Parson's Bend
National Register of Historic Places

Parson's Bend

Alna, Lincoln County, Maine
Listed
December 21, 2005
Type
Building
Period
Early Republic
Ref No.
05001439

About this property

Parson's Bend is a historic farm property on Nelson Street in Alna, Maine. Built about 1800, the farmhouse is a well-preserved and idiosyncratic Georgian-Federal style Cape house. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. Parson's Bend is a farm property of 39 acres (16 ha) that occupies the inside of a bend in the Sheepscot River a short way south of the main village in the rural community of Alna. The river flows southeast and then makes a ninety-degree bend to the southwest. The farm property is bounded on the southwest side by Nelson Road, a narrow dirt lane. The farm complex is located on the northern side of the cleared portion of the property, and includes the main house, a guest house, and a barn. The main house is a 1+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, with single-story ells extending to one side. The main block has a gabled roof, central chimney, clapboard siding, and a fieldstone foundation. The front is five bays wide, with a center entrance and windows that have essentially vernacular trim. The interior follows a fairly typical center-chimney plan, with a narrow vestibule in front, parlors to either side of the chimney, and a long kitchen behind with small rooms at the corners. The stairs from the vestibule to the attic are particularly unusual, rising steeply and skirting around the mass of the chimney, which shrinks in cross-section as it rises. Original woodwork and flooring are found throughout. Land in this area was purchased in the 1760s by David Nelson, who dammed the Sheepscot River and established mills at the Head of Tide village upriver. Nelson moved to Boothbay in 1782, and this land was later taken over by his nephew Jacob, who built the farmhouse c. 1800. At one time, town records note the presence of four Nelson family farms in the area, of which this one is the last to survive. The property was purchased by Henry and Woodbury Parsons, for whom the property is now named. The Cape-style farmhouse is one of the best-preserved of Alna's surviving pre-1825 buildings. National Register of Historic Places listings in Lincoln County, Maine

Location

100 Nelson Rd.
Alna, Lincoln County, Maine
44.09905, -69.59996

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

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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Nearby Historic Sites

Carleton, Moses, House
Industrial
1.1 mi
Alna Meetinghouse
Industrial
1.2 mi
Alna School
Industrial
1.5 mi
Head Tide Historic District
Listed
1.7 mi
Kavanagh, Gov. Edward, House (Additional Documentation)
Industrial
4.3 mi

Nearby Battles

Battle of Fort Pemaquid (1696)
1696Colonial
12.6 mi

Questions about this property

When was Parson's Bend listed on the National Register?

Parson's Bend was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 21, 2005.

What type of historic resource is Parson's Bend?

Parson's Bend is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Parson's Bend?

The period of significance for Parson's Bend is recorded as the early_republic era.

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