National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Brigham Hill Historic District

Papazian, Lyssa; Lapachinski, Jenna

A National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for the Brigham Hill Historic District Narrative Description Summary Paragraph: "The Brigham Hill Historic District encompasses three late 18th/ear;y 19th century hilltop farms (now 4 properties) and includes three farmhouses and two detached barns. The Brigham Hill farmsteads include 32 acres of field and garden and are surrounded by open fields that are still used for hay and pasture/ The integrity of the immediate rural setting with the farmstead is quite notable in a town and neighborhood that had a tremendous amounts of new development in the 1980s to 2000 period. The district is located on Brigham Hill Road around the intersection with Tilden Hill Road in the south central part of Norwich, Vermont in Windsor County. Brigham Hill is one of the many lower foothills of Norwich's western hills and mountains and has views to the east. Each farmhouse and the two barns present architecturally and historically intact facades to the roads with very few visible alterations. Over the course of the past two centuries, there have been changes but these are primarily located on the rear or side elevations. Roads, driveways, and field edges are marked by historic stone walls and hedge rows. The well preserved cluster of farmsteads that comprises this district retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association." Statement of Significance Summary Paragraph: "The Brigham Hill Historic District encompasses three late 18th/early 19th century hilltop farms (now 4 properties) which were established 1788-1805 by the Brigham family and used expanded through the 1880s. The immediate rural setting and the remaining integrity of the houses and barns is quite notable. The district is eligible under Criterion A for Agriculture as an example of a family-based farming cluster that was an important type of c. 1800 agricultural development, and Criterion C: Architecture for its collection of Federal style and Cape Cod form houses and related barns that together comprise a significant, distinguishable entity. The close relationship and design similarity of the houses is characteristically the result of their development by one family on what had originally been a single farm property." Project funding was provided in part by a Historic Preservation Fund grant to the Vermont Division of Historic Preservation, administered by the State, Tribal, Local Plans and Grants, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior (grant number P17AF00049).

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Brigham Hill Historic District

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