70 Main Street

This house stands on Durham’s Main Street. It is set into the side of the hill that slopes southward toward Allyn’s Brook.

• Record ID: 98
• Address: 70 Main Street
• Current Owner: Walker, Lloyd and Beverly
• Name of Building: The Walker House
• Historic Name: Reuben Hubbard Homestead House
• Download PDF of Original Record

Notable Features

[None listed]

Historical or Architectural Importance

‘This house, as built, consisted of two simple gable roofed structures joined at their southeast and northwest corners. Both sections were narrow, the largest 16′ wide, the smaller rear section, 14’ in width. The gable ends of both face the street. At some point after the turn of the century, a one story hip-roofed sun/entry porch was added to the south and west sides of the house and the main entry was moved forward sone 12 feet. While the fenestration consists of 6X6s, save for the 3X3 eyebrow windows in the northwest section, there is evidence that the window arrangement has been changed, most notably on the south side of the southeast section, where an exterior brick chinmey was added at some point in this century.
The land on which this house was built was part of the Guernsey homestead, which came into the possession of Selina Evarts of Madison in 1853. She sold the property to Eli and Reuben Hubbard, two brothers from Madison, in 1865. In 1874, the present house in its peculiar configuration first appears in Beer’s Atlas. Hubbard died in 1914 at the age of 8[?] leaving the house to his widow Harriet. She sold the house and 26 acres to her son, Eli H. Hubbard, in 1922. The house remained in the Hubbard family until 1964. In 1968, it passed to its present owners.
This house is an interesting example of a late nineteenth century farmhouse. Considering the Hubbard’s extensive landholding in Durham, it is a surprisingly modest structure.