The Deacon Willard Lewis House

The Deacon Willard Lewis House. Built ca. 1826. , Horatio Wood built this house for Harlow and Sylvia (Fales) Lawrence on a portion of the property Wood and Lawrence had purchased together in 1824. The Lawrences and their children lived in the house until 1830, when they moved next door to be nearer his mill. By 1850, Edmund W. and Achsah (Hawes) Clap (Clapp) owned and lived in the house with their daughter, Fannie. In 1864, Deacon Willard Lewis (1808-1892) and his second wife, Joanna Plimpton (1817-1906) bought the house from the Claps and moved in with their children, Clara and Willard. Lewis was a deacon in the Orthodox Christian Church (formerly at 937 East Street). In 1863, Lewis had moved his cotton batting mill from Morey's (Turner's) Pond to a nearby privilege on the Neponset River, previously the site of Harlow Lawrence's cotton thread mill. After a fire at the mill, Lewis built the first brick mill building in town at present day 75 West Street. Eventually the mill comprised several buildings in back of the Lewis house. In the early 20th century that mill became the Kendall Company., The ell of this house may be Walpole's first school house (circa 1757), possibly on its original foundation. In about 1822 a new (second) school house was built just to the north of this house; about that time Horatio Wood may have added the main section of the house onto that first school building. The features, materials and construction of the ell seem to predate those of the main part of this house., Later in the 20th century, the house was owned by Kendall Company and leased out; it had been painted red and referred to as the "Big Red House." In 1973, the house, in danger of being torn down, instead was donated to the town for historical purposes, in time for the town's 250th anniversary in 1974. The Walpole Historical Society now has several rooms with museum displays and period furnishings, a research library and extensive archives on Walpole history in the building. Since 1975, it has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places., Information from A History of Walpole Mass by Isaac Newton Lewis (1905) and Karl West's "History of the Walpole Schools" in Once Told Tales of Walpole (1990); Roger F. Turner Jr. Fund for historical signage in Walpole and the Walpole Historical Society and Historical Commission.