By Roger Chartier

1834 House built by John Howland Jr.

Bought by WHALE for historic renovation it burned in 2005

These are pictures of the 1834 snow and ice covered John Howland Jr. House a day after the fire (1/2005).

It is located at 38 S. Sixth Street, on the corner of Madison street, New Bedford, south of downtown.

It is one of the estates in the city of New Bedford that were built with the money that came in from whaling, etc..

It was built for John and Sarah Howland, a Quaker family. John Howland Jr. and his brother James owned J&J Howland Merchants located on Middle Street.

John was one of the original trustees of the New Bedford Institution for Savings.

It is a Federal - Greek Revival style of architecture, and in that year there were three of these brick mansions built on So. 6th street for the family.

Firefighters were hindered by snowed in, and frozen fire hydrants. This caused them to be unable to fight the fire properly and resulted in a lot of damage. If it were a wooden home it would have been gone in the fire.

The house was bought by WHALE in April of 2010 for $237,000. The MA Historical Commission contributed $100,000 to the purchase cost. It now has a new roof put on at a cost of $48,000.

This new roof does not have the cupolas that were there before the fire as they were not a part of the original architecture and not there when the building was first constructed. They had been added later in the buildings life.

Whale plans to create seven affordable 2 bedroom apartments in the building.

Remember  after a snowstorm to shovel around and make accessible the hydrants around your home.

Above text by Roger Chartier and Charles Hauk. Snow pictures submitted by Charles Hauck of New Bedford, others by Roger.

Below - photo when it was bought by WHALE (Waterfront Historic Area League)