The Federal style flourished in the years after the American Revolution up through about 1830; the Greek Revival overlapped, rising in popularity in the 1830s and remaining popular up until the Civil War. Both the Federal and the Greek Revival styles have their basis in the classical tradition. The most frequent indication is the use of columns with decorative capitals in the Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian Orders, but both styles also rely on the use of symmetry and clear proportions. We see this most dramatically in the Greek Revival Lawrence -Wentworth House with its symmetrically placed windows in the main block, corner pilasters supporting an architrave, and pedimented dormer at the center.
The Federal Style has restrained ornament. Exterior embellishments typically focused around the entry, which is itself usually placed at the center of the structure to provide balance and symmetry. Examples of this include the John Locke house at 557-561 Central, the John E. Hesseltine house at 1-3 Centre Street (c. 1837), 41 Chapel Street, and the modest wood-frame house at 27 Chapel Street (c. 1830s). This last house and 23 Ames Street also include one other feature of the Federal Style: quoins on the corners. Window openings are defined by granite sills and lintels that offered visual contrast to the brick walls and further defined the clear proportions and symmetry of the façade (one of the earliest quarries in the Greater Lowell area still operates today as Fletcher Granite). The main entry often has sidelights or fanlights to allow light into the foyer or hall of the house.
The Greek Revival style caught on especially quickly in Back Central and has a few features that distinguish it. The columns tend to sit directly on the foundation or porch (rather than on a plinth) and the roofs are gabled rather than hipped to emulate the pediments of classical temples. The William Nichols House at 11 Centre Street (c. 1840) is an exceptional example of the Greek Revival in Back Central: the gable roof and columns present a “temple front” to the street. The Doric columns are fluted and sit directly on the porch. The main entrance is placed to the left and flanked by sidelights. 507 Central also has an impressive columned portico. At Scripture’s Bakery, 547 Central, the builder emulated another Greek Revival feature, dentil moldings, by angling the bricks in the pediment of the roof; the Abbott House also has brick dentils and an interestingly abstracted corner pilaster and architrave frame.
More moderate residential examples abound, such as 80 Linden Street, 492 Gorham Street, 75 Chapel Street, 412-414 Gorham Street, and interspersed with the Italianate style along Walnut Street. Institutional buildings, such as the Coburn School, built in 1840 on Lawrence Street, adhered to the simple, pedimented temple form and symmetry of the style and included dentils, brick architraves, and granite sills and lintels.
At the turn of the 20th century, there was a national revival of these early 19th century styles. An excellent example can be seen at St. Anthony’s Rectory of 1906 on Central Street. It features the same symmetry and balance as well as the impressive brick ends and chimneys seen earlier at the “brickender” Locke house.