Sunderland Center Historic District

Sunderland Center is a village district on an alluvial flood plain along the east bank of the Connecticut River. A broad main street lined with mature trees runs past large and moderate-sized houses set deep on their lots, with open cultivated land stretching toward the river. The district holds 144 contributing resources, including houses dating from about 1715 into the 1940s, farm outbuildings, commercial buildings, public buildings, a burial ground and a bridge. Its architecture runs from First Period and Georgian houses with saltbox profiles and center chimneys through Federal and Greek Revival buildings, the latter being the best-represented style. Riverside Cemetery, laid out in 1714, holds carved sandstone and slate markers from the 1720s onward. The district was listed because it retains the look of its early 18th-century foundations while showing the agricultural use and gradual change that continued through the first half of the 20th century, with a consistently high level of craftsmanship.