Architecture Addendum: Pearson Hall, c.1814-18

Addendum:

Following the first discussion meeting of Preservation North, the attendees spent considerable time combing through Pearson Hall. Jim Alexander, FAIA, James Garvin, NH State Architectural Historian (ret.) and John Page, Haverhill Historical Society, shared a number of key insights, based on their thorough examination of the structure.

^ The second floor apparently featured a dramatic unobstructed coved ceiling, appropriate for its use as a court house but certainly breathtaking to those visiting the court in the North County in the early years of the 19th century.

^ The paired elliptical stairs (from Asher Benjamin) while somewhat cramped, would have required a different configuration than the currently altered 2nd floor landing

^ The interior window surrounds have identical treatment to those at the Grafton Tavern (built roughly at the same time period) just a few houses  distant from Pearson Hall. Page and Garvin have identified the same hand at work in both structures, John Sinclair.

Grafton Tavern, c. 1814

Pearson Hall, c.1814-17

^ The modillion block cornice, with its drilled holes in imitation of carved gutae, is straight out of Benjamin's 1806 edition of the "The Country Builder....", once again confirming the rapidity of transmission of design ideas from urban to rural centers.