Hero’s house reborn: Armenians’ savior lived in Lancaster
By Karen Nugent
WORCESTER TELEGRAM & GAZETTE
Jun 6, 2006
LANCASTER – Most historic homes in town bear some marker naming the original
owner.
And most of those owners had highbrow Brahmin names such as Thayer and
Wilder, along with those of early Yankee settlers – Rowlandson, Prescott,
Damon and Rice.
The name `Bogigian’ is decidedly different.
But Hagop Bogigian, a once-poor Armenian immigrant, had connections, the
first being Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Eventually, his friendship with the
poet allowed Mr. Bogigian, an Oriental carpet importer, to build a hugely
successful business in Cambridge and Boston that gave him enough money to
build a summer home in Lancaster.
Not that Mr. Bogigian was a summerhome type of guy.
Besides saving hundreds of fellow Armenians from the Turkish genocide in the
early 1900s, the lifelong humanitarian went on to dedicate much of his life
to helping widows (his own mother was widowed when he was only 4) and
children, and to educating women.
`He was very unusual for his time,’ said Jeanne A. Blauner, the current
owner of the circa-1907 mansion at 509 Neck Road.
As the 100th anniversary of the house approaches next year, and with an
effort under way to have it listed in the state and national historic
registers, Ms. Blauner has decided to open it up for tea and refreshments
from 9 to 11 a.m. June 17. Admission will be free.
There will be an exhibit and presentation on the history of the house and
Mr. Bogigian’s personal story. His grand-nephew, Hagop Martin Deranian, a
Worcester dentist, is expected to be there, along with members of the
Lancaster Historical Commission.
Dr. Deranian is the author of `Worcester Is America: The Story of
Worcester’s Armenians.’
He paid to have a historic marker honoring Mr. Bogigian placed in front of
the house in 2002, which was dedicated by the Lancaster Historical
Commission. Dr. Deranian at the time said his great-uncle crossed the
Atlantic 87 times in the course of his business and humanitarian activities.
Several years ago, a publication by Old Sturbridge Village had a section on
Mr. Bogigian written by Mildred Tymeson Petrie, a Worcester historian and
author. In it, Ms. Petrie says Mr. Bogigian, then an `importer of Oriental
goods’ opened his first shop in Harvard Square in 1878 with three rugs
hanging in the window.
Longfellow, who lived nearby on Brattle Street in Cambridge, spotted the
rugs and promptly bought one for his home. He also referred then-Harvard
College president Charles Eliot Norton to the shop, who also bought a rug.
Needless to say, Mr. Bogigian’s business took off, and he later moved to an
even better location in Boston, near the Statehouse. There were more rich
customers buying rugs from that locale, eventually allowing Mr. Bogigian to
buy an 18-room house overlooking a reservoir in Framingham, and the 88-acre
lot in Lancaster, which included a pond, orchard and rose gardens.
Meanwhile, he married the former Helen J. Carrington in 1887, whom his
grandnephew described as a Connecticut Yankee. They did not have any
children.
Both husband and wife died in 1931, and much of the land was sold off, Ms.
Blauner said, noting that it was a six-family apartment house in terrible
shape when she bought it in 1999. It has since been renovated and divided up
into six condominiums. At one point, it was a nursing home, and before that,
in World War II, a family built a makeshift soup factory behind the house.
Ms. Blauner had no idea of the significance of the house when she bought it,
but she said people kept asking her about it.
After a while, she went to the Lancaster Historical Commission office and
began researching it, with the help of Joan Richards, the commission’s
coordinator.
`I called my parents, and I told them I thought I bought a dilapidated
six-family, but I really bought a historical mansion,’ she said with a
laugh.
The original house is thought to date from the early 1800s as part of the
old Damon farm. Ms. Blauner said it sat closer to Neck Road, but Mr.
Bogigian, who bought the property in 1905, moved it back and had it set on
the new foundation, and then built around it. Part of his addition included
his rug gallery and two more bedrooms, she said.
According to Ms. Richards, Mr. Bogigian, who was born in 1856 in Kharpoot,
Turkey, saved Armenians from the Turkish massacre by paying for their
passage to the United States and helping them get settled here. He also
intervened with officials at Ellis Island to prevent them from being
deported to Turkey, and contacted President Grover Cleveland and the
American Red Cross to help raise money for displaced Armenians.
Later, he gave money to Mount Holyoke College and Wilson College in
Pennsylvania to be used for the education of young Armenian women.
After he moved to town permanently from Framingham, Ms. Richards said, he
contributed heavily to town projects.
Ms. Blauner said she and previous owners and tenants all felt a certain
positive aura in the house – perhaps leftover karma from Mr. Bogigian.
`It’s a good house. This is a happy place,’ she said.
Photo: The Bogigian house, a circa-1907 mansion at 509 Neck Road in
Lancaster, is being considered for state and national registers of historic
places. (T&G Staff/RICK CINCLAIR)
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