fbpx

Aaron D. Williams mansion, Roxbury, Mass.

Update Our ticketing, donations, and membership sales portal is down for scheduled maintenance on the afternoon of 4/11.

Search Collections

Collection Type

  • Photography

GUSN

GUSN-195159

You can find this within

Browse Collection

Description

An exterior view of the mansion built by industrialist and Boston alderman Aaron Davis Williams, Jr. in 1872 at 300 Walnut Avenue in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Davis named his home Oak Bend, which a subsequent owner changed to Abbotsford after Sir Walter Scott's ancestral keep. The house is made of Roxbury pudding stone and Nova Scotia sandstone. A gabled tower soars above the edifice. The mansion sits on estate adorned with oak trees and apple orchards. After the building slipped into decline in the 1970s, the National Center of Afro-American Artists purchased the property, renovated it, and uses it for a museum.

Details

Descriptive Terms

sandstone
pudding stone
Gothic Revival
industrialists
mansions
exterior views
black-and-white prints (photographs)
photographs

Additional Identification Number

DigitalID 000303
AccessID 480
Other identifier HNEDID-000303

Physical Description

1 photograph

Collection Code

PC001

Collection Name

General photographic collection

Reference Code

PC001.02.01.USMA.2540.0070.004

Date Notes

1880s-1900s

Places

Roxbury (Boston, Suffolk county, Massachusetts) [neighborhood]
Boston (Suffolk county, Massachusetts)

Record Details

Originator

Halliday Historic Photograph Co. (Photographic studio)

Material Type

black-and-white prints (photographs)
photographs

Other People

Williams, Aaron Davis, Jr.

Other Organizations

National Center of Afro-American Artists. Museum

Subjects

towers
Walnut Avenue (Roxbury, Boston, Mass.)
Architectural photography

Description Level

Item

Reparative Language in Collections Records

Historic New England is committed to implementing reparative language description for existing collections and creating respectful and inclusive language description for new collections. If you encounter language in Historic England's Collections Access Portal that is harmful or offensive, or you find materials that would benefit from a content warning, please contact [email protected].