Historic Oliver house may get lucky

MIDDLEBOROUGH -- Descendants of one of Middleborough's most prominent families are looking for help in preserving their ancestral home. And it could be the construction of the state's first casino across the street that will save the 250-year-old Peter Oliver House for generations to come.

The stately house, built in 1762 on Plymouth Street by the Oliver family, is considered one of the best examples of Georgian architecture in Southeastern Massachusetts. But rarely has the public been allowed a glimpse inside.

Now, the Oliver family is looking to sell the property to someone who will preserve it, and possibly open it, according to Fletcher Harper, a New Jersey resident and son of one of two Oliver descendants who own the house.

The casino, proposed by the Mashpee Wampanoag, opens up some possibilities for melding old and new.

"We don't know if there is an interest on the part of the [Wampanoag] tribe, but we'll wait and see what is approved," he said. "With the way the casino situation is unfolding, we feel it creates possibilities for us."

It probably doesn't hurt that the home's rich history has several Native American connections.

According to Thomas Weston's "History of the Town of Middleborough," the Oliver house was built in a section of town once known as the "Muttock," derived from Chesemuttock, the name of the last Nemasket Native American tribe to live there.

Weston said the site was a favorite resort of Chief Massasoit's son, King Philip, prior to the Indian War in 1675, and the home of other members of Massasoit's extended family.

The site is also believed to have been the meeting place in 1660 of a small group of Christianized Native Americans called "praying Indians."

The Nemasket tribe, which lived on the Muttock as a reservation, petitioned the General Court to sell the tract in 1734 to the Colonists, because game there had become scarce and the soil too thin to support crops. The tribe then moved a short distance away to Titicut.

Enter the Oliver family, which counted a Supreme Court judge, lieutenant governor, and doctor among its family members.

Peter Oliver purchased the Muttock in 1744 and opened an iron forge called Oliver's Furnace on a section of the Nemasket River that cut through the property. There, he manufactured cannons, mortar, howitzers, shot, and shell.

In 1762, Oliver, by then a judge, built the house for his son, Peter, who was a doctor, and his son's wife, Sally Hutchinson, daughter of the Massachusetts governor, Thomas Hutchinson.

The properties of the loyalist Olivers eventually were confiscated by the Colonials, under the Tory Act, and sold. But about 175 years later, in the late 1940s, another Peter Oliver, a descendant of the original, bought back the family property at an auction and painstakingly restored the house and its formal gardens.

Oliver's two daughters, who haven't stayed on the site for more than 30 years, are now searching for a way to preserve the historic home for future generations. Since the property is almost directly across the street from the targeted casino site, the owners are hoping the Mashpee Wampanoag might find it an attractive purchase, perhaps to operate as a museum.

Or the town, with its earnings as host to the casino, might purchase and preserve the house.

Selectman Wayne Perkins said the proposed casino agreement his board forwarded to the Mashpee Wampanoag had provisions for historic preservation. "I think it would be beneficial and wonderful for the town to partner with someone like the tribe, or to buy the house outright and maintain it," Perkins said. "It certainly is an important piece of the town's history."

George Simmons, a local teacher who has rented the house from the Olivers since 1977, said it contains some of the family's original possessions, such as a desk that belonged to the judge. Portraits of the original Olivers hang on the walls, reproductions of the originals painted by Colonial-era artist John Smibert. Some of the original floors, made of Southern yellow pine, are still there.

Over the last 60 years, Simmons said, the home has been opened to the public only three times. If the property is purchased by the tribe or by the town, the public could get to enjoy this gem of local history, he said.

"I'm for the casino as a practical man," Simmons said. "I could see the tribe possibly developing an interest in the property as a secondary tourist attraction. Preservation groups like the National Trust want a million-dollar endowment to take the house over. A $1 million endowment for the tribe would be nothing."

Christine Wallgren can be reached at clwallgren@aol.com.