Blazo-Leavitt House

About this property

The Blazo–Leavitt House is a historic house on Maine State Route 160 in Parsonsfield, Maine, United States. The large two-story house was built in 1812, and is one of the finest Federal period houses in northern York County. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. The Blazo–Leavitt House is a large two-story mansion built in Parsonsfield, Maine, in 1812 by William Blazo, uncle to prominent Parsonsfield lawyer Robert Tibbetts Blazo. Oral tradition holds that Robert T. Blazo, as a young man of fifteen in 1812, and later aged twenty in 1817, had helped with the construction of his uncle's house. This story seems credible because Robert had been bound out to his uncle William when Robert's father (William's brother) Daniel Blazo fell from a beam at a barn raising in 1802 and broke his neck. Later, ownership of the house passed to the nephew, Robert T. Blazo. The house next was passed on to Robert Blazo's two daughters, Susan Blazo Leavitt and Emily Blazo Browne. Emily's daughter Maude Browne left no descendants, and the house eventually passed into the hands of Susan Blazo Leavitt's son, Robert Greenleaf Leavitt, his wife Ida Ruggli Leavitt, and his three children Russell Greenleaf Leavitt, Robert Keith Leavitt, and Constance Ruggli Leavitt Hanson. Thus it is called the Blazo–Leavitt house. Designed by architect Thomas Eaton, according to both family tradition and affirmed by a Maine preservationist, the home is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Blazo–Leavitt house has five large brick chimneys and ten fireplaces. The home also boasts elaborately carved and pillared entrances with leaded glass fans and sidelights, panelled doors, and small-paned windows. A complete description of the interior of the house is described in a long narrative poem entitled "Flora Visits Parsonsfield" by Mary Freeman, a resident of the house for thirty years and great, great granddaughter of Robert and Mary Blazo. The main ell of the home was built in 1812, the main part of house being constructed five years later in 1817. William Blazo was son of Amos Blazo, who in turn was son of William Blazo of Bordeaux, France, who emigrated to America sometimes before 1727, settling first in Greenland, New Hampshire, and later in Epsom. Amos Blazo is recorded in the History of Parsonsfield as having been North Parsonsfield's first settler, clearing the fields at "Blazo's Corner" in March 1778. Amos Blazo had five sons, four of whom settled on nearby farms. It was Amos's son William who built the Blazo House, later selling it to his nephew, and Amos's grandson, Robert Tibbetts Blazo.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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