Historic Structure Report: Noah Brooks Tavern Site – Brooks Tavern, Hartwell Carriage House, and Rogers Barn

Phillips, Maureen

Minute Man National Historical Park protects 970 acres in and around the Massachusetts towns of Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord, commemorating the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War. The Noah Brooks tavern site is located in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and is part of the Minute Man National Historical Park (MIMA NHP). Noah Brooks built the tavern circa 1798 to take advantage of the lucrative commercial traffic on the North Great Road that began after the Revolutionary War and continued to the mid-19 th century. Samuel Hartwell built the attached carriage house and a large connected barn when he operated the property as an apple farm in the late-19 th century, and Edward Rogers built the existing barn on the Hartwell barn foundation after a fire destroyed the latter building in 1938. Current treatment proposals are exploring the possibility of adapting the structures on the Noah Brooks tavern site, as well as the nearby Joshua Brooks and Samuel Brooks houses, to lodging and/or dining facilities. These proposals would require significant alterations that may have an adverse effect on the integrity of the structures. Little developmental history of the structures exists that would inform the proposed management objectives, necessitating an evaluation of the historical and physical evolution and identifying character-defining features for each. Of the structures, those on the Noah Brooks tavern site, have had the least scrutiny. Thus, the most intense investigative efforts for this project were directed towards this site. This draft historic structures report for the Noah Brooks tavern site buildings is an abbreviated Level II report. It was prepared for MIMA NHP by the Building Conservation Branch (BCB) of the National Park Service's Northeast Cultural Resources Center. Preparation for this report involved historical and archival research and physical and photographic documentation of the house. The research and documentation was conducted by BCB Architectural Conservator Maureen K. Phillips, who also wrote the report. Physical investigation of the structural evolution of the buildings was conducted by Maureen K. Phillips and BCB Preservation Specialist Jeff Finch.

Historic Structure Report: Noah Brooks Tavern Site – Brooks Tavern, Hartwell Carriage House, and Rogers Barn

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