18-20 North Street

Two-family duplex with Federal style elements.
  • Historic Name: None
  • Uses: Two-family home
  • Date of Construction: Circa 1830s
  • Style/Form: Federal style elements
  • Architect/Builder: Unknown
  • Foundation: Rubble stone
  • Wall/Trim: Vinyl siding
  • Roof: Gable roof
  • Major Alterations: Most notable are new vinyl windows and shutters; vinyl siding; and concrete steps to the front doors
  • Condition: Good
  • Included in Hengen survey? No
  • Related oral interview? No
  • Portuguese owned? Yes (1926)
  • Recorded by: Gregory Gray Fitzsimons and Marie Frank
  • Organization: UMass Lowell
  • Date: July 2023

Description

One of the earliest surviving two-family houses in Back Central, this 2-1/2 story dwelling with Federal style features dates from the 1830s. Built with a wood-frame and brick gable ends, it features a hooded entrance with ornate wooden brackets supporting the roof. Although altered with vinyl windows and shutters, as well as vinyl siding, it retains its original configuration and entrances.

History

This two-family house first appears on the 1841 map of the City of Lowell and was probably built in the 1830s. In 1840, Henry Reed and Daniel West, who operated a dry goods store on Merrimack Street in Lowell, acquired several parcels of land from a group of Boston investors. This land extended north of Lime Street (which, by 1841 was renamed North Street), between Lawrence and Central streets. Part of this property was owned by the Middlesex Mills and served as housing for mill employees. In 1858 West sold the property, with the two-family house, to John Anderson. Anderson, who was a Lowell real estate speculator, notably on Chapel Hill, was living in Roxbury, Massachusetts, at the time of this transaction. It appears that the two-family home was rented to various tenants. In the late 1860s, Jeremiah Crowley (1832-1901), a lawyer with extensive real estate holdings in Lowell, bought the North Street property. Crowley, who would become the second Irish-Catholic mayor of Lowell, was an important figure in the city’s Democratic Party and lived for many years on Mt. Washington Street in the Acre neighborhood.

For a number years Crowley rented the two-family house. One tenant, the Geary family, headed by William Geary, a stone mason born in Ireland, subsequently purchased the property from Crowley. The Geary family remained in the house on North Street until 1926. That year Manuel F. Souza (1862-1948), a real estate dealer who lived on nearby Charles Street, bought the two-family house, but quickly sold it to Walter (Waclaw) Taraszkiewicz, a Polish-born moulder in a Lowell foundry. Taraszkiewicz and his family lived at 18 North Street; and renting at 20 North Street was Frank Tamkon and his wife Ursula, who were textile workers.

In more recent years (2001) a condominium trust, headed by Barbara L. Palermo of Lowell, was established with two units, 18 and 20 North Street. This antebellum two-family house is currently a condominium.

Sources

  • Lowell atlases, 1841, 1882, 1879, 1906, 1924 & 1936.
  • Federal census, Lowell, Massachusetts, 1920 & 1930.
  • Lowell city directories, 1841, 1906, 1916, 1926 & 1931.
  • “Ex-Mayor Crowley,” Lowell Sun, September 23, 1901.
  • Property deed, Davis, Bates, and Turner to West and Reed, March 31, 1840, book 33, pages 57-58, Northern Middlesex Registry of Deeds.
  • Property deed, Lowell Savings Bank to John Anderson, January 20, 1866, book 46, pages 372-373, Northern Middlesex Registry of Deeds.
  • Property deed, Souza to Taraszkiewicz, October 6, 1926, book 742, pages 195-196, Northern Middlesex Registry of Deeds.