced by the Greek Revival style. The <br /> exterior is clapboarded. Trim consists of plain corner boards, simple window <br /> and door frames and a single story porch across the facade fitted with three <br /> panelled posts. Fenestration is double hung wooden sash with narrow muntins. <br /> First-floor windows on the facade are taller than the others, reflecting the <br /> parlor function of the interior space. Second-story window frames retain an <br /> echinus-molded backhand, possibly the configuration of all window frames initial. <br /> The upper story on the Waltham Street side retains early, if not original, <br /> skived clapboards. Elsewhere clapboards are more recent, having butt ends and <br /> wider weathers. (Continued) <br /> HI'70RICAL SIGNIFICANCE Explain the role owners played in local or state history and how the <br /> building relates to the development of the community. <br /> The house was built between 1853 and 1875 . It does not appear on the. 1853 Map, <br /> but it is shown on the 1875 Map under the ownership of Aaron Parker Richardson. <br /> Aaron Parker Richardson, born in Methuen in 1791 , moved to Lexington in 1820. <br /> He married into the locally prominant Reed family in 1823. Richardson ' s <br /> occupation has not been identified. The 1875 Map shows him, however, to have <br /> been the owner of four houses and half a dozen sizeable parcels of land. <br /> Richardson died in 1874, and his property, including the house at 72 Waltham <br /> Street, was inherited by his son, Chandler R. Richardson, a civil engineer <br /> and surveyor. After Chandler' s death in 1897, the property passed to <br /> Bradley C. Whitcher, local grain dealer. <br /> The house at 72 Waltham Street was apparently occupied much of the 19th century <br /> by tenants, and was not the principal residence of any of its first three <br /> owners. Mrs. Charles Wetherbee, a widow, occupied the house in 1887, for <br /> example. (Continued) <br /> 9 <br /> BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES <br /> Please ,see attached bibliography. <br /> 8/85 <br />