Franklin Square Historic District

Franklin Square Historic District occupies the west side of Oswego, New York, at the point where the Oswego River meets Lake Ontario. Its center is Franklin Square, a green laid out in 1797 by state surveyor general Simeon DeWitt and modeled on a New England common. The square still keeps its original form and dimensions. Around it stand roughly ninety-one houses, along with churches and lodge buildings, that together show most major 19th-century styles: Federal, Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Second Empire and Queen Anne. Several early stone and Federal houses date from the 1820s and 1830s, while Elisha Carrington built three Greek Revival houses on West 3rd Street in 1847. Claude Bragdon and W. B. Reid designed Neoclassical houses in the district. The variety of styles results from the subdivision of original estates and later rebuilding. The area became the preferred address of Oswego's social elite in the 19th century, and the district was listed for this concentration of architecture and its historic urban green space.