Friday, July 17, 2015

More Online Information About the Squire William Sever House in Kingston, Mass.

I've been writing about the Squire William Sever house this week, and trying to find out more about the house and when it was built by perusing land and probate records.  Without any luck, so far!

Genea-Musings reader Jean tried to help me find out more about the house by referring me to a page on the Historic Map Works website - http://www.historicmapworks.com/Buildings/index.php?state=MA&city=Kingston&id=15806.



There are a number of historic photographs from the 1936 time frame that can be purchased as prints.
Further down the page are a number of Drawings which can be downloaded for free, including one showing the location of the house relative to Linden Street in Kingston, Massachusetts:


There is also a very detailed map of the grounds in the 1936 time frame.


There are also house floor plans available here:

Another source for the 1936 era photographs of the exterior and interior of the William Sever house can be found on the Library of Congress website - see here.  One exterior view of the front of the house is:


My thanks to Jean for finding these websites and sharing them with me so that I can share them with you.

Do you have a historic home in your ancestral families?  If so, have you been able to find treasure troves like this?

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/07/more-online-information-about-squire.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.



2 comments:

Perry said...

I've been reading some of this series of posts, and wondered if you had seen this house history on the Kingston Public Library's site:

http://kplma.org/hh/hh76.pdf

It gives a construction date of 1768, citing the following book:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/major-bradfords-town-a-history-of-kingston-1726-1976/oclc/2786873

It might be worth getting it through interlibrary loan, or possibly get copies of the relevant page(s) from a kind librarian.

I think browsing some of the other house histories for neighboring houses on their website could be helpful also, because it could give you the neighbor's names, which you could then match to the deeds.

Marian said...

I just have to save I get a bit perturbed by websites that offer a paid service for something that is provided for FREE from our government. All of the photos of the Squire William Sever House on the Historic Map Works website are from the Historic Americans Buildings Survey (HABS). Historic Map Works charges "High Res. Downloads starting at $19.99." You can get the exact same image as a high resolution download (19.2 mb) from the Library of Congress site. Here they are: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/search/?q=Squire+William+Sever+House&st=gallery

I have no problem with Historic Map Works having a business or even selling the prints (that is an added value service) but selling exactly that which is already for free from Loc.gov borders is way uncool to me.

Marian Pierre-Louis