Date of construction: 1877 from Shand-Tucci, but the house is not on the 1882 map. The more likely date of construction is 1883 based on the maps and deeds. The date of 1877 seems to have been assumed because Herbert was married that year to Annie F. Pope.
Architect: probably Luther Briggs, Jr.
30 Beaumont Street was built for Nathan Carruth’s son Herbert. The 1884 atlas shows Annie Carruth as the owner. Nos. 11 and 17 were also owned by the Carruths.
Nathan Carruth died May 19, 1881.
The following comes from Ashmont by Douglass Shand-Tucci:
Built in 1877.
A fine, mansarded mansion of the Second Empire, though it certainly misses its pomp of balustrade, awning, shutter, and the like, this was where in the late 1870s and early 1880s Carruth conceived all his plans for the [neighborhood subdivision]. Thirty Beaumont’s significance, however, is easily missed today because its context now is so different than when it was built. Today this house is bigger and more generously endowed with land than the blocks of smaller, more densely massed houses that climb the hill to its right. Yet when 30 Beaumont was built, and right through the 1890s and 1900s, the context was exactly the reverse: what one then would have seen to the right was not blocks of smaller houses on smaller lots but one huge “lot” of nearly twelve acres, stretching the full block all the way nearly to Adams Street, and in its center at the crest of the hill the old Nathan Carruth House, where his widow lived until her death in 1910. Thus when 30 Beaumont was built so close to Beaumont (driveway having become street), it signaled the end of the great estates and the beginning of the new world of the garden suburb.
Stylistically, the house, even when new, was already old-fashioned. It was probably designed by Luther Briggs, Jr., explainable by the fact that local lore records the house as being Nathan Carruth’s wedding present to his son. (Herbert’s tastes were quite different: note the splendid library wing off to the left of 30 Beaumont, designed by Whitney Lewis.) But 30 Carruth not only sent a clear signal in terms of its suburban design concept (a big house right on the street), but also announced that young Herbert, still his father’s heir in 1877, just after Dorchester’s annexation to Boston, planned to live himself in one of the new suburban houses and oversee the transition from estate town to garden suburb.
The following is from the inventory form for Carruth Street – Peabody Square, Boston Landmarks Commission
30 Beaumont Street, as briefly noted earlier, was built for Herbert Carruth in 1877. In this Second Empire mansion Carruth and Luther Briggs Jr. conceived the plans for the Carruth’s Hill subdivision. This house was a wedding gift to Carruth from his father Nathan Carruth and probably represents the work of Luther Briggs Jr. with a library wing designed later by Whitney Lewis. During Carruth’s years in residence at 30 Beaumont (1877-1910) he was elected to the Board of Aldermen, served as president of the board and acting mayor of Boston. In 1889, he gave up his business and devoted all his time to public service and the development of his property. From 1893-1896 he served as first secretary of the permanent Metropolitan Park Commission. Together with landscape architect Charles Elliot, Carruth is credited with the creation of the Metropolitan Parks system. In 1910, Carruth backed the losing mayoral candidate , Boston’s leading Yankee banker James Storrow, in an election won by Ashmont resident John ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald. Henceforth, Carruth’s political career went into eclipse and he retired to Amherst , Massachusetts where he died in 1917.
Note: Carruth sold 30 Beaumont in 1897, and it appears he and his family may have returned to his parents’ home next door. His parents’ house was still standing through 1910 per the atlas of that year. Herbert’s address in the 1910 census was 52 Beaumont. There is no 52 Beaumont, but that is the approximate address of the estate house.
owners from atlases
1882 not on the map
1884 Annie F. Carruth
1889 A. F. Carruth
1894 Annie F. Carruth
1898 Roswell C. Downer
1904 Alice C. Jowett [Jewett]
1910 Alice C. Jowett
1918 Barbara V. Abbott
1933 John M. Piper The house is labelled Sunny Side Rest
Boston Directory
1882, 1883, 1884, 1885 H. S. Carruth (W. B. Clark & Carruth), 340 Washington, h. Beaumont, Dor. – but if he lived in his father’s house, this does not tell us when he moved to #30
Clark & Carruth were booksellers
Dorchester Blue Books
1900, 1902, 1904 Mr. & Mrs. John N. Jewett
deed
July 27, 1883 deed from Sarah Ann Carruth, widow, Ellen Carruth and Emma Carruth, sngle women and Herbert Schaw Carruth to Grenville H. Norcross 1606.140 and then
deed
July 27 1883 from Grenville H. Norcross to Annie French Carruth, wife of Herbert Schaw Carruth 1606.141
deed
July 23, 1897 from Herbert S. Carruth and Annie F. Carruth to Roswell C. Downer, of Falmouth, 2458.385
In the 1900 census, Herbert said he was in real estate. In 1910 he gave no occupation.
In the 1910 census he and his family were living at 52 Beaument
Birth record from Ancestry.com
Herbert Schaw Carruth, b February 15, 1855 to Nathan and Sarah A. Carruth
Catalogue of Phillips Academy, Andover, June 1869 includes an entry for Herbert Schaw Carruth
Marriage Herbert Carruth to Sarah A. Pope, September 13, 1877
Herbert was a merchant, son of Nathan and Sara A. Carruth. Sarah was the daughter of Henry and Abigail Pope. Sarah Pope was born in San Francisco
December 2008
From: “Name John Nelson” <Grampie73@AOL.com>
Re: Overview: Landmarks Description Carruth Street / Peabody Square
Comments I was raised at 22 Wilcox Rd. that runs from Beaumont St. to what was then Elm Rd. but now is Elmer Rd. My home on Wilcox Rd. as can be seen is different from all the other homes on the street and was built by John Larson.
My parents, J.F. and MD Nelson built the home at 22 Wilcox Rd. in 1930 at a cost of I believe of $9600. By 1935 during the Great Depression, it was only worth $5000!
The Herbert Carruth home still stands at the corner of Fossdale Rd. and Beaumont St. As a lad growing up in the area, this property was called Mrs. Horn’s Sanitorium. It appeared to be the forerunner of the nursing home! It was for elderly people.
_____
By 1898 the three Carruth houses were owned by Roswell Downer. In 1904 30 Beaumont was owned by Alice Jowett. By 1918 30 Beaumont was owned by Barbara W. Abbott. In 1933 no. 30 was the Sunnyside Rest owned by John M. Piper.
Herbert’s father was Nathan Carruth. Nathan Carruth’s own house sat at the top of the hill. Nathan made money in the clipper ship trade and later made his name in railroads. He was the first president of the Old Colony Railroad. The subdivisions here at Beaumont Street were laid out by Luther Briggs Jr. You may think that 30 Beaumont looks like a big house, but one thing you need to imagine is that when it was built, 30 Beaumont was the small house in contrast to the father’s big estate house on the hill.