Henry E. Bidwell House (1799)

The house at 55 Barry Road in Oxford was built in 1799 by James Dorman, who sold it the following year to George Cable. This sale included half-interest in a sawmill and gristmill, called Burrell Mills, located across the road along Eight Mile Brook. For a century, owners of the house would also own the mill, which is no longer in existence. The house has had many owners over the years, but was long known as the Bidwell Place, named for Henry E. Bidwell (1804-1883), who bought the house c. 1837. His family sold it in 1885. In the 1930s, the property, known as Petticoat Farm, was owned by H. Reinhardt Lewis, an artist who painted the local landscape. Built into a hillside, the house has an extra story in the rear.