The Shirley–Eustis House is a historic house located at 33 Shirley Street,

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. It is a U.S.

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

. The house was built between 1747 and 1751 on in Roxbury by

William Shirley William Shirley (2 December 1694 – 24 March 1771) was a British colonial administrator who served as the governor of the British American colonies of Massachusetts Bay and the Bahamas. He is best known for his role in organizing the succ ...

(1694–1771), Royal Governor of the

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in New England which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of Eng ...

, and served as his summer home. The house is attributed to architect Peter Harrison, and built in part by

Thomas Dawes Thomas Dawes (August 5, 1731 – January 2, 1809) was a patriot who served as a Massachusetts militia colonel during the American Revolution and afterward assumed prominent positions in Massachusetts's government. His positions included members ...

, it is one of four remaining mansions of Royal Governors in the United States. In 1763 Shirley's son-in-law Eliakim Hutchinson, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk County, and one of Boston's richest men, acquired the house from his father-in-law. Upon retirement from his post as Governor of the Bahamas in 1769, William Shirley moved in with his daughter and son-in-law and lived there until his death in 1771. After Hutchinson died in 1775, the house was occupied by Colonel Asa Whitcomb's Massachusetts Sixth Foot Regiment, and in 1778 it was seized as Loyalist property. It then sat unoccupied until purchased in 1782, then passed through a succession of owners, including the widow of a French planter in

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

, a real estate speculator, and the China merchant James Magee. Magee's youngest son, Augustus Magee, who was raised in the house, led the 1812-13 Gutierrez-Magee Expedition, a filibuster in Spanish Texas that briefly liberated that province during the Mexican War of Independence. James Magee's widow Margaret, sold the house to Congressman

William Eustis William Eustis (June 10, 1753 – February 6, 1825) was an early American physician, politician, and statesman from Massachusetts. Trained in medicine, he served as a military surgeon during the American Revolutionary War, notably at the Batt ...

Secretary of War The secretary of war was a member of the U.S. president's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the ...

under President

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

during the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

, Ambassador to the Netherlands 1815–1818, and the first

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party (also referred to by historians as the Republican Party or the Jeffersonian Republican Party), was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early 1790s. It championed l ...

governor of

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

from 1823 to 1825. After Eustis' wife's death in 1865, the estate passed to relatives who auctioned off the house's contents. In 1867 its site was subdivided in 53 lots and sold. The mansion was also sold, and moved about to make way for Shirley Street. By 1886 the house was occupied by more than a dozen tenants; it was abandoned in 1911. In 1913 William Sumner Appleton, who had recently founded the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, founded the Shirley–Eustis House Association to save the house, which was then used for storage of antiquities. It was declared a

in 1960. and In the 1980s, historical architect Robert G. Neiley and the Shirley Eustis House Association spearheaded the salvation of the crumbling structure. Extensive restoration, carried out by Neiley himself in collaboration with McGinley Hart & Associates, began in the 1980s, and in 1991 the house opened to the public. The restoration, which included restoring the grounds to include an orchard, period perennial beds, parterre gardens, and a large lawn, won a Boston Preservation Alliance award for the best-restored small-scale structure in the City of Boston.

References

External links

*
Roxbury Cultural Network
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shirley-Eustis House Houses in Boston National Historic Landmarks in Massachusetts Historic American Buildings Survey in Massachusetts Houses completed in 1751 Historic house museums in Massachusetts Museums in Boston Museums established in 1991 National Register of Historic Places in Boston Roxbury, Boston 1991 establishments in Massachusetts Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Suffolk County, Massachusetts Eustis family

See also

References

External links