The Lowell machinist who assembled the lot and built the stone house in 1883.[sources]
Atherton bought the Fairmount Street site in three pieces between October 1880 and December 1882, the last a twelve-foot strip from Samuel G. Wyman that carries a perpetual promise that nothing will ever be built on it. The house followed in 1883, the date carved on its sandstone plaque; a design for "A. T. Atherton, Lowell" by Merrill & Cutler is reported in the architectural press that June.
The 1886 directory lists "Atherton Abel T. (Atherton Machine Co.), h. 170 Fairmount" — the house was then numbered 170. He kept it for four years. The 1887 deed to Arthur P. Bonney was made subject to four mortgages — consistent with financial strain, though no record says his business failed then; the Atherton Machine Company was declared insolvent in 1898, and a successor firm operated in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. After 1887 he drops out of the house’s story.
Three purchases make the site: from Mary E. Wing (October 1880), from Susan B. Butters and others (May 1881), and a twelve-foot strip from Samuel G. Wyman (December 1882) on which, the deed says, no building shall ever be erected.[source]
DocumentedAbel T. Atherton
The date is carved on a sandstone plaque on the house. The 1981 state survey records rock-faced ashlar walls, cross gables, tall chimneys, a round tower, a porte-cochère, stained-glass transoms and carved sandstone panels, with oak and Minton tile inside.[sources]
DocumentedAbel T. Atherton
What is uncertain: One later compilation gives a construction period of 1883–1887; no source in hand supports a four-year build.
The American Architect and Building News prints a heliotype plate: "Stable for Mr A. T. Atherton, Fairmount St, Lowell — Merrill & Cutler, Architects". A stone stable with a conical-roofed round tower, it is today’s carriage house at 222 Fairmount Street. No published design for the house itself has been found, so the architect of the house remains unrecorded.[sources]
DocumentedOtis A. MerrillAbel T. Atherton
What is uncertain: Whether Merrill & Cutler also designed the house is plausible but undocumented; the 1981 survey left the architect blank.
U.S. Patent 305,654 is granted to Abel T. Atherton of Lowell. The survey describes him as a machinist in business with William Whitehead on Howe Street — the industrial world that paid for a stone house on the hill.[source]
DocumentedAbel T. Atherton
Georgiana Atherton, with her husband’s consent, conveys the estate "with the buildings thereon" to Arthur P. Bonney, lawyer and former city solicitor. The deed is subject to four mortgages. The state inventory still calls the property the Arthur Bonney Estate.[sources]
DocumentedAbel T. AthertonArthur Perkins Bonney
What is uncertain: A later compilation says Atherton’s business failed; the mortgages are consistent with financial pressure but do not prove it.