Chateau Fairmount

History / Sources

Lowell Courier-Citizen, “Brilliant Wedding. Marriage of Miss Clara Bonney Lilley of This City to Mr. Philip Dunbar of Brookline”

Date
June 7, 1917
Type
newspaper
Repository
Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell (page copy sent October 27, 2026); also on NewspaperArchive (subscription)
Locator
Thursday evening, p. 5
Access
Copy courtesy of Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell. The page is reproduced on this site in full, with the article enlarged. NewspaperArchive page: lowell-courier-citizen-evening-jun-07-1917-p-5. Read the source
Rights
Public domain (published 1917).

The Courier-Citizen’s own account of the wedding at 236 Fairmount Street on the evening of June 6, 1917, separate from the Lowell Sun’s report of the same day (listed above). It prints the groom as “Mr. Philip Dunbar,” without a middle initial; the Courier-Citizen of April 20, 1921 calls him Philip R. Dunbar.

The document

Newspaper column headed Brilliant Wedding, describing the Lilley–Dunbar marriage at the house (view full size)
“Brilliant Wedding,” Lowell Courier-Citizen, June 7, 1917, p. 5. Copy courtesy of Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell.

Open full size · Public domain (published 1917).

Full newspaper page of the Lowell Courier-Citizen for June 7, 1917, page 5, with store advertisements and the wedding column (view full size)
Lowell Courier-Citizen, June 7, 1917, p. 5, the full page. Copy courtesy of Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell.

Open full size · Public domain (published 1917).

Statements this record supports

  • C-049 — Clara Bonney Lilley (b. c. April 1894; Rogers Hall 1911; Wellesley 1915) married Philip R. Dunbar of Brookline (Williams 1900, Harvard Law 1903, Boston lawyer; later of West Newton) at her home in Lowell on June 6, 1917, given away by her father Judge Lilley. She is the 'Bonney L. Dunbar, wife of Philip R. Dunbar, of Newton' who sold the house in 1925.
  • C-1053 — Clara Bonney Lilley, daughter of Judge Charles S. Lilley, married Philip Dunbar, a Brookline lawyer, at the house on the evening of Wednesday, June 6, 1917, at 6 o'clock. The Courier-Citizen's account ('Brilliant Wedding') describes the guests almost taxing 'the capacity of the beautiful old mansion', the view of the 'spring-crowned country so widely visible from the hill' in the evening sun, laurel twining 'the handsome staircase', a bank of sweet peas in the main drawing room and rosebuds in the dining room, and the bridal party coming 'down the broad stairway' to stand before palms. Rev. Appleton Grannis of St. Anne's church officiated; the bride, a Wellesley graduate active in club, theatrical and suffrage work in Lowell, was given away by her father; Mr. Lilley and the groom's mother received; the couple left amid rose petals to live in Brookline, and the young people stayed for dancing.

Events on the timeline that cite it