The Lowell Sun, “The Rambler: The Castle-Builder ... Sonic Boom,” by Pertinax

Date: March 25, 1959
Type: newspaper
Repository: Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell (page copy sent October 27, 2026); also on NewspaperArchive (subscription)
Locator: Wednesday, printed p. 7 (NewspaperArchive image page 8)
Access: Copy courtesy of Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell. The page is reproduced on this site in full, with the article enlarged. NewspaperArchive page: lowell-sun-mar-25-1959-p-8. Read the source
Rights: No copyright renewal found (searched October 28, 2026, in the Online Books Page inventory of serial renewals, which covers the Catalog of Copyright Entries and the Copyright Public Records System: “no issue renewals found” for the Lowell Sun; the only Lowell Sun renewals found are for syndicated features of 1948–49, not on this page). Published as public domain for want of renewal.

A column about Arthur P. Bonney’s earlier house on Merrimack Street (“in the directory of 1878, at 355 Merrimack street”), later a rectory, not about 236 Fairmount Street. It says that Bonney “sold the Merrimack street home when he built the Fairmount street castle”; he bought the house from Atherton in 1887 (C-1033, C-1064).

The document

Newspaper column headed The Rambler: The Castle-Builder ... Sonic Boom — “The Rambler: The Castle-Builder ... Sonic Boom,” The Lowell Sun, March 25, 1959, p. 7. Copy courtesy of Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell.

Open full size · No copyright renewal found (searched October 28, 2026, in the Online Books Page inventory of serial renewals, which covers the Catalog of Copyright Entries and the Copyright Public Records System: “no issue renewals found” for the Lowell Sun; the only Lowell Sun renewals found are for syndicated features of 1948–49, not on this page). Published as public domain for want of renewal.

Full newspaper page of The Lowell Sun for March 25, 1959, with columns and a cartoon — The Lowell Sun, March 25, 1959, p. 7, the full page. Copy courtesy of Pollard Memorial Library, Lowell.

Statements this record supports

C-1033 — Two later Lowell Sun columns misremember who built the house. 'The Old Timer' of June 4, 1950 says that C. Brooks Stevens bought 'the famous stone castle on Fairmount street' from Mrs. Bonney Lilley Dunbar 25 years before, that it was 'first erected in part, by the proprietor of the Atherton Machine company', and that 'the next owner, Judge A. P. Bonney, completed the house', later the home of his son-in-law Judge Charles S. Lilley and so known as the Lilley castle. 'The Rambler' of March 25, 1959, writing about Bonney's earlier house on Merrimack Street (C-1064), says that Bonney sold it 'when he built the Fairmount street castle'.
C-1064 — The 'Bonney house' and the date 1887 that the Lowell Sun's 'Rambler' set out from in March 1959 were not 236 Fairmount Street but Arthur P. Bonney's earlier house on Merrimack Street, listed at 355 Merrimack Street in the 1878 directory and by 1959 a rectory (under another number). From the registry the columnist learned that the house was sold twice in 1887: by A. P. Bonney to William W. Anderson, who the same day sold it to the Society of Oblate Fathers for Missions Among the Poor; Bonney had bought it in 1876 from the Tremont and Suffolk Mills for $15,000, and in 1833 the Locks and Canals had sold the land, with no house on it, to the mills for $2,078. The directories traced Arthur Perkins Bonney from Hurd Street in 1864 to Merrimack Street by 1878 and to Fairmount Street in 1888.