Built as a worker’s cottage for the Cheshire Mills, the Sibley-Lord House is the mirror image of a second brick worker’s cottage directly opposite it at 8 School Street. Both cottages are one-storey versions of the adjacent Cheshire Mills Superintendent’s House. All three were built during a major expansion of the Cheshire Mills carried out in the 1850s and early 1860s that included a variety of workers’ housing such as the Cheshire Mills Company Boarding House (1851) at Main and Grove Streets, and five workers’ cottages on Pond Street known as “Peanut Row” (1864), which are substantially identical in plan and style to the Sibley-Lord House, except for their wood-frame construction. The cottage’s brick construction may reflect the slightly higher status of its intended occupants, perhaps a company foreman, as the cost of brick construction was approximately 15% higher than that of wood, a factor documented in 1850 when cost two cost estimates were made for the construction of the Cheshire Mills Company Boarding House (a two and one-half storey building 73’ long and 36’ wide); construction in wood was estimated at $2,211.95 while the cost of building the same structure in brick was estimated to be $2,538.47. The cottage’s date of construction has not been precisely established, but its range has been determined by its appearance on local maps between 1853 and 1863, and by its architectural style, which matches other buildings constructed during this period of expansion, most notably Cheshire Mill #2 (1859), the Cheshire Mills Company Boarding House (1851), The Cheshire Mills Superintendent’s House (1853-1860), and a storehouse known as The Temple (1850-1860). Surviving company records have not been researched, but may contain more detailed information about the building’s construction and original use.
