BOSTON (AP) – In a city where centuries-old meeting houses, churches and burial grounds seem to dot every corner, it’s not easy to find buildings dating to the earliest years in Boston’s 374-year history.

Only three buildings from the 1600s have survived the forces of urban renewal, fire and simple deterioration that have erased most visible reminders of what was an emerging colonial city of merchants and seafarers.

The task of caring for those properties is especially challenging because of the buildings’ frailty and the crush of visitors seeking a peek at history.

At Paul Revere House in Boston’s North End, about 90 percent of the 1680 structure is original despite a rough-and-tumble history that included periods in which ground floor rooms housed everything from a candy store to a cigar factory and bank. Among the features that have been replaced over the years are floorboard sections worn down by the more than 200,000 visitors per year who take paid, self-guided tours of the famous patriot’s three-story home.

“For Revere House to survive fires and British troops is quite miraculous to begin with,” said Nina Zannieri, executive director of the Paul Revere Memorial Association, which cares for the property. “When you’re handed something like that, that is something you feel quite strongly about.

“It’s a wonderful container for stories about the past that tell us something about who we are.”

Boston’s two other remaining 17th century structures are little-known compared with the Revere House, which is one of the stops on the city’s pedestrian-friendly, 21/2-mile-long Freedom Trail downtown and in nearby Charlestown. The two other buildings are both off the beaten tourist path in Boston’s working-class Dorchester section, south of downtown.

The most prominent is Pierce House, which dates to 1683 and housed 10 generations of the Pierce family – most notably Col. Samuel Pierce (1736-1815) who took part in the fortification of Dorchester Heights during the Revolutionary War.

The wood home was acquired for historic preservation in 1969. But due to its out-of-the-way location in a residential area, it largely escaped public attention and was rented out for three decades. Five years ago, the house was converted into a learning resource for school and youth groups.

“It’s a house that resonates with kids, because it’s low and small, and they can touch the ceiling,” said Peter Gittleman, head of education for Historic New England, which cares for the Pierce House.

Private tours, available through reservations from June through mid-October, offer a glimpse into the life of a family that was well-off but not aristocratic. Visitors can see unique architectural details, including wooden pegs in the home’s original framework and 17th century exterior clapboard that is now protected from the weather.

Blake House, the other 17th century building in Dorchester, is believed to be Boston’s oldest, dating to 1648 – 18 years after Puritans led by John Winthrop founded Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was settled a decade after Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth. The two-story, gable-roofed wood home was moved to Dorchester’s Richardson Park from its original site to prevent its demolition in the 1890s, when the Dorchester Historical Society undertook the preservation as its first major project.

The home now serves as a museum of early American home construction, and features the Edward A. Huebener Brick Collection. Huebener, who lived from 1851 to 1936, gathered a single brick from each Dorchester home he considered significant. He then chose local artists to paint pictures of individual homes on each brick in a collection that numbers more than 100.

Boston’s three remaining 17th century structures survived great fires and centuries of urban development that rid Boston of nearly all its remaining historic buildings in downtown neighborhoods such as the West End and Scollay and Bowdoin squares. Much of that demolition occurred in the mid-20th century as urban renewal came to areas that were considered blighted, despite the presence of many historic structures.

“The suburban areas were less likely to face the same pressure for commercial growth as the city, so out in the suburbs there are comparatively larger numbers of 17th century buildings,” Gittleman said.

AP-ES-02-04-05 0825EST

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