Maiden Lane, south side (0.1 m East of Main Street)

This house stands on a half-acre lot on the south side of Maiden Lane, near Main Street.

• Record ID: 38
• Address: Maiden Lane, south side (0.1 m East of Main Street)
• Current Owner: Hannen, Wayne and Brenda
• Name of Building:
• Historic Name: John B. Newton House
• Download PDF of Original Record

Notable Features

This house possesses an Eastlake-style single-story porch on its north and west sides, composed of turned and sawn elements. The balustrade, however, is a recent replacement. The fenestration in the facade is two-over-two except for the single window in the gable peak, which contains a two-paned fixed window with an arch top. A small (9 x 19) shed roofed addition has been added to the rear of the house. This adjoins with a two-car garage of recent origins.

Historical or Architectural Importance

The John B. Newton House is a 2 1/2 story, cross-gabled residence in the nineteenth century Domestic style. The clapboarded ballon frame rests on a sandstone foundation. The roof is asphalt-shingled. This house was built in 1861 by John B. Newton, a farmer, shortly after his marriage to Mary Tucker. Newton was a member of one of Durhamls most prominent families. His father, H. H. Newton, owned the large farmstead across Maiden Lane from his modest Victorian cottage. John Newton died in 1875 at age 34, leaving no children and a young widow. In 1891 she sold the house to Harold Camp Parsons, who sold it to Julius Rich in 1921. It remained in the Rich family until 1966, when it was purchased by Oliver M. Bristol. It passed to its present owners in 1980. This house is an interesting example of middle-class rural village architecture of
the mid-nineteenth century. It bears comparison with the two houses built for William Scranton by his wealthy father S. S. Scranton. Both the Newtons and the Scrantons were
dynastically-minded. Both built cottages of similar types for their sons–which they were to occupy while waiting to inherit their families’ homesteads. As such, these houses represent an interesting artifact of the accommodation of colonial patriarchalism in a nineteenth-century setting.