6 Proctor Place
Most people in Burlington are familiar with our historic Lakeside section, with its former cotton mill structures and the housing that the mill owners developed for their workers. 6 Proctor Place was surveyed as part of the state Historic Sites and Structures Survey before Lakeside was designated a National Historic Site, and described as “a 1 ½ story, 3x2 bay worker’s dwelling. Beautifully imbricated slate roof. Aluminum siding, 2/2 sash windows. Main façade orientation. Stone foundation. Date built: 1899”. The present owners, Chapin Spencer and Rebecca Grannis, have been restoring this house, which some believe may have belonged to N. B. Proctor, a lake ship captain who farmed here and built boats and one very large lake vessel, the Oakes Ames, at his shipyard on Red Rocks Point. The Proctor Farm later became Oakledge Farm.
6 Proctor Place is just outside the border of the Lakeside Historic District. It’s obviously older than the other homes in the neighborhood, but the first mention of someone living on the actual site is in the 1916 city directory: Arthur Oliver (Olivier), weaver, is living at 6 Proctor Place. Unlike most of the mill workers, he wasn’t living in a company house. He had bought the land in December of 1915 from George Bouchard, a grocer on Hayward Street, who seems to have had a sideline as a land speculator. Bouchard had bought the place in May 1915, lots 6 and 7 in section K of Lakeside Park, from the estate of Henry R. Conger. No building was mentioned on this deed. Either the house was on the lot, or it was built quickly or possibly moved from another site.
Henry Conger had bought the land for his Lakeside Park from Napoleon B. and Nancy Proctor in 1888 The Proctors were by then living at Shelburne Road and Proctor Avenue, where the branch post office is now. The land they sold Conger had been theirs since 1852; they had first bought land in the area the year they were married, 1835. They are last mentioned as living at the lakeshore in the 1875-1876 city directory.
Napoleon B. (for Bonaparte) and Nancy Goodrich, both of Burlington, were married on the 18th of January 1835 by George G. Ingersoll, Minister of the First Congregational (Unitarian) Church. The 1869 Beers map of Burlington is the only map that shows a definite location for their home. It is south of the ravine and brook which is just behind 6 Proctor Place. Actually, this map shows the Proctor house near the end of a road which runs from Shelburne Street, the present Flynn Avenue, which would locate the Proctor farmhouse near the present location of the entrance to Oakledge Park.
The Hopkins 1890 map shows no house in the present location of 6 Proctor Place. There were three other residences, and the buildings of the Crescent Beach Country Club not too far away. We need to do more investigation to close our knowledge gap for this interesting house and neighborhood. We know there were other families in the area whose homes are not on the map. Construction details, such as circular saw marks on the beams and a decorative slate roof laid over cedar shakes, would seem to put the house in the latter half of the 19th century. There were supposedly shipyard workers living in the area when the Oakes Ames was being built by Proctor in 1868, at Red Rocks Shipyard.
In any event, the owners have restored the front porch, cleaned and repaired the beautiful slate roof, added a section to the back of the house, and repurposed beams from the house. Further work brought the home into Efficiency Vermont’s High Performance Homes Program.
The exact date of 6 Proctor Place may remain a mystery, but it seems to present a rare example of Lakeside before the Queen City Cotton Mill.
Image credit: Zillow