The Tilden House in Canton - Reviving a 300-Year-Old Remnant

This article was originally published by Preservation Massachusetts in June of 2019. Written by George T. Comeau of the Canton Community Preservation Committee. Reprinted by permission.

The David Tilden House in Canton, Massachusetts was purchased as part of a very large land acquisition program in 1970. By 1973 the house was deemed ripe for demolition. Built in 1725, with portions that were constructed even earlier, the Tilden House had fallen into disrepair. A group was formed and called the Friends of the Little Red House. Money was raised and the house was repaired, with no use planned. Eventually, by 2003, the house was once again slated for demolition. The “friends” group was resurrected, and dozens of volunteers raised $25,000 to help save the building. The advocacy led to the creation of a National Historic District with the Tilden House as the oldest contributing structure. But, as anyone who has done this work will tell you, volunteer fatigue sets in and the group dwindled to less than five supporters after several years of preservation efforts. The work to save the house would take hundreds of thousands of dollars and a public commitment.

A small group of people set forth to use the Tilden House as the cause célèbre for the passage of the Community Preservation Act in Canton. It took three tries, but in 2012 the effort was successful. Soon, a $414,000 grant led to the creation of the historic structures report and money for Phase One structural work. And while it looked like all would move forward smoothly, this was not the case. Eventually it was decided to ask the town for a long-term lease so that work could be done privately by the local Historical Society. Permission to lease the property had to come from Annual Town Meeting. And still, after a lease was negotiated, a third Annual Town Meeting vote was needed to transfer the CPA money to the local historical society. In the meantime, a grant was written through the emergency projects fund of the MHC. A $50,000 matching award was made in exchange for a preservation restriction which took over six months to negotiate. Finally, a $100,000 earmark from the Massachusetts Legislature was vetoed by the Governor, and the veto was overridden by the House and Senate – which led to the successful award that completed the financing for Phase I.

This was, by every stretch of the imagination, a lost cause. There were days when I personally could not drive by the house. Tears would well up easily when talking about the building. And yet, the building had a soul, could speak for the men and women that lived there over the course of three centuries. I can attest that houses like the Tilden are living manifestations of our heritage and culture. And they want to be saved. These historic buildings channel their voices through preservationists. The spirit of a house sounds rather ludicrous, but I can find no other explanation for the power of success than to attribute it to the story of the past embodied in the timber and ancient beams of this house.

On Christmas Day 2018, at 3:42 in the morning, the alarm company called my house. The fire alarm had gone off and a fire was tearing through the Tilden House. It was an incredible feeling that coursed through my being as I got dressed in the dark. Driving to the scene, I tried to sniff the air for embers. I craned my head through the trees in the meadow looking for the telltale signs of firetrucks. It turns out that it was a false alarm. A spider perhaps had crossed the beam of light and set the detector off. Arriving back home hours later, rather joyful, I explained to my wife what had happened. She smiled knowingly and simply said “that house wants to be saved.”

And so, after sixteen years of advocacy, bake sales, raffles, auctions and countless meetings and debates, we sit on the cusp of a resurrection from the dead. The days of local building officials playfully toying with a lighter in my presence have long passed. The days of begging and apologizing for process and cost are now gone. Last Monday, the first load of white oak timbers arrived and the preservation carpenters began hand hewing the notches for the support beams. Not very much on this project comes from Home Depot – this is pure preservation using time honored materials and techniques that will far exceed what the building code calls for in materials alone.