This is the third lost Dedham house featured in my Stone Secrets series, and, it is the only one that was still standing during my lifetime. Although I was only six years old when it was torn down, I do have a memory of it, perhaps because of its resemblance to the Addams Family house from a favorite TV show of the time. The Storrs/Welch house, constructed by local contractor Otis Withington c. 1870, stood south of High Street and east of Mt. Vernon, diagonally across from the Thomas Barrows estate (St. Mary’s parking lot) featured in the last Stone Series post. The large house with its Mansard roof, pedimented windows and decorative porch features is a good example of the Second Empire style, popular in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The first occupants of the house were Royal Otis (R.O.) Storrs, his wife Lora, and three children.
A Connecticut native (his younger brothers Charles and Augustus founded the University of Connecticut), Royal Storrs came to Dedham in 1868 and leased the Merchant’s Woolen Mill on Mother Brook, before purchasing the Stone Mill on Milton Street, which he ran with his son Frederick. Storrs quickly immersed himself in Dedham town affairs, serving on the school committee, select board, and library committee, among many other boards and committees. Financial misdeeds, however, resulted in Storrs running up a half million dollar debt to his creditors, forcing him in 1882 to declare bankruptcy and sell the mill. He died on May 25, 1888 at the age of 73, and a few years later his widow put the estate up for sale.
The property was purchased in 1892 by Boston contractor Stephen Tarbell, who only resided there a short time before passing away on January 18, 1894 at the age of 69.
The next owners, David and Isabel Greenhood, also occupied the home for a short time, before it was sold to wool merchant James H. Welch.
Welch was an Irish immigrant working as the wool broker for the Merchant’s Woolen Mills. He and his wife Ellen moved into the large house with their six children and Irish servant in 1897. Welch died in 1909, but for the next five decades the house would be occupied by several of his children and their families. As the twentieth century rolled on, the Welch family witnessed the changes that modernization brought to Dedham and the country. Neighborhoods grew where farms once stood, railroads were replaced by paved roads and highways, obsolete buildings replaced by up-to date ones.
One of those buildings was the high school on Bryant Ave, which the Welch children had all attended. That school was replaced in 1915 by a large four story brick building on Whiting Ave., which, in turn was replaced by the current high school complex in 1959. Despite the sprawling size of the new facility, and its two million dollar price tag, town officials were aware before the doors even opened that it was not adequate for the growing student population. In early 1965, the town approved an addition that would include twenty-eight new classrooms, a small gym, practice athletic fields and tennis courts. Situated on the other side of the New Haven Railroad tracks, it would seem as if the Welch home was safe from the proposed expansion, but the architect’s plans included the construction of a pedestrian bridge, making the land along High Street the perfect location for the fields and tennis courts. In August, the town voted to take by eminent domain several properties on Elmview Place and High street, including the Welch property.
The house was unoccupied at the time of the taking, and town officials were concerned about vandalism after a copper weathervane was stolen from the barn. The barn burned down in a suspicious fire the following summer, and by September the house had been razed and construction begun.
During negotiations with the town at the time of the taking, Mrs. Ella Welch, wife of youngest Welch son William, petitioned the town to save some of the “beautiful shrubbery” and the “two fine spruce trees” on the property, but town officials denied her request. Amazingly, several gnarled oak trees along High Street were spared, and today, along with the stone wall, are the only reminders of a once majestic house and the families who lived and died there.
All historic images courtesy of the Dedham Museum and Archive. 19th century photos of the house were taken by Jonathan F. Guild, a well-known photographer who had a studio in Dedham Square for many years.
Dedham Tales 